[fan] fourth talisman 01 - nocturne

by Kat Ross

  “You lie,” she said at last. “Victor is dead.”

  “Sadly not. He brought a son home with him as well. Your bastard has a half-brother. His name is Darius.”

  He heard Mina approach the bed. He wondered if she would slap him. Instead she simply sat on the edge. He held still, willing his expression to stone.

  “Thank you for telling me,” she said quietly, and Culach suddenly felt ashamed.

  “There’s nothing you can do about my injuries,” he snapped. “If it’s all the same to you, lady, I’d prefer to skip this charade every day.”

  This was the fifth afternoon Mina had come to his chamber with a tray. The eighty-third since he had been carried back through the gate by his brethren, broken and burned.

  And blind, though that wasn’t even the worst of it.

  “It’s not my choice,” she said. “Your father charged me with trying to heal you and he’ll know if I don’t try. He seems to believe I have a gift for it.”

  Culach wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of shifting away, of letting her know how much her presence bothered him, but it wasn’t easy. He could feel her body heat through the furs. Something brushed his arm like a spider web. He nearly jerked back before he realized it must be her braid.

  “I’m beyond healing,” he growled.

  “Most likely, yes. But I’ve nothing else to do. Nor do you.”

  This was true. Mina was a hostage. Traded for Ellard, Culach’s third cousin, to keep the peace with the Avas Danai. He’d felt a little sorry for her when she first came to Val Moraine, but that wore off quickly. Mina made no attempt to charm her captors. Quite the opposite. She was prickly and aloof. If she was lonely, she deserved it.

  “Don’t presume,” he snapped. “And if you touch me, I’ll break your arm.”

  She stood up and he nearly wept with relief.

  “Fine. I’ll tell them you refused me again.”

  Culach grunted.

  “If you wish to starve yourself to death, you’re free to. Otherwise, the food is on the table. Don’t expect me to feed you.”

  Her footsteps receded toward the door and he hoped she would leave, but then he heard the chair by the window creak as she sat down.

  “I don’t want company,” Culach said, in case she’d somehow failed to grasp that point. “Especially not yours.”

  “And I don’t want to be here. But they say you are alone too much and I must spend two hours in your rooms each day. I am not accountable to you. Only to them. So I will sit here for two hours.”

  She didn’t ask him anything more about Victor. She didn’t ask for news of her son, Galen, or anyone else at House Dessarian. To rely on Culach for information was too humiliating, and Mina was stiff-necked and proud. He didn’t think he’d seen her smile once in all the years they’d known each other. She didn’t pretend to be a guest at Val Moraine, although that’s how she was treated. They didn’t need to confine her. Even if she’d wanted to escape, no one walked out of these mountains.

  When Culach was younger, he’d disliked Mina for having been Victor’s lover. Victor himself had been out of reach, vanished on a sudden journey into the shadowlands, so Culach had been cruel to Mina instead. She always gave back as good as she got. Trading insults had become second nature for them both.

  He wondered if Petur had managed to kill the girl. He should have returned by now. Culach curled up on his side and listened to the wind howling against the barrier. He loved Petur like a brother. They’d grown up together, scaling the sheer faces of the massifs and exploring the ancient honeycomb of mine shafts that riddled the mountains. They’d fought together and gotten drunk together.

  Petur had volunteered to go when the message arrived saying the girl was alive and living with the Avas Danai. He’d understood the risks, but Culach still felt a stab of guilt. By all rights, it should have been him. Once, he’d been the finest swordsman of all the Valkirin strongholds. Their most cunning strategist. A hero for the ages. Women beat down his door, and a few men too.

  He’d been invincible.

  Now he was useless. Worse than useless. All because of a slip of a mortal girl not even half his size.

  “You need a bath. Desperately.”

  There was a gentle clink as Mina replaced something on the table. Culach suspected she’d started eating his lunch.

  “Are you still here, Mina?”

  “You know I am.”

  “If you don’t like the smell, you can always leave.”

  He could practically see her shaking her head. “You used to be such a heartbreaker. Now you won’t even wash your own arse.”

