by Shana Abe
And once more, it had all been accompanied by that elusively familiar scent of the Unknown.
He rubbed a finger over his lower lip, considering it. "It was a stupid thing to do," his bride-to-be said now. "Pigheaded," Kim reminded her.
"That too. I took you there only so you could see what the hunters had done. If they'd been any closer—"
"But they weren't. There was just the one fellow, and he was taking his time in the woods. It's not as if they could follow us, after all. It was a clean getaway."
"For their lure, as well!" Her cheeks began to flush. "They were waiting for a drakon. You might as well have left a calling card."
"You don't know it was a trap for a drakon," said Joan.
"Of course I do."
"The papers said wolves."
"The papers," commented Rhys, who was on his third glass of wine, "are run by gin-guzzling fatheads. They're hardly going to print the word 'dragon,' are they?"
Audrey intervened before Joan formed her retort. "Why did you free the ox, Kimber?"
He shrugged, uncomfortable. He wished the deuce his twin had stayed out of it; she alone probably guessed that he'd no good reason.
The ox had been afraid. That was really all there was to it. Perhaps he shouldn't have Turned, but he did, and once he had, he'd had no cause not to set it free.
It had been afraid. Through no fault of its own, through an accident of birth and circumstances, it had been tethered to its death.
"What's this?" Rhys sounded amused. "Tenderness for a mere beast?"
His brother had found the one spot in the chamber that held no light. Shadows crossed back and forth around him in layer over layer; even from here Kim could hardly make out his face. But there was that note to his voice, that particular hard tone that sent a dull warning across Kimber's skin.
"In the end," Kimber said, "we're all beasts."
Silence fell. It took nearly a minute before the clinking of silver sounded again against the china. When Kimber raised his eyes it was to find Maricara now staring at him, unblinking.
"Speaking of beasts." Rhys lifted his drink; the ruffles at his cuff fell back in ghostly folds. "What was it you called these men before, Princess, in the council meeting? You had a name for them, these human hunters."
She looked away, the spell broken. "Sanf inimicus. "
"What does it mean?"
Maricara sighed, examining an asparagus tip at the end of her fork. "Something like...'soft enemy.'"
She returned the asparagus to her plate without eating it. "Or, some of our kind prefer to call them delis inimicus, instead."
"Delicate?" guessed Joan.
"More like 'delicious.'" The princess looked up at the sudden hush around the table. "Oh. Not I, of course."
"You have no guard here," said Kim, laying down his utensils. "Do you?"
She lifted a brow. "How very perceptive, my lord. It only took you all this while to riddle it out."
Audrey made a sound of disbelief. "You came to England unaccompanied?"
"Why not?"
"Why not? You're a princess, to begin with, or so we've been told." Kimber murmured his twin's name; her voice only rose in response.
"No, Kim, honestly, I want to know—she arrives unannounced, she's placed us all in danger—how did you book passage? Who acted as your maids? Who handled your meals, and your lodging, and your clothing and jewels? I doubt very much indeed you managed all that by yourself. You're what—nineteen? Twenty? Was there not one reasonable soul among all your retinue who perhaps mentioned it was not a fine idea to ravage the countryside?"
"No passage," said the princess. "No maid, no retinue. I flew here alone."
Joan set her wineglass upon the table with a thump; the Riesling inside sloshed like liquid amber.
"You.flew?" "Yes."
"Brilliant," said Rhys, from his dark place.
"Or just bloody insane. " Joan forgot herself so much as to lean forward with her elbows on the holland. A pair of side curls from her wig skimmed right above her plate. "You flew as a dragon across entire countries? What if you'd been seen? What if you'd been shot? I cannot conceive your people allowed you to leave your land without escort."
"Well, that's the difference between us, isn't it? You English have rules to confine yourselves. My rule is only to be free."
"Brava," said Rhys.
"Free to kill cattle," retorted Audrey, with a flick of her fingers. "Free to consume hapless geese." "Stop this, " hissed Kim, and his family lapsed back into silence.
