Prize of Night

by Bailey Cunningham

  “It should be a picture of Latona on her hind legs,” she said. “Beware of Basilissa.”

  At the sound of their voices, two figures emerged from the wall of amphorae. Morgan had one hand on Eumachia’s shoulder. The basilissa’s daughter was dressed in a purple stola, chased through with borders of scarlet. Thousands of bugs and bottom-dwellers had died to produce those dancing colors. Even her sandals were studded with amber and onyx, and she wore a pearl diadem that was a miniature version of her mother’s crown. The trains of seed pearls swept through her plaited hair, gleaming with their own uncanny light.

  The princess had grown slightly. She was taller, and Fel caught the hint of wiry muscles in her bare arms. Currently, those arms were folded in a parody of her mother’s displeasure, which made Fel want to laugh. Then she remembered that Eumachia was more dangerous than all of them put together. She could summon miles in the palace to descend upon them—it was a minor miracle that she hadn’t done so already.

  “You people,” Eumachia said. “Why can’t I escape you?”

  It was a fair question. They’d first met the basilissa’s daughter a year ago, when Latona had attacked Pulcheria. She remembered Eumachia’s look as silenoi broke through the windows of the arx. When Latona tried to call the first lares with a horn sacred to the silenoi, Eumachia was there once again, caught in their web. They constantly pulled her toward danger.

  Though the girl’s expression was cold, Fel could hear the trill of anxiety in her voice. Even now, she was gauging the situation, trying to balance all the ivory weights in order to discover what her next move should be. She didn’t trust anyone. That was something that she’d learned from a tender age. So far, it had kept her alive in a world of silk and poison. She’d followed Morgan because some part of her trusted the archer.

  Fel cleared her throat. “We’ve reason to believe that Your Highness is in danger.”

  “Oh, you’ve reason to believe, do you?” Eumachia made a face as she adjusted the string of pearls, which must have been uncomfortable. “That’s what this one kept saying, while she was pushing me down the stairs. I’ll need more than that. I’m the daughter of the basilissa. That means I’m always in danger.”

  Give me a reason to trust you. The plea flashed across her eyes. Trusting them, giving them even the smallest inch, meant pulling away from her mother. It wouldn’t be the first time that she’d done such a thing. Latona had nearly gotten her killed at the necropolis, when she met with Septimus among the die-shaped plots. That rift, Fel assumed, had healed over time. But Eumachia wouldn’t be here unless she suspected something.

  “Your Highness is wise enough to know that something isn’t right,” Fel said, choosing her words carefully. “We all may be in danger tonight, but you most of all. Your mother is raising an army, and that has made her powerful enemies.”

  Eumachia shrugged. “Everyone in the Arx of Violets—my arx—is charged with my protection. Why should I be frightened?”

  My arx. Perhaps she was ready to succeed her mother. Fel imagined her on the mechanical throne, small and vulnerable as she rose toward the ceiling. It wasn’t something that she wanted. That was clear from her expression and the sting of irony in her voice as she said my arx. It wasn’t a legacy that filled her with consuming passion. That was something that they could work with. The greatest queens were the ones who’d never asked for power.

  “They are the dangerous ones, Your Highness,” Fel persisted. “The ones in whom you’ve placed your trust.” Your family.

  She turned to Morgan. “Is this simply the graveyard all over again? I know that my mother has two faces. I’ve seen them all my life: the sweet one, and the other.” Her expression went dark for a moment. Then the girl was back. “She says that the army is for protection. That she’s going to restore the glorious empire and quell the strife that divides the great cities. Quelling is a good thing, isn’t it?”

  Morgan couldn’t quite say the words. She means to give you to the old powers. A sacrifice to spirits of storm and embers. “We think you’d be safer outside the palace,” she said finally. “There’s a place that we can take you.”

  What place? Fel couldn’t imagine a place where any of them would be safe for long. No gens, no house, no sheltering tower. All of Anfractus had become a plain of battle. They were stones beneath a royal hand. There was only darkness beyond the pattern, a mist that burned and whispered in the reaches outside the game.

