The urdefhan’s lips lay less than a finger’s length from the drain. I’d thought her final words were merely a dying regret, but as something heavier than a blood drop splashed below, I wondered if I wasn’t the only one who heard.
41
STAGE FRIGHT
LARSA
I couldn’t trust Considine, so I went to White Corner first.
The Mirage Theater was empty and looked like it had been for years. The stage was dark, and not even rats bothered to provide an audience. Still, I searched the place, checking for any hint that Rivascis might return. There was nothing. Even his paintings were gone.
I suppose it made something like sense. If Rivascis really had been an actor in life, he wouldn’t keep to the same copper-a-ticket theater. He’d have higher ambitions.
Maybe I’d misjudged Considine.
It was well past midnight by the time I reached the Royal Opera, so I didn’t expect the gate to be open. Still, it swung with hardly a touch, iron acanthus leaves giving with ghostly silence.
The Ardis Royal Opera posed beyond, a temple of sculpted columns and arches crowned by angelic musicians. If Considine hadn’t told me otherwise, I would have thought the playhouse ready for all the pomp and drama of the city’s elite. Supposedly, the opera had closed its doors a decade ago.
Tonight, no one had reminded the lamplighters.
Delicate lanterns shimmered in rising ranks upon hundreds of unwashed pillars. Gigantic twin braziers, their flames caged beneath bands of wrought-iron ivy, lit arching staircases at the end of the stony drive. The only shadows allowed to linger settled between great doors etched with heavenly scenes in tarnished bronze. The opera’s entryway stood open, but seemed far from inviting.
I felt like I was spoiling someone else’s entrance.
Instinct and habit urged me away from the light. Perhaps there might be some side entry amid the willows and footpaths winding around the place.
I caught myself. Why waste the effort? Supposedly, I was welcome here.
The lanterns stared, critiquing every step as I crunched down the gravel road. If anything other than flames watched from the columned balconies or rows of slim windows, it didn’t make itself known.
No footman met me at the stairs, no host watched the doors. I passed inside.
The domed interior seemed every bit as open as the grounds beneath the cloudy sky, and I felt no less exposed. Somber flames stood stiffly upon somber tapers, a thousand matching candles set in lush iron candelabra. Sculpted ivy and more black acanthus wound up bony marble pillars to a broad mezzanine. Shadowy steps formed twin stairways, built to channel patrons toward the rows of theater doors above.
My every step was a drumbeat on the domino-patterned marble. Constant reminders to myself that I was welcome here didn’t make it less unsettling. If Rivascis was to be trusted, I shouldn’t have anything to fear. My wariness spoke semiconscious volumes on that topic. Still, I climbed. Our last meeting had taken place on a stage, so I sought another.
Entering the theater proper was like passing into the heart of some gigantic beast. The place practically bled, velvet seats descending in a crimson cascade, rows of darkened boxes like chambers ready to pump. The balustrades lining the balconies interrupted the gory motif with polished walnut carved in the shapes of stags, knights, and unrecognizable crests. The sculpted figures froze in their race toward the proscenium arch, the stage’s sweeping frame carved with a lofty battle between broad-shouldered knights and crumbling skeletons. At its apex, the royal crest, with its stars, antlers, and tower, shone in gold and red stones. But it was far from the theater’s centerpiece.
The footlights beamed. Center stage hunched a row of five funeral biers, each draped in dour cloth and strewn with flowers, as though the caskets they bore held the bodies of fallen royals. Above each hung a great, full-body portrait, furthering the impression of a royal funeral. Each painting flattered a noble figure: a man with a butterfly amulet and black ponytail hiking some idyllic mountain trail; a spectacled woman without a wisp of hair working diligently over books and beakers; a victorious knight with golden hair that gleamed brighter than her sword and a shield emblazoned with wolves; a dashing fellow laughing as he offered a toast from a warm-looking taproom. I’d seen them all before, posing in the portrait in Kindler’s parlor—her former adventuring companions.
The fifth, central piece I also recognized. It was Rivascis’s portrait of me, of Kindler—who could say. Apparently completed, it hung like the others in an ornate brass frame that looked heavy enough to crush a horse. Unlike the others, it did not hang over a casket. The bier beneath was empty.
“Do you like them?” Rivascis’s voice boomed from the stage, filling the auditorium. He hadn’t changed since last night, still dressed like a lord thrown from his horse.
I strode down the aisle. “What am I looking at?”
I could hear his smile, the grin of an artist invited to talk about his work. “Simple reminders.”
He adjusted the wild flowers overflowing the casket beneath the portrait of the dark-haired man. All of the coffins were full with them, though none of the arrangements were the same—wildflowers for the first man, rhododendrons and foxgloves below the bald woman, snowy lilies and red tulips beneath the last two. The central bier was bare.
I tried to keep mindful of the open space, not eager to be eavesdropped on by an entire audience again. All the theater’s seats seemed empty this time. The balconies and boxes above, I was less sure of. “You’ve certainly chosen a dramatic spot.”
A sweep of his hand encompassed the whole auditorium. “Where better to draw the curtain on a performance that’s gone on far too long?”
“Whose performance?” I had to shout to be heard.
“I’ve lost count of the full cast, but the major players have always been myself and the woman who used to be your mother. Yet when even the antagonist stops caring about the plot, it’s time to draw things to a close.”
“What plot have you stopped caring about?”
“Me?” A grimace almost locked back his chuckle. “I’m sorry, my dear, you have me all wrong.”
He strolled past the plain bier at center stage, dragging a finger across its surface. “No, I’m afraid Kindler has always been the motivation behind all this. She’s been the one to force scene after scene, even when others were content to let the past fade away.”
I rounded the orchestra pit and climbed onto the stage, avoiding the heat and glare of the hooded lamps. Standing, I saw the corpses.
None of the flower-filled caskets held flowers alone. Wasted skin and bare bones served as beds for the lavish gardens. Each looked old, one being little more than a shattered skeleton.
“So you’re going to add her to your collection here?”
“Oh, this isn’t my collection. It’s hers.” His wave encompassed them all. “Each a fine soul buried by her recklessness.”
He slipped to the bier occupying stage right, placing his hands at the head of the casket beneath the portrait of the traveling man. “Jaivin Whilwren followed Ailson into the woods outside Chastel. He recovered bodily from being savaged by wolves, but they say the curse of the beast has no cure. Ultimately, your mother cut his throat.”
He moved to the next. “Oralo Viacarri championed reason and the sciences, but Ailson ever dragged her toward the precipice of insanity. Your mother abandoned her in the catacombs of Rozenport, where libraries and prisons are one and the same.
“Aleidamor Graydon. A knight who died believing Kindler had saved her from a life of ball gowns and perfume.
“And Duristan Barlhein.” He rapped the final corpse’s forehead. “This one so wished he could have been your father. He fell to a creature your mother mistook for me.”
His stroll ended just past Duristan’s bier, only steps away from me.
“Each one of these idealists was swept up in Ailson’s obsession, her quest to reveal the world’s dark places. She convinced all of them th
at daring was somehow a shield, and they followed her places she had no right to lead. They believed she was a teacher, a beacon against fear and ignorance, but she was easily the most broken of any of them. None knew how often her cases, her explorations, followed my travels. They died never knowing they were pursing me.”
His arrogance was plain and I didn’t care to indulge it. “So what? You’re saying her reputation’s a lie? That she’s not some famous monster killer? You can’t tell me all her work is just a side effect of chasing you.”
He shrugged. “If you don’t believe me, then believe her. She’s won quite a name for herself: Ailson Kindler, lady of the haunted page. She’s made no secret that her tales spring from her own deeds, her characters just masks disguising her and her compatriots. Her stories are gory trifles, but I assure you, her every ink drop equates to ten times that in spilled blood. So why would she pay such a high price? Why would she let students, allies, and friends fall by the score? For truth? To help strangers? Armies don’t die under those banners. But for passion, obsession, revenge … ooh.”
If he could still be aroused, I was sure I’d see gooseflesh prickling his marble forearms. “She could have just hated you and everything like you. Crusaders have banners, after all.”
“Exactly! That fire, that thirst! She bent her life, her mind, her world to hunting me. And she was close—so often, so close. More than once I barely escaped her. She lit the sewers of Karcau alight just to drive me into the dawn—in all my centuries, that’s the closest I’ve come to true death.
“Surely you know how hard it can be to feel alive, truly alive. How much more difficult do you think it must be for those of us who don’t draw breath? For decades, Ailson Kindler made me feel alive, made me struggle to continue being, and reminded me I’m not truly dead yet.”
He shook a tight fist. When it unclenched, I could clearly see the dark holes his nails dug in his palm. The four bloodless gashes knitted closed almost immediately.
“But all of that faded.” His hand dropped. “I don’t resent her aging, I resent her burning low. When truth and revenge proved too elusive, she settled on fiction and coin. And when even that didn’t satisfy, she packed it all away. That beacon that these souls gave their lives for, that so often managed to sear me, chose to snuff itself out. You’ve met the woman in that moldy house. I told you she was your mother, and once that was true. Now, though, that place is only home to Ailson Kindler’s shadow.”
I looked back over the hall, just to be sure. It still appeared empty. “What’s all this, then? Will you call your audience when it’s time to kill her?”
“I hope it doesn’t end as plainly as that. I don’t want to kill her.” He followed my look out over the absent crowd. “I want to restore her, to rekindle what she locked away within herself. I want to set her free.”
“Really?” If he’d set Kindler as the villain of his story, his tone convinced me he thought of himself as a hero—a savior. I nodded to the caskets. “With these? Her dead friends?”
“There’s no door to the prison she’s created, but I’ll break it open with a chisel and mallet if I must. This—” He retrieved a slender length of dark wood from where it lay upon the central bier: another wand. I suspected its powers were similar to the one I’d used. “This is my chisel. And these,” his arm arched past the four corpses, “my hammers. I don’t expect my work to be clean, but it will not fail.”
Certainly he didn’t realize I’d already restored Kindler’s past. I doubted he’d react well to learning his performance was spoiled, but the vampire’s fury was preferable to putting Kindler through this. I still heard her pain, the wail and small sobs that nearly broke her. Those had just been from the memories. Revisiting a lifetime of loss with the grisly results … I couldn’t fathom how Rivascis could plan such a thing and still call himself hero. “You understand you’re bringing back the darkest parts of her life. All her sorrows.”
“Not the darkest parts, I assure you. But in part, yes.” He didn’t sound sympathetic. “I need strong moments, memories that will fight to return. Those I’ve brought here, they’re scars on her soul. No magic can just erase them. I will show her the mirror, but I’ll also guide her through the pain.”
“You? She hates you. Even if she’s forgotten, that’s sure to come back. Do you really think she’ll be grateful?”
He twitched. Certainly that thought couldn’t have surprised him. “I have been the passion of her life. She’s known no greater challenge, no greater love than me. I am the thread that connects all of these events,” his hand traced a path, then fell open toward me, “all the way back to you.”
Of course. The realization was like climbing stairs and then noticing the shit on your boots. “I’m one more corpse in your gallery.”
“I need you here. You’re family. She could never forget family.”
“I was never her family!” Vague frustrations growing since Kindler’s library crystallized, then cracked. “If she ever wanted me, she didn’t once she realized what you were. I’ve never been anything to her—to either of you.”
His expression narrowed. “What would ever make you think any of that?”
I cursed. I’d said too much. He certainly hadn’t told me about Kindler’s days beneath Caliphas. That anyone in the Old City would have known the particulars of his tryst seemed unlikely. I snapped my jaw shut. Unfamiliar fangs scratched my lower teeth.
Seeming to see me for the first time, he took a step closer. “You’re wearing your mother’s clothes.”
I fought the instinct to grab the winged daggers beneath my cloak.
“You look so much like her in them.”
I took a step back. “You know she’ll never be the woman she was. She’s never going to hunt you again. She’s old now. She spends most of her time in a wheelchair. That happens to them—to us.”
He shook his head. “There’s still life in her. The chase isn’t over yet.”
“Even if you bring back her memories, she’s not going to be the woman you remember. She’s not going to stalk you across the world.”
His jaw tightened. “Then perhaps it will end here. If there’s nothing left of what she was, then our affair might finally, truly be over.” The words ground out grudgingly, as though this were the first time he considered them. “If that’s the case, I’ll look her in the eyes one last time, and then end it. Even then, I’ll have my loss. Either way, I’ll have something.” He put a hand to his still chest. “Something here besides cold time.”
This wasn’t just about Kindler. “You’re not trying to take Grandfather’s throne. You’re trying not to become him.”
The vampire stopped short. The suspicion in his face faded. He stared past me.
When he spoke again, something in his voice sounded like Kindler, remembering. “He offered it like a gift: never wither, never die. I was just past being young. My audiences loved me, my rivals envied me—why would I ever want it to end? What did I know?” He let something invisible fall away. “I leapt at the chance.”
His lips drew a bitter line. “It took years to see the lie, but I saw it in him first. Whatever Luvick is, he has withered, and he has died. Life simply doesn’t flourish in corpses. It might linger, but it leaks away in time.”
Rivascis shook his head. “I felt it in myself. Every emotion became like a faded picture. There was thirst and distractions from the thirst, and I knew I’d eventually tire of distractions. I considered watching a sunrise.
“Before she came, I’d mused that there might be another way. Luvick and the others never truly took me seriously. Maybe I never did either. But when Ailson came, something stirred. I didn’t recognize it at first, and even once I did, I wasn’t sure. I realized I wanted to protect her, and then, I wanted to protect what I felt for her. For a moment, she didn’t care what I was. For a moment, I was alive again. You came from that moment.” He looked through me. “I couldn’t leave her with Luvick, so when I could, I set her free. I ask
ed her to come away with me. It was too late. What I’d done, following my supposed-father’s schemes, had turned her against me. I was only a monster to her.”
His look settled back into the present. “That’s when I left. That’s when they branded me a traitor, not just to Luvick’s selfish rule, but to his dead, pretentious vision of what our kind should be. I traveled far, not just to avoid my sire’s grip, but in hopes of recreating what I found with Ailson. Yet nothing ever bloomed. But it didn’t matter, because she eventually came back to me. Her feelings for me might have changed, but not mine for her. She chased, I fled, and I was alive again.” His gaze lifted. “Then it ended.”
His voice didn’t carry for long. The hall drifted back into silence.
I spoke slowly. “This was never about you and Grandfather You’ve never been the threat Caliphas’s vampires made you out as. You left to chase Kindler, then to be chased by Kindler. And now, all this—it’s still about her.”
And, like always, I’m just a pawn in it all.
My crumbling sympathy sounded Grandfather’s voice. Blame your father.
“You won’t just leave her be, will you?” It was a simple question, and I asked it as such.
An incredulous brow climbed. “If the fire that drove me across the world for the better part of a century has died, let it be dead. I won’t be haunted by ashes.”
“She isn’t dead yet.”
“Exactly, which is why I wanted you here to meet your mother, to remind her of what was. But Considine, I needed him to be my errand boy one last time.”
“Considine?” I already knew I shouldn’t have trusted him. “What’s he have to do with any of this?”
Bloodbound Page 35