Maricara placed her napkin upon the table. Kimber tensed, prepared to push free of his chair. But she didn't rise, and she didn't Turn. She only took a heavy breath, the bodice of her gown straining, gleaming satin.
"Maricara," he said softly. "We've all had a long day."
"No," she said, first to him, then to the rest. "No, she's quite right. It wasn't well-done of me." She offered a shrug and then a small, tight smile, her gaze angled downward. "I don't even like goose."
The swinging door creaked open; the maid reentered, carrying a tureen of what smelled like curried lamb. As if on cue, everyone resumed eating, even Maricara, although Kim did see her throw a subtle glance to the night beyond the window.
The maid served them in silence, the sound of the ladle tapping against the plates painfully sharp in Kim's ears. Only after the girl had curtsied and backed out of the room did Maricara break the silence, speaking very, very quietly.
"Because of the kills, because of the publicity, the sanf were able to find my last-known location. They were able to secure bait, and set the trap, and no doubt right now they're still out there waiting with another ox, or a cow or a pig. And also because of all of that, we now know they're in England, searching for our kind."
He'd been watching the princess, her downward look, the shaded contours that defined her face. But an instinct he couldn't name turned his gaze to Joan: All the blood seemed to drain from her cheeks. He didn't need to read thoughts to know what she was thinking: She had a crippled husband who could not fly, two little daughters. And Audrey—with three boys and a girl, all of them audacious and merry—looked even paler.
He'd told them. He'd told everyone. But it hadn't been real until this afternoon. Until the specter of knives and blood and the black, terrified eyes of the ox—it hadn't been real.
"Did the drakon you sent to me carry anything of you on their persons?" Maricara asked Kimber. "Bank notes, letters of introduction?"
"No." Kim took a swallow of cold, tart wine. "We didn't know what your circumstances might be, who knew of you, who would not. We don't even openly say the word for what we are here. I wasn't going to risk writing anything down. The only introduction I assumed you needed would be in realizing who—and what—these men were."
"So, these hunters, they're not there yet," said Audrey, still stricken. "Not in Darkfrith."
Kimber wanted to answer her. He drew breath for it, felt his lips shape again the solid and reassuring word no—he could speak that word with all the firm resonance of any absolute leader; he could make it sound like truth without even trying. But instead, Kim cut himself short. Like his brother and sisters, he looked back at Maricara, who once more dropped her eyes. She picked up her soup spoon, examining the curve of the bowl as it caught the dark yellow light.
"What is it? What now?" Audrey demanded.
"It's commonly known that years ago.. .not quite a decade ago, a stranger came to us, a new sort of dragon, who upset the balance of my people. It's known that she was English, from the northern aspect of your country. Your sister Lia was a guest in my castle for eight months. Her true name was openly spoken. It would be no great ordeal to discover her birthplace, I would think. All one would need is a rudimentary knowledge of English, and a map." She tapped the spoon lightly against her plate, her lips pursed. "I did come to warn you."
"Oh, God," said Audrey, even whiter than before.
"Aye," said the princess.
"Why didn't you warn us before? Why wait until now to—"
"I didn't wait. By and large they've left us alone until now. It's been almost a century since they've last hunted us, my grandparents' time. I don't even know why they've started again."
"We can return home tonight," said Joan, resolute. "We can take care of this."
"They're not there tonight." Maricara lifted her gaze to Kimber's. "They're here. The sanf have set the trap here."
Joan pressed a fist against her chest. "You can't be sure—"
"I am sure. This is the place. This is where they believe we are. At least, where they think I am. It is a most excellent distraction from Darkfrith."