  “You can use the house by the wall.” Babieca’s voice was faint in the dim undercroft. They all turned, as if they’d only just noticed him. “You can take her beyond. I don’t know if she’ll be any safer, but at least it’s far away.”

  Eumachia looked confused. “Beyond what?”

  Morgan turned to Babieca. “Aren’t you coming?”

  He squared his shoulders. “No. I’m needed here.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The sacrifice. It could be any of us. It could be something entirely different. But it’s happening tonight, and I have to stop it.”

  She shook her head. “No. We just rescued you.” Morgan said it as if the rules of being rescued were self-evident, and Babieca had just broken them. “We stay together.”

  “Get her to the house,” Fel said. “The singer and I are going to the oecus. If we can prevent this bloody thing from happening, then we have to try.”

  Eumachia kept looking rapidly around the room, trying to read their shifting expressions. “I don’t understand.” There was a bleakness in her voice as she said it. Not knowing was the same as losing, and she couldn’t afford that. “Who is the—” Suddenly she paled. She hadn’t lost after all. The knowledge came to her all at once, and her eyes widened in shock. “Not me. Is it? Am I to be the sacrifice?”

  “We can’t be certain,” Morgan replied gently. “All the more reason to get you away from the palace. And that goes for all of us. We’re not safe here.”

  “Fel and I are staying,” Babieca said.

  Morgan turned on him. “Don’t be a horse’s ass. What use does she have for a wounded singer? If anyone’s staying, it’s going to be me.”

  “Someone has to take Eumachia—”

  “I’m staying too.”

  They all stared at her.

  “Your Highness—” Morgan began.

  “Don’t Highness me, archer.” It was her mother’s voice. “I am nobody’s sacrifice. I can help. The guards will listen to me, and I know all the trickiest ways to get to the oecus.”

  She was right. The girl’s logic might save them after all.

  “We can’t put you in danger,” Morgan protested. “We came here in the first place to keep you out of harm’s way.”

  “There is no such thing,” Eumachia said. She wished that it weren’t so, but her expression was one of marble understanding.

  “Show us the way, then,” Fel said.

  Eumachia nodded. She’d already put on her fire. “A detour first, though.”

  “Weapons?” Julia asked hopefully.

  The princess favored her with a sly smile. “Foxes.”

  • • •

  They made their way to the oecus with a larger company. Propertius and Sulpicia followed them, a strange entourage of mechanicals that supported the vanguard. Propertius kept throwing erratic glances at the walls. Fel thought that he could probably sense the silenoi that were also keeping pace with them. Unless they’d gone on ahead.

  “Are they following us?”

  It took the fox a moment to realize that she was speaking to him. Propertius and his sister were used to being ignored. They were treated more like furniture than the original inhabitants of the Arx of Violets. “You will have to be more specific,” he said at last. “A lot of things are following us at the moment.” His voice reminded her of a brass kettle.

  “The silenoi,” she clarified.r />
  “Definitely them. And others.”

  “What others?”

  “Best not to dwell on it.” The gears in his tail whirred as it loped along the ground. “Luckily, some of the things appear to be on your side.”

  “Don’t bother trying to get a straight answer out of him,” Eumachia said. “He’s trained to keep secrets.”

  Propertius raised his head. “I was not trained at all. Training suggests taming, and we are not tame things.”

  “He’s very sensitive about that,” Eumachia whispered. The fox’s ears swiveled—it was clear that he’d heard her. But he made no reply.

  Sulpicia appeared beside her. She seemed to have a fondness for humans that her brother didn’t share. Or at least a tolerance. “The lares are everywhere,” she said. “It puts us both on edge. They have a disruptive presence.”

  “Are they—I mean—” Fel struggled to frame the question. She wasn’t feeling particularly tactful at the moment, with her arm on fire and her shoulder half-numb. “Do you all come from the same source?”

  “We are not the same as them,” Propertius said emphatically. “We were crafted. They simply crawled out of chaos.”

