The Midnight Court

by Jane Kindred

  “We have to go.” Margarita took the truncheon from the unconscious soldier, along with his belt and sword. “This one won’t be out for long.” She extended the hilt of the sword. “Can either of you wield one?”

  Love stepped back. “Don’t look at me.”

  Anazakia also shook her head. “Can’t you?”

  “Of course I can.” Margarita’s voice held a note of irritation. “But I don’t need it.” She started to sling the belt around her hips, but Lively stepped away from Anazakia and held out her hand.

  “I’ll take it.”

  Margarita frowned at her. “You can barely stand up.”

  “I feel a little clearer now.” She looked down at Vashti staring sightlessly at the wall and bit her lip. “I’ll be fine.”

  Margarita gave it to her with a shrug and handed the truncheon to Anazakia. “You can at least swing this if you have to.”

  They moved quietly out into the yard, following Anazakia through the ancient stone fortress. North of the keep, a complex twice the size of the keep itself housed the stables and the barracks where nearly six hundred soldiers lay sleeping. The sally port was situated just beyond its perimeter.

  They were almost past the complex when a door opened a few yards ahead of them and they stopped dead in their tracks. A soldier stepped out and stood in the snow relieving himself. He didn’t look in their direction until he’d finished his business and set a cigar between his teeth, glancing up at last as he struck his match.

  Margarita charged him before he had a chance to go for his sword. His cry was cut short when Margarita snapped his neck. She glanced at the three of them as she dropped his body, just as lamplight bloomed in the barracks beside them.

  “Run.”

  …

  From the dungeon, they heard shouting in the yard. Kae took the stairs two at a time with Dmitri and Nebo at his heels.

  “Weapons—trunk.” Kae barked the words at Vasily as they emerged into the anteroom and tossed him a ring of keys as he dashed outside.

  Vasily turned, at first seeing nothing resembling a trunk. “Where?”

  But Belphagor had spotted it and was sweeping a pile of plates and tankards off the surface of a large iron coffer. Vasily stabbed keys at the lock, swearing as he went through half a dozen before he found the right one. Inside appeared to be everything Kae’s men had taken off the Virtues when they stormed the citadel.

  Once the Virtues had armed themselves, Vasily grabbed one of the extra swords and tossed another to Belphagor, who caught it doubtfully.

  “I’m not much of a sword man,” said Belphagor.

  “How about a Kalashnikov?”

  “Seriously? There’s a Kalashnikov in there?”

  “No.” Vasily slammed the lid. “Just take the damn sword. It’s sharp. Poke people with it.”

  Belphagor glared, but he took the sword from its sheath and swung it in his hand experimentally. As Vasily turned to follow the Virtues into the yard, Belphagor paused and popped the trunk open again to grab another sword, this time slinging the Virtue’s baldric over his shoulder.

  “Suddenly you like them so much you want two?”

  “It’s for Lev. I think he followed Dmitri out before we got the trunk open, and he wasn’t armed.” He frowned as Vasily bristled reflexively. “Don’t do that. Not now. Not over this.”

  Vasily reddened. Belphagor was right. He couldn’t remember seeing Lev after Kae had thrown him the keys.

  …

  Love was the only one who reached the opening the others called the sally port.

  Margarita had taken down the first few men to wake at the noise, but a second door had opened as they ran for the wall. As Anazakia tried to swing her truncheon, a soldier grabbed hold of her scalded shoulder, while another caught her around the waist. Lively turned back with her sword gripped in both hands, and Love hesitated, but Anazakia screamed at her to go, so she ran for all she was worth, slipped into the narrow passage between the inner and outer walls of the citadel, and rounded the corner to the gate on the other side.

  She nearly screamed when she burst out onto the embankment and collided with one of the white-haired angels. Beside him stood two more—and Kirill, wrapped in a blanket. Love gasped and threw herself into Kirill’s arms.

  “Sister Lyubov.” His voice was deep and warm, but he was wincing at her touch, trying to hide a blood-soaked bandage beneath the blanket.

  “Kirill.”

  The angel she’d run into spoke beside her. “He insisted on waiting for you. We tried to send him back to our camp to have it looked at.” He turned with a swift flourish as one of the queen’s soldiers barreled through the gate, and he caught the soldier by surprise on the end of his sword.