"But—"
"We have a rotating contingent of our finest warriors patrolling our territory," Kim said under his breath, tensed in his chair, leaning forward to be heard over all the noises of the people dining in the next room. "We have traps of our own in place, and an entire shire of the most fearsome creatures ever to live ready to defend our home. At any given time, there are over thirty drakon in the air, and another two dozen on the ground, in the village, all of them willing, all of them eager, to safeguard our tribe. And as for all of you—remember what we are. Remember how we are. I don't give a damn what these so-called sanf think they can do to us. If they come to our shire, I very nearly pity the bastards. We're going to slit them end from end."
A new hush took the chamber. The draft from the open window sent a spiral of black smoke from the nearest candle coiling in a long, snakelike arm across the table.
Rhys stirred in his chair. "I have another question. What was it today in those places? What was that thing lurking behind the human smell?"
Maricara cocked her head. "That thing?"
"That scent. Not human, not animal. Never smelled it before."
"Yes." Joan straightened. "I caught it too, almost like perfume, but not. What was that?" "I don't understand," Maricara said.
"Didn't you sense it, Your Grace?" Audrey's voice was still not quite back to normal, a shade too brittle and bright. "Or are your Gifts not as keen as you've portrayed?"
"It was drakon, " Kimber realized, when Maricara only continued to stare at his sister. He had been watching her, the changing light over her face, the shadows hollowing her cheeks, the uncharted depths of her eyes. When she blinked and angled them back to his, he felt the truth of his words strike like a punch to his gut: drakon.
So Kimber held very still. He kept his features composed, as if he'd known all along, as if the new and awful comprehension rising through him didn't exist; he was the Alpha; he was his father's son; so of course he had known. But the wine burned sour in the back of his throat.
He swallowed the sour. "It was the scent of drakon, wasn't it?"
"Yes." She lifted a shoulder, almost helpless. "Of course it was. That's how I knew it was the sanf, and not merely people. You've never encountered such a scent before?"
"Not like that."
"How can that be?" said Audrey. "It wasn't anything like us!"
"It was something like you. A small something, not a full-blooded dragon, but someone lesser. Didn't you know? It's how they find us. They're only Others. So they use someone of dragon blood, not too powerful, just enough to track us. Just enough for the kill. It's how they've always done it."
"A victim," Kimber asked. "Or a collaborator?"
"Both. Either. The sanf inimicus don't care."
Joan had her hand back at her throat. "But—who has blood like that? There's no one of the shire so diluted that we couldn't tell what they were."
"None of you are like that?"
"No," said Kim. "Some of us are stronger than others, but everyone has Gifts of varying degrees. It's—it's how we breed. Our lines are carefully kept."
"Ah." The princess picked up her spoon again, rolling the edge back and forth against her plate. She spoke with that small, tight smile that sharpened the curves of her face. "Yet where I come from, I assure you, there are bastards aplenty."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was going to rain. She could feel it in her bones, most particularly the smallest finger of her right hand. It had been broken when she was ten, and had healed before the human physician could even make the trip up to the castle from his hamlet three days away. It had healed straight, of course. There was hardly a bump at all from the fracture. But it still ached occasionally, a phantom pain to remind her of what it had once been like to be ten, a newlywed alone in an echoing palace, in a chamber leafed with gold and studded with diamonds, and a husband who chided her for trying to lock the door to her room against him.
The dark English clouds were seething over the dark English sea. The moisture saturating the air was enough to feel like slime clinging to her hair and skin. Maricara was a creature of the cool, arid alps. Rain was not her element.
"You should stay here tonight," she said to the earl. He had followed her nearly into the hotel bedchamber, was standing silently near the doorway with his arms folded across his chest. Sconces of candles behind cut glass adorned the walls, their flames burning dim but steady.
Kimber's position kept him from the light. She wondered if he did it deliberately, if he had begun to realize how much she could fathom from his eyes.
She crossed to the nightstand, holding on to a corner as she removed her heels. She could hear Rhys and the sisters in the parlor beyond, the three of them caught in an unspeaking circle, everyone waiting, it seemed, for the rainclouds to rupture, for the weight of the water to fall.