  It’s like she was reading his thoughts.

  “Be quiet, Mina.”

  “It’s pathetic. I’m saying that as a friend.”

  He barked another laugh. This one came out a little less rusty. “A friend, eh?”

  “All right, not a friend,” she conceded. “The person who has to sit here for two hours a day and smell you.”

  He casually leaned toward an armpit and decided she might be right.

  “Are you offering to fetch water?”

  She sighed. “Can’t you just wash in snow like the others?”

  He pictured her sour expression. “My manhood is shriveled enough already, Mina.”

  Wonder of wonders, he heard a breathy sound that might have been laughter. The chair scraped back. Footsteps marched to the door. She returned a short time later. Culach heard a bucket rattle down next to his bed. Mina pressed a cloth into his hand.

  “I’m not washing you, so don’t get your hopes up.”

  Culach suppressed a groan as he sat up. He felt sore all over. He had to admit it might have something to do with lying in bed for months.

  “Turn around,” he said gruffly.

  Once he would have enjoyed flaunting his body, but he had no idea what it looked like now. Gaunt and wasted at the very least. He tossed the furs aside. Cold air lifted the fine hairs on his belly. He dipped the cloth in the bucket and began to work it over his skin. It felt smooth until he reached his upper chest. He could feel the ridges of scar tissue there.

  He rinsed the cloth in the bucket and squeezed it out. Then he ran it over his head. His hair had been badly singed so he’d shorn it at the scalp. The stubble felt strange beneath his hands, like it belonged to somebody else.

  “I hope you’re enjoying yourself,” he said, raising an arm and scrubbing the hollow beneath. “I know you’ve fantasized about this moment since we first met.”

  “Eating soup while you wash your balls? You’re right, I’ve thought of nothing else.”

  “My balls,” he exclaimed. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  Culach lowered the cloth between his legs and waited for a sigh of disgust. When none was forthcoming, he continued about his business. Maybe she really was paying him no attention. The thought was oddly depressing. He might not care for Mina, but despite his sorry state, Culach still didn’t relish being ignored.

  He finished up. The water had been freezing, the towel rough, but to his surprise, neither caused him agony. His skin tingled and he felt hungry for the first time in days.

  “I’ll eat something now,” he said. “If you haven’t devoured it all.”

  “On the table,” Mina replied absently.

  He waited for signs of movement. “Bring it over then.”

  Her voice was maddeningly calm. “You can get it yourself.”

  Culach suppressed a scowl. A fine nursemaid his father had chosen. There were plenty of women who’d be thrilled to give him a sponge bath and chew his food for him if that’s what he asked of them. But he’d been given Mina, who’d despised him from the moment they met. No doubt his father had done it on purpose.

  Culach threw the fur over his shoulders and shuffled across the room. He banged into the table, nearly toppling it over, but refused to let her see his frustration. After some cautious groping, his hands closed on the tray.

  “What is it?” he ask
ed.

  “Beet soup, so try not to trip.”

  Culach managed to get the tray back to the bed without embarrassing himself further. He didn’t dare use a spoon, but drinking straight from the bowl didn’t work either as he could feel the soup dribbling into his scraggly beard and probably dying it purple. Culach resolved to shave it off the next day.

  Further exploration of the tray revealed a loaf of bread brought in at considerable expense from the bakeries of Solis. He tore it into chunks and washed it down with gulps of water. When he finished, Culach left the tray on the floor and curled into his furs. The food and bath made him drowsy. He was just drifting off when Mina spoke.

  “I was thinking,” she said in a hesitant voice he’d never heard before. “You’ve lost your sight. But why can’t you use air to probe your surroundings? With practice—”

  He cut her off. “I already tried. It doesn’t work.”

  “But—”

  Despair gave his voice a brusque edge. “Let it go, Mina.”

  He’d never admit the truth.

  It wasn’t the blindness or the scars that kept him hiding in his chambers. He could live with those. But ever since that disastrous day at the lake, Culach had been unable to touch the elements. He was no longer a daēva. Just a maimed creature who dreamt of fire.