  Staring in shock, Kirill began to cross himself and pray over the dead body.

  “Kirill.” Love put her hand over his as he touched the dead man’s shoulder. “He’s already in Heaven.”

  He cut short his prayer and looked at her with the haunted look he’d worn since they arrived.

  “Time to go.” The angel hurried them toward the bridge. “We’ve been waiting for the field marshal’s signal, but from the sound of things in there, it looks like you’re it.”

  “The others.” Love tried to turn back. “They were caught…”

  The angel motioned toward the bridge with his hand, and a mighty silhouette rippled against the starlight behind them as hundreds of angels began to move toward the citadel. “They’ll take care of it.”

  Dvadtsat Pervoe: Surrender

  from the memoirs of the Grand Duchess Anazakia Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk

  The ground rushed up at me. I’d thrown out my hands to brace my fall, but my right wrist struck at an awkward angle, and I cried out as my weight fell against it. The soldier who had tossed me to the ground straddled me and pinned me down with a hand on my neck, and I winced against the pain of the seraphic burn.

  “Well, that settles it.” He laughed, his breath hot against my ear. “I’ll take the mad grand duchess over the pregnant demoness.”

  “Think again.” Lively spoke from behind us, and something sharp grazed my side. The soldier fell against me like a dead weight and when I turned my head, I saw the point of a sword sticking into the ground beside me. Blood was dripping down the shining steel. I couldn’t help wondering if Lively had intended to put the blade through both of us.

  Before she could wrest the sword from the dead man, another soldier appeared from the barracks, and with a loud smack, he knocked her off her feet. Margarita charged the angel and dropped him to the ground beside me with a quick motion.

  “What kind of asshole hits a pregnant woman?” She helped Lively up and yanked the sword from the dead man, tossing it to Lively as she kicked him away from me. The two of them held off the soldiers as I staggered to my feet, but more lamps were coming on around the barracks and we’d soon be surrounded.

  Margarita looked at me awkwardly holding my wrist. “Go on,” she urged. “You can’t help here.”

  Reluctant to abandon them, I backed toward the eastern wall, feeling useless, and nearly stumbled into someone behind me. I whirled around, thinking the man Lively had skewered wasn’t dead after all.

  A Virtue I’d never seen before gave me a quick bow. “Your Supernal Highness.” He hurried past to help fight the growing army. Behind him, a score of Virtues was flooding in through the sally port, and I stepped out of the way against the wall to let them pass.

  Across the yard, the shimmering, silver white of another small band of Virtues approached, with Kae’s black coat standing out among them as he raced over the snow-covered stone, leading the way. They met the queen’s soldiers from the other side, pressing them toward the oncoming Virtues as they fought, but the queen’s ranks were swelling as they poured from the barracks, and the Virtues couldn’t come in quickly enough through the narrow postern. It was horrible to watch and worse to know I could do nothing.

  I looked to the
north entrance of the stables. The road to the gate tower was clear. The citadel hadn’t been on guard against invaders; Aeval had vastly underestimated the growing rebellion in Heaven. Steering clear of the fighting, I made my way toward the exit and ran for the gate tower as fast as I could. There was no one in the outer ward to protect the portcullis.

  I dashed up to the top of the gatehouse unnoticed and began to turn the wheel on the heavy spool of chain. It was properly a two-handed job and I had only the use of one, but I raised it by inches, glad of the noise in the yard to mask the sound as it cranked slowly upward. When I paused a moment to rest, I looked out over the gallery and saw it had been enough. The Virtues on the bridge had seen it rise, and they were already ducking in under it.

  The Empyrean wind whipped up, and I pulled the hood up on my coat while I hurried back to the stables at the perimeter of the advancing Virtues. The scene there was chaotic, and at first I couldn’t see Lively or Margarita, but they spotted me.

  Margarita ran from the cover they’d taken behind the inner wall of the sally port and dragged me away from the fighting. “Where have you been? I was about to go back to the keep to look for you!”

  I nodded toward the influx of Virtues surging from the outer ward. “I let them in.”

  My heart leapt at the sight of Vasily and Belphagor pushing toward us through a group of Virtues. We weren’t their goal, however. On the south side of the stables, Dmitri and his friend, Lev, were backed against a wall. Dmitri kept pushing Lev behind him as he fought, and I couldn’t understand why until I saw Lev was empty-handed.