"You're most generous," said Kimber. He spoke his native language exactly the same way he had spoken French: with effortless elegance, as if the words themselves were made just to be shaped by his lips, to resonate with his low, agreeable voice.
"The roads will be too muddy tonight to return, in any case." Mari stripped off the right pump, balancing a moment with her arm out, then the left. "The bed is large and comfortable. If you try, the four of you might fit."
His brows lifted. "That's not quite how I envisioned it."
"Well, I suppose a gentleman would offer it first to his sisters, but they seem hardy enough." The looking glass on the nightstand caught her face in a square of pewter; she began to remove the diamonds from her hair. "Frankly, were it a matter between me and the brown-eyed one—"
"Audrey."
"Yes. She'd be on the floor."
The glass was small. She couldn't see his face in it, so she couldn't see if he smiled. She felt him though, felt him as clearly as ever, even through the stifling humidity.
He was anticipating a thousand outcomes to this moment. The rainstorm boiling off the sea only heightened his awareness; he would be like her in that way. They could not help but feed off the energy of the air.
The sconcelight, the shape of the room, the downy bed. The bright, heavy stones she'd used for adornment: all factors into this instant, into what she might do next.
Without her heels, the hem of the cocoa gown rumpled against her feet, an accidental train bunched at her ankles. She turned around and walked carefully back to Kimber, holding out her hand. He accepted the diamond clips she poured into his palm without comment, a baron's fortune singing and sparkling against his cupped fingers.
Thunder began a long, distant rumble. She removed her bracelets, one by one, never looking away from his face.
"And where," asked the earl, "are you planning to sleep, Your Grace?"
She smiled. She tilted her head and dropped the bracelets into his other palm. "You feel where I hid the key to the safe, don't you? It's a fairly simple lock. I have faith you'll manage it."
"Pray do not delude yourself," he said courteously, "into thinking that you're leaving this hotel alone."
"Try sleeping head to foot. That's how we did it in the mountains when I was a girl. You can fit more people on the mattress that way."
"Charming. I'll bear it in mind the next time I actually cannot afford to acquire my own hotel room. My dear child, you do realize the s
econd you Turn, I'll be after you."
"But I rather think you won't catch me, Lord Chasen. You haven't yet."
Now he smiled, a half smile, a predator's smile, cold and gleaming; it turned his gaze to flint. "Maricara. You don't want to goad me into action tonight."
"Yes, that's true. What I want is for you to take my belongings back with you to Darkfrith tomorrow. I'll join you there. Really," she added, when his smile never changed. "Do you think I'd let you abscond with all my best jewelry?"
"It's not actually absconding if you give it to me."
"And I'm not. I'm merely handing it to you with the conviction that I'll get it back soon."
Without another word, the earl spread his fingers. Sapphires and diamonds tumbled in a shower of light to his feet.
"There are monsters out there," he said quietly. "And I don't want to have to fight them yet. Stay here, Princess. Stay here, where it's safe."
"I wish I could," she said, and Turned before he could add anything else, before he could finish reaching for her waist with his hands, and she wouldn't have to feel the urge to close her eyes and lean into him, to believe in words like stay and safe, no matter how beautifully he said them.
He did follow, of course. As far as she could tell, he didn't even take the time to alert his siblings; he just Turned to smoke, exactly as she had. But she knew the town in a way that he didn't; she knew the crooks and crannies of the rooftops; where the wind held a constant upsweep; which alleys were longest and darkest; which garrets would be empty.
She also knew that he'd be able to feel her—but she was willing to take risks he wouldn't. So she raced to the town square, where cobblestones echoed with horses' hooves, and carriages could be found at nearly any hour, jingling as they struck the bumps and holes. A foursome of oil lamps stuck atop poles threw light upon a statue of Poseidon in the center. She wound around his trident and then his beard, and all the horses trotting nearby began to shudder—then to veer. Coachmen, hauling at their reins, started to shout.
The earl remained a sheet of gray above. She'd been right; he would not descend.
