“I don’t spend much time with the others outside of the rituals. Why waste my energies on petty numinatria when there are deeper mysteries to explore?”
He scraped his fingers through his hair as though he could dig the last few minutes out of his skull. “I am not nearly well enough to explain everything wrong with that question.”
“You need to rest,” Renata said. “And I—I need to think.” It took all her will to bend down and pick up the bronze medallion, with its interlocking, twisted triangles. She’d touched it before and never felt anything; the crawling sense of wrongness she had now was entirely her imagination. It had to be.
When she straightened, some shred of her composure returned. Looking Tanaquis squarely in the eye, she said, “This must remain between us. Diomen can’t be permitted to know that I have this medallion, nor any of the Praeteri.”
::Especially my brother,:: Alsius added.
His reminder sparked another thought, dredged up from what felt like ten years ago. “And, Tanaquis—if you strike me from the Traementis register, will the others be cursed?”
“Strike? Why?”
Renata held up the medallion. “So this doesn’t taint everyone else with its influence.”
“That shouldn’t be necessary,” Tanaquis said crisply. “I can scribe a containment around your name.”
Her certainty eased some of the tension—but not all of it. Nothing could remove the worm of doubt now crawling through Ren’s mind. The medallion would fan her desires from sparks to flame. How could she trust herself? Was she trying to protect Giuna and the others because it was the right thing to do… or because Tricat was the numen of family?
It’s the right thing to do. She had to cling to that.
Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Canilun 15
When Vargo arrived at his townhouse, Varuni took one look at him and flattened her lips. “I’ll fetch your physician.”
Grunting his thanks, Vargo dragged his ass upstairs and collapsed into bed.
::You should change,:: Alsius said. He’d slipped out of Vargo’s collar and tucked himself into one of the gaps between the latticed joints of Vargo’s headboard.
“Don’t nag,” Vargo groaned, but he obeyed, at least enough to shed boots, coat, waistcoat, and trousers and drape them over the back of his lounging couch. It wasn’t until he was climbing back into bed that he realized Peabody had withdrawn far enough into his hole that not even his eyes could be seen.
I’m an ass.
::You’re sick.::
Still an ass. Vargo had dealt with his panic by accepting the inevitability of his condition… but how could he expect Alsius to accept the revelations about Ghiscolo?
::It doesn’t change anything. We knew he was behind the cursed cloak. Usurping my future as Eret Acrenix, taking this medallion—it’s all the same.::
It wasn’t the same. Alsius would readily have given up the heirship he never wanted; to him, that was a burden that only took time from his research.
The medallion would have been a different matter. Alsius believed in the radiance of the Lumen. If he’d known the nature of the medallion’s power, he would have dedicated himself to destroying it—at least, Vargo hoped he would have. Perhaps that was why his father had never told him of its existence.
Vargo shivered. Primordials. He preferred to think about a mundane monster like Ghiscolo. That man might fuck up Nadežra with the Ordo Apis, but he couldn’t annihilate thousands of people in the space of eleven days.
Except that Ghiscolo was also fucking up Nadežra with the Praeteri, and their eisar numinata.
Alsius had always told him eleven was a blasphemous number for inscriptors, though not why. Just tradition, superstition. That numinat in the Great Amphitheatre, the one for destroying the wellspring—had the figure enclosing it really been a decagon? Or if Vargo could have seen it from above, could have measured the angles, would it have come out to eleven sides instead?
His thoughts were weaving like a drunkard in the street. All Vargo wanted was to drown in the lethargy brought on by the medicines Tanaquis had poured into him. Instead he created a nest of bedding to prop himself at eye level with Alsius’s hiding place. He was so still in his little cubby that Vargo wondered if the spider had fallen asleep. The ash-induced illness had to be affecting him, too. He hoped they’d both recover quickly, like they usually did.
Finally Alsius said, ::I suppose it doesn’t matter.:: He edged forward far enough that the dim light caught the timid brushing of his forelimbs. ::Do you think my father was involved? With… my death?::
“No.” That, at least, Vargo could be certain of. “He could have made Ghiscolo his heir at any time, or given him the medallion. Or both.” Not without resistance from within the house, maybe—but if he could force people to do his bidding the way Ghiscolo had forced Vargo and Nikory, what resistance could stand against that?