  As Dmitri turned to block a sword on his right, another soldier dashed in and swung at him from his left. I screamed in vain as Lev sprang forward between them and caught the blow. Vasily and Belphagor reached them moments later. I held my breath as Belphagor gored the soldier who’d cut Lev, and Vasily helped Dmitri dispatch the other.

  Lev staggered against Belphagor, and he and Dmitri each took an arm before Lev’s weight collapsed between them. While Vasily covered them, they dragged the demon at a run toward our shelter. Nebo had seen them also, and he slashed his way from the center of a group of the queen’s soldiers, swinging his sword two-handed, and met them as they reached us.

  Margarita jerked her head toward the sally port, abandoned by the Virtues for the wide-open portcullis at the gate. “The postern’s clear now. Let’s get out of here.” She and Lively dashed for the opening.

  I was behind them when Nebo caught my arm. “Where’s Vashti?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell him, but I didn’t have to.

  “No.” He turned around, staring at the fighting as if he might see her in it. “Oh, Ti, no.” His eyes darted about anxiously. “In the yard?”

  “In the keep.”

  Vasily put a hand on his shoulder, but Nebo didn’t seem to notice. “Nebo, we have to go.”

  The Nephil shook his head. “I’ll stay with her.” And he was gone, running through the clashing soldiers toward the keep.

  Deep in the center of the fighting, I saw Kae’s dark coat swirling among a shining field of Virtues. When all was said and done, he was a stranger, whether or not he was Aeval’s puppet. Under her influence, he was as despicable a man as Heaven had ever known. But I had left him to her once when my conscience urged otherwise—and how much more twisted and dangerous he had become as a tool in her hands. Yet through it all, through the darkness she had cultivated or created, some little part of him—whatever was left of the man I had once called friend—had remained aware, and had suffered the knowledge of his fate.

  To that little remnant of Kae Lebesovich, I was Nenny. I was the girl who had gone riding in the snow, thinking of no one but myself, and led my dearest friend into an unthinkable captivity that would sunder the House of Arkhangel’sk. However foolish it was that I had spared him when his life was in my hands, I had done it; he lived. And he was a son of the House of Arkhangel’sk. He did not belong to Aeval.

  Vasily had gripped my arm and I tried to pull away.

  “Kae!”

  My cousin turned and looked as if he’d heard my frantic shout. He shook his head.

  “You owe it to me!” I screamed at Kae as Vasily picked me up and carried me bodily to the sally port. “Coward!”

  Outside the wall, a group of Virtues waited to take us to their camp, and I let them lead me through the driving wind, wondering bleakly what all this had been for. We’d come for Ola and lost her again, and though I’d broken Aeval’s hold on my cousin, I hadn’t freed him at all. Instead, he seemed a captive to his own dark conscience.

  We had Love, at least. When we reached the Virtues’ base, she was waiting with her monk beside the bank of the glowing Pyriphlegethon, and she jumped up and embraced me.

  Vasily looked around. “Where’s Ola?”

  Kae hadn’t told them. I sank to the ground and burst into tears.

  Love explained while she comforted me, her voice trembling as if she feared Vasily might hit her, but he was speechless, staring at us with his hazel eyes empty of fire. Belphagor, still supporting Lev with Dmitri, looked utterly lost. He hadn’t even had the chance to hold her.

  Lev coughed, groaning as the motion jarred his wound. There was no more time to think of Ola. Dmitri and Belphagor sat him down against a cart on a blanket one of the Virtues supplied. His coat was sticky with blood and his face was grey.

  “Lyova.” Dmitri knelt beside him and took his hand. “Why did you do this?”

  “Bastard was going to cut you,” gasped Lev.

  “So you thought it would be better if he cut you instead?”

  “Pretty much.” Lev grimaced as Belphagor unbuttoned his coat and pulled it open. Inside, the right flank of his shirt was soaked. Belphagor stripped off his own coat and pulled his shirt over his head, his tattoos stark in the firelight against his winter-pale skin.

  He pressed the shirt against Lev’s wound. “Hold it there. We have to stop the bleeding.”