  The remainder of the two hours elapsed without either of them speaking again. He heard Mina leave and then he was alone again, with only the wind and the faint smell of her for company.

  5

  A Ship from the Sky

  Nazafareen gripped the trunk of the spruce with her knees, her left hand resting lightly on a branch sticky with sap. From her gently swaying perch at the very top, she could see for twenty leagues or more, the forest spreading out below like a dark green sea. Somewhere beyond the curve of the horizon lay the sun, but it would never rise or set in these skies. Here, the triple moons reigned unchallenged.

  Darius said she came from mountain people, nomadic herders who had migrated long distances every year over unforgiving terrain. Nazafareen believed him, not because Darius would never lie to her—in fact, she felt certain he had—but because something inside her loved the high places.

  She’d stayed at his bedside for the last six days. Tethys said he would recover, but he hadn’t woken up. Not yet. The Valkirin’s last words still rang in her ears.

  You die, or they all die.

  Everyone knew another attack was coming. It was only a matter of time. Tethys had sent word to the other Danai. The ones that shared the Valkirin border—House Baradel and House Fiala—had sent reinforcements and tripled their patrols. Sentries lurked in the trees, watching the skies day and night. The Matrium would be meeting but not for another week—and the outcome was far from certain. Despite the heightened defenses, no one wanted all-out war with the Valkirins, not over a mortal girl. Victor seethed with impatience, but Tethys kept him on a short leash. The other Danai had mostly ignored her. She felt more of an outsider than ever.

  I cannot stay here, even if they would shelter me. Every day I remain puts the whole clan in danger.

  She could hide deep in the forest, but the Valkirins knew about her now. They’d find her eventually. And once Darius woke up, he certainly would. He could track anything on two legs or four. She wouldn’t let him die trying to protect her.

  Or she could return through the gate to the Dominion. Nazafareen doubted her enemies would follow—not into the shadowlands. Her own world lay somewhere on the other side, through yet another gate. But the same reason the Valkirins would be loath to follow was why she didn’t want to enter the gate herself.

  The Dominion was the land of the dead. And other things walked there too, worse than the newly reaped souls—which is why the daēvas had warded it. One of them had been inside the man with the scar—Culach—she felt certain of it. She didn’t wish to meet that thing again.

  Which left one alternative: go to the Marakai daēvas as she had originally intended. That was certainly the best of the bunch. The problem was that House Dessarian lay far from the coast, at least a hundred leagues. She’d never make it before the Valkirins caught her. Victor said the assassin they sent had come on the back of a winged creature called an abbadax; it was how he’d evaded the sentries.

  She remembered his eyes, the pure hatred.

  You die, or they all die.

  Nazafareen frowned as a shadow flitted in front of Selene’s buttery yellow face. She gripped the trunk, leaning forward as far as she could without falling. The moon was almost full and cast a bright light on the treetops. Something floated silently above them, moving fast. The silhouette looked strange. It was far too large for a bird.

  Her chest tightened as she scrambled down from the tree. Long practice had made her adept at one-handed climbing. The spruces were the easiest, since they had a multitude of thin branches that grew like a ladder. She dropped the last six feet and set off at a run for the compound of House Dessarian. Would the Valkirins be so brazen as to attack during the lunar day, when everyone was awake? It seemed unlikely, and unlikelier still that they would send only one.

  “Nazafareen!”

  She turned at Galen’s voice. He strode through the trees, ash bow strapped across his broad back. Galen was Darius’s half-brother. Both had Victor’s bullish build, but Darius had inherited his mother’s bright blue eyes while Galen’s were dark. He was also a head taller, an advantage he clearly relished.

  When Galen spoke to her—or to Darius, for that matter—his voice usually held a subtle hint of mockery. He clearly wasn’t thrilled to have a rival for Victor’s attention, but it had been Galen who saved Darius’s life.

  He does have honor, she thought, even if he hides it well sometimes.

  Nazafareen waited for him to catch up. His face was grave as he jogged out of the shadows.

  “What are you doing out here?” he demanded. “You shouldn’t be in the woods alone.”

  Nazafareen ignored the question. “Did you see it?”