  “She wasn’t talking to you,” Sulpicia snapped. Then she turned back to Fel. “We share some qualities. That cannot be denied. You might even think of us as belonging to the same family. But we do not share their hunger.”

  “Do you think they’ll fight for her?”

  Both foxes exchanged a look.

  “Too early to tell,” Propertius said. If a mechanical fox could be said to have a tone, then Fel heard it. Or something. He wasn’t being entirely honest. Like the silenoi, the foxes acted for their own reasons. Perhaps they were simply leading them to Latona. They’d barely been surprised when Eumachia came to them.

  “This reminds me of the last time you all were here,” the princess said. “And the time before that, as a matter of fact. You’re really quite meddlesome, you know. I can see why my mother dislikes you.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. Then she turned to Babieca, her expression carefully measured. “I’ve seen him, you know. The oculus. He’s always by her side. He asked about you—when they first brought you to the carcer. He tried to negotiate a lighter sentence for you.”

  Babieca said nothing.

  It was true that they’d barely roughed him up. “Did they ask you about the horn?” Fel softened her words. “I mean, do you remember anything? About what they wanted?”

  “Sometimes they beat me,” he replied. “Sometimes not. They never asked me anything. I tried to overhear what they were saying, but most of the time they talked of gambling and f—” He blinked. “—of recreation.”

  They were merely holding him in place, Fel thought. Perhaps as bait.

  She’d rather not to think about the implications of that.

  They were heading for the clerestory above the oecus when two guards rounded the corner. Both stopped in astonishment. Before they could react, the foxes moved to the vanguard. Propertius raised a paw, as if in greeting.

  “The singer is to be tortured publicly,” he said. His voice was entirely without feeling. “Our basilissa demands it. Her daughter will blood him. A great honor.”

  The nearest miles frowned. “You’ve got it turned around. This prisoner stays in the carcer. It’s the other who’s going to be tortured.”

  The other. Fel tried not to react. Who was it? Her mind raced through possibilities. Had she turned on the oculus? Was it someone else? What if Pulcheria had been captured? She couldn’t imagine whipping a rival queen in public, but Latona had proven that she was capable of nearly anything. Babieca had been right, at any rate. The show would go on, with or without Eumachia. She couldn’t be the sacrifice.

  “Both prisoners are to receive the same treatment,” Propertius said. “Questioning the hand of the queen tends to prove fatal. I would take our word, if I were you.”

  “You don’t even have hands,” the other miles said. He spat on the ground.

  The foxes exchanged another look. Fel readied herself to fight, reaching painfully for the hilt of her sword.

  The foxes transformed into comets. They landed on the shoulders of the astonished guards, bronze claws digging into the spaces between their loricae. Both foxes screamed. It sounded like ice cracking, like the roots of mountains crumbling. High-pitched and unearthly, it rippled through the air in painful waves. Sparks burst from their open mouths, and then the guards were also screaming, blind and terrified. Fel clubbed the nearest one with the butt of her sword, while Morgan struck the other once, twice, until he was still. The smell of burnt hair was thick.

  Propertius stared straight ahead, as if he were following a scent that kept eluding him. Fel stamped on one of the miles, to put out a small tongue of flame. Then they mounted the steps that led to the clerestory. The broken lion’s-head fountain was still there, along with the spiders and rodent droppings that Fel remembered. She almost saw something in the corner, but it vanished before she could register what it was.

  “You’d think she’d learn to post guards here,” Julia observed. It was the first time that she’d spoken in a while. She was eyeing the two foxes warily, but with a certain level of interest, as well. She desperately wanted to know what power moved through them.

  “The palace is sealed up tight,” Eumachia said. “It doesn’t matter where you go. You might get one clean shot, but you’ll never escape.”

  “I liked her better when she was dusty and optimistic,” Fel said, low enough for only Morgan to hear. The archer smiled.