  “Can’t you fix him?” Dmitri’s eyes were dark as he appealed to Vasily. “You did it for that zhopa Kae.”

  Vasily glanced at me. “I think it must have been Nazkia. It’s never worked for me in Heaven before.”

  Clasping hands, we knelt over Lev and covered the wound. The aether flared but didn’t seem to catch. The glow was a pale flicker, weak and consuming nothing. The bleeding seemed to slow, but it appeared the radiance could do nothing more.

  I let my hand fall away at last. “I don’t think it works on ordinary wounds.”

  “I don’t understand.” Dmitri regarded me angrily. “How was the field marshal’s wound any less ordinary? You stabbed him with a knife.”

  “It was his blood. The queen did something to it. He was—cold.” I left unsaid the words that followed in my head: like something not alive. I longed to know if he’d stay warm, if we’d truly undone what Aeval had called. She hadn’t been able to reassert her hold on him with a kiss, but she’d cut him before, and if he became her prisoner tonight, she might cut him again—if she allowed him to live.

  “But the wound,” Dmitri insisted, as if I were simply being stubborn about healing Lev. “That was ordinary, just a knife.”

  “I’m sorry, Dmitri. I wish I understood how it works. I never even knew it could do that until yesterday.” Had it only been yesterday?

  “Your Supernal Highness.” One of the Virtues interrupted us, and I recognized him as Gereimon, one of the original four dozen of our escort to Gehenna. “I’m sorry to have to rush you, but we need to move out now before we’re seen.” As if to demonstrate his point, the sky was growing pale along the eastern horizon. He nodded toward Dmitri. “We’ll see to the wound, sir.”

  Heaven’s greatest physicians came from the Order of Virtues. Lev was in the best hands possible in the celestial sphere. After cleaning and bandaging his wound, they helped Lev into one of the two sleighs packed with supplies for the trip back to Aravoth. Belphagor and Vasily would ride with him and Dmitri, wh
ile I rode with the others. The howling wind that had begun the night before was a driving wall of swirling snow at our backs by the time we set out. We’d been lucky on the trip to Gehenna to have had such clear weather. We would have no such luck now.

  Beneath the blankets tucked around us, I huddled out of necessity with Lively and Margarita, while Love soon fell asleep in Kirill’s lap in the seat across from us. Margarita had told me that Kirill’s kind took a lifelong vow of celibacy, but watching him with his arm over Love while she slept, it was obvious he adored her. Something in the monk’s aquamarine eyes made it the most desolate and heartbreaking adoration I’d ever seen.

  With the wind behind us, we reached Aravoth in little more than a fortnight, though every moment of the trip was cold and wretched. The wind wracked our tents at night, and we had only the peculiar heat of the Pyriphlegethon to warm our bodies and our food until we turned south toward Aravoth. With the help of the Virtues, Lev held on, though he had a high fever for several days and didn’t seem well, while Lively took ill and was weak and thin by the time we arrived.

  We pulled into Pyr Amaravati just as the spring snow squalls that had been driving us ushered in a miserable ice storm. Sar Sarael and his staff welcomed us with Virtuous hospitality. Four walls, a ceiling, and a warm bed had never seemed more wonderful.

  In the morning, as I eased away the ache and insensibility of the frigid Empyrean in the healing waters of Sarael’s bath, I had to face the hard reality that we were further from finding Ola than we had ever been. Helga’s Cherub might have taken them anywhere in the Heavens, or even to the world of Man. We had been lucky to make it to Aravoth in the midst of its most turbulent season. Even if we had some way of tracking Helga or gaining intelligence from the SLP, there was no passage from the mountain princedom until the late spring thaw.

  After my soak in the aromatic water, I wrapped myself in the thick cashmere robe and boots provided by Sarael’s staff and went down to breakfast, though it was surely some hours after Pyr Amaravati’s accustomed lunch. Vasily and Belphagor were seated at the table with Sarael, and I noted with a mixture of relief and jealousy that Vasily was almost blushing with pleasure and Belphagor wore a certain air of pride and contentment, as though they’d at last resumed their intimacy. Margarita and Love joined us shortly afterward, while the rest were sleeping or convalescing. The ice storm howled against the pale blue glass, but with the thermal pipes that heated the place beneath the floors, it was as warm inside as if fires blazed in every room.