  Galen nodded. “I saw it.”

  Her hand rested on the hilt of her sword. “More Valkirins?”

  “Perhaps.” Galen’s eyes held hers. His raven hair shone like a dark mirror in the moonlight. “Once they declare a blood feud, they won’t stop until it’s done.”

  She felt a flicker of unease. “We’d better get back then.”

  Nazafareen knew the terrain well and she ran without hesitation. It warmed her up. The air wasn’t terribly cold—not like it would be in the mountains—but it still held a chill and sitting in the tree had stiffened her limbs. Galen quickly pulled ahead. In a minute, he’d vanished down the path ahead.

  She scanned the sky, but the foliage was too dense to see anything. Judging by its trajectory, the thing had been heading for a large field on the outskirts of the settlement. It was the only open place for leagues around. Nazafareen adjusted her path and made for the clearing. She sensed it up ahead, a gap in the trees like a missing tooth. Then she heard shouts and knew with relief that others had seen it too and the Danai wouldn’t be caught unawares—whatever it was.

  She burst out of the forest and skidded to an abrupt stop. To her astonishment, a ship with a sharp upward-curving bow was falling from the sky. It had neither sails nor oars. Nazafareen knew elemental magic could be used to move objects, but not on this scale. As it drew closer, catching Selene’s gilded light, she realized the ship hung from a webbing of ropes connected to a large ball of fabric dyed black to artfully blend with the darkness.

  The wind whipped the ship this way and that, but its captain seemed experienced enough to keep it out of the treetops. Seconds later, the ship alit in the center of the field and a figure leapt over the side. Other daēvas from House Dessarian were already there, surrounding it, as the great sack of air began to deflate. The captain seized a mooring rope and quickly pounded a stake into the earth. There was much gesticulating but Nazafareen couldn’t hear what they were saying. She spotted Galen at the edge of t
he clearing and ran over.

  “A wind ship,” he said, staring in fascination. “From the mortal lands.”

  The mortal lands! Nazafareen caught a quick glimpse of the captain being led away, though she couldn’t tell if they were a man or woman. It was the first time she’d seen another human being since coming to Nocturne.

  “I thought they stayed on the sunlit side,” she said, her curiosity piqued.

  “They do,” Galen replied thoughtfully.

  “Do you think it has anything to do with me?”

  He glanced at her annoyance. “How should I know?”

  Nazafareen scowled back. “I just thought—”

  Galen spotted Ellard at the fringes of the crowd and shouted his name.

  The Valkirin trotted over. With his fair hair and pale complexion, he looked like a snow cat among panthers. Nazafareen watched him approach with extreme wariness. He might be Galen’s friend, but his kinsmen had put a blood price on her head. His light eyes lingered on her for a moment. To her surprise, he gave her a polite nod before turning to Galen.

  “It’s an emissary from Samarqand,” Ellard said.

  “What does he want?” Galen asked.

  “I don’t know. I suppose we’ll find out.”

  They turned their backs to Nazafareen, talking quietly together. She stood for a long moment, staring at the wind ship. She needed to find out why this mortal was here, and quickly. From what she’d heard, humans stayed out of daēva business, and vice versa. He was probably here on some other business. But he had a ship.

  Nazafareen felt the glimmerings of an idea.

  6

  Partings

  Watchful eyes followed Nazafareen as she hurried through the moonlit woods. Every daēva she saw wore a bow and there was an alert tension in their postures, a sense of wariness that made her sad. It had seemed a peaceful place when she first came here.

  She assumed the emissary from Samarqand would be brought straight to Tethys. Most likely, Victor would be there too. So she snuck through the fragrant wilderness of Tethys’s garden, hood up and keeping to the thickest shadows. The house lay at the end of a narrow path, white birch walls gleaming in the moonlight. Nazafareen was halfway there when she froze. The Valkirin’s body had been laid out on a woven mat near the outer wall of junipers. His skin and hair were the same ashen shade. He had sharp cheekbones and a high brow with deeply socketed eyes, but the angular planes of his face were softened in death. Someone had removed Galen’s arrow. The white leather coat was ripped and bloody.