Another shudder ran through Vargo. The worship of Primordials was banned everywhere he knew of, not because there was anything inherently wrong with fear or desire or pride, but because the power of those elemental forces inevitably overwhelmed whatever it touched. That was why the gods had bound the Primordials outside reality, to keep them from destroying the world. Only traces of that power seeped through, forming the impulses of the human heart.
And the fucking Praeteri were grabbing hold of those threads and yanking.
He had grabbed hold of those threads. Chasing after the secret of how to make eisar numinata. Crafting that focus with Sibiliat. Thinking that while the Praeteri might turn their knowledge to selfish, destructive ends, he could find a way to use them for good.
Closing his eyes, Vargo pulled the covers tighter against another bout of shivering.
::Do you think… do you think the taint kept his spirit from rejoining the Lumen?::
Vargo stifled a curse. He hated these sorts of esoteric questions at the best of times. For Alsius, numinatria was a spiritual practice as much as an intellectual one. For Vargo, it was just a tool.
But he couldn’t leave Alsius without comfort. “Maybe your father had to take some extra time purifying his soul before passing to the next cycle, but… ‘There is no shadow so deep, nor ignorance so embedded, nor sin so great that it cannot be revealed and redeemed in the Lumen’s light.’”
A wan chuckle echoed through Vargo’s head, and Peabody edged farther out of his hole. Black onyx eyes reflected the light like unshed tears. ::Listen to you, quoting Mirscellis at me.::
“You’ve quoted him to me often enough,” Vargo grumbled. The dryness of his unbroken fever was making him uncomfortable in his skin. He sagged into his nest and twitched the covers into a hood, like a boy playing at being the Rook.
::I suppose I have.:: There was something wistful in Alsius’s tone that Vargo preferred to leave packed away with all the rest of the thoughts he wasn’t examining. After a moment, he said, ::You should rest until the physician comes. You look like hell.::
Feel like it, Vargo thought, sinking down farther and letting his eyes slide closed, but sleep had cocooned him tightly enough that he wasn’t certain Alsius heard.
Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Canilun 15
After Cercel finally called quits to their drinking and bade Grey farewell, with a stern adjuration to visit her in the next few days, he made his slow and indirect way back to Kingfisher. The wind along the river ruffled his hair as he crossed the Sunset Bridge, standing it up in hanks. He reflexively thought that he’d need to get it cut soon—Vigil regulations—then remembered there was no point.
Dusk was settling over the city by the time he got home. Grey shut the door behind himself and stood for a time in the gloom. Enough of the beer had worn off for him to be paralyzed by the realization of what he’d done.
And the question of what he would do now. He couldn’t make a living off his work as the Rook, much less support Alinka. Some of his predecessors had been thieves, seeing nothing wrong with stealing so long as it all came from the pockets and parlours of t
he nobility, but Grey couldn’t bring himself to do that. He would need some kind of income, though. Cercel had, over his token objections, paid their joint tab; he’d walked over the bridge rather than taking a skiff, because the bridge didn’t cost money. Even now, part of the reason he hadn’t kindled a light was the awareness that all too soon, he’d have no coin for new candles or coal.
He made himself open the tinderbox and strike a light. Whatever his situation, sitting in the darkness wouldn’t improve it.
I’ll need to find some other occupation, he thought as he unbuckled his sword and laid it aside. That blade at least was his own—a gift from Ryvček, not Vigil issue—though after today he’d have no legal right to carry it. Unless his new occupation returned that right to him. The only skills he had were excellent swordsmanship, mediocre carpentry, and things that would get him arrested by his former comrades.
Not a mercenary company, though he suspected Cercel would arrange a place for him if he asked. That would just put him back under the command of someone who couldn’t necessarily be trusted. Plenty of ex-hawks went on to manage prisons for Fulvet or work as private guards for noble houses, but the mere thought of the latter made his jaw tense with the Rook’s rage. Even a house without a medallion, like Traementis, would still cause him too many problems.
That left being a duelist like Ryvček. At least there he could pick whom he fought for, maybe make a name for himself among the trade guilds and merchant families. Masks knew there were enough duels in Nadežra these days, though hopefully that would be less common once they managed to get Tricat out of the dream. His teacher would be only too happy to help.
He could even ask her tonight. Better that than sitting around in a house that felt far too empty.
Just as Grey went to blow out the candle, he heard a knock at the door.
A faint, uncertain one, as if the knuckles skittered across the wood rather than striking. He twitched the curtain aside to look out.
What is Renata doing here? Dressed in plain trousers and a skirted coat, but definitely made up