  The room below was packed. Latona was their heart. Courtiers mingled around her like clicking tiles, sharing their cold stories as they brushed past each other. They were beautiful in embroidered tunicae, silken head scarves, and networks of finery. The women had their hair teased into miraculous forms, while the men wore golden armbands and scarlet overcloaks. A few meretrices stood out in masks of ivory and jet.

  Eumachia leaned over the edge. “Look! It’s Drauca!”

  She was right. One of the meretrices was leaning on an ivory cane.

  Why would she be here?

  “Come away from the edge,” Morgan said, pulling on Eumachia’s gown. They should all keep away from the edges, but they were simply too many. It was all staircases and fountain rims and cliffs that tumbled into the sea. They were always leaning. What choice did they have?

  Latona stepped toward the dais. The murmuring stopped. She was surrounded by a spiral of miles, their armor burnished to a brilliant sheen. They curled around her like a snail’s shell, and beyond them stood the archers. A cluster of green-robed spadones moved on the periphery of the room. Fel no longer understood what side they were on. Perhaps Narses was down there somewhere, moving things beyond their sight.

  “Tonight,” the basilissa called, “we have a special performance. A drama to remind us of things to come. Soon we will be at war, and I have arranged this night as a show of faith to our allies. Though you cannot see them, my oculus assures me that they are here.”

  Fel saw him for the first time, standing behind the throne. He wore a black tunica embroidered with a red swan. He was staring straight ahead, as Propertius had. Distracted and curious at once. Babieca saw him too but said nothing. His dark-rimmed eyes were still.

  “Is it true?” she whispered to Sulpicia. “Are the lares here?”

  “Yes,” she breathed. “Everywhere.”

  Fel heard a scraping sound. She realized that Propertius was growling. Nobody else seemed to hear it, but she wanted him to stop. It cut her to the quick. It was as if the arx itself were making the terrible noise.

  “Bring him out,” Latona said.

  The prisoner was led across the room. His yellow tunica had been torn in several places, and rust-red patches stood out against the embroidery. Felix swayed slightly as he walked, though his ga
it remained polished. They’d allowed him to keep his mask. There were bruises and burns decorating his exposed arms, but his face they’d left mostly untouched. She heard Babieca’s intake of breath behind her. Drauca continued to lean on her cane. She was a statue in the crowd. He didn’t look at her, but he must have known that she was there. His eyes remained fixed on the basilissa. They were the only two people in the room.

  One of the spadones lowered his hood. Fel caught the movement. She couldn’t help but make a small noise as she saw the ropelike burns on his face and neck, the red skin that seemed to weep as the light caught it. They had done that. On the other side, in a strange library. Her shadow remembered. Flame blooming in the auditor’s hand. Mardian’s cries. Fel shivered.

  Now the threads were being pulled tight. But who had turned traitor? Was it truly Mardian? Or had the oculus betrayed them? The one called Aleo had no expression. She realized that he was watching the lares, in all their glittering danger. He could see the furthest.

  Felix approached the basilissa. He was as cold as any courtier, but Fel could see that he was trying not to tremble. One hand clutched the hem of his tunica. He bowed, and winced finally. Perhaps they’d broken a few of his ribs.

  “Felix Aurea,” she said, lingering over his surname. “You stand accused of high treason. You have colluded with our enemy and straddled the boundary between worlds like the canny wolf that you are.” Her green eyes swept over him. “Once you were my favorite. But you have abused our sacred trust. How do you answer to these crimes?”

  “I alone am guilty of them,” he said.

  Now the oculus was looking at him. A lie to preserve what was left.

  Latona placed a hand on his head. It was an unexpected gesture. Then, gently, she unlaced his mask. An audible sigh went through the room as she unmasked him. Fel hadn’t seen his face in so long. It was as she remembered. The face that she’d seen in the dark, as he stirred above her, flushed like tinted ivory.

  The basilissa reached for something. It was a dagger resting on the arm of the throne. She hadn’t noticed it until now. The dagger that had once been Roldan’s. Now she was gesturing to the oculus. He approached her, and she placed the weapon in his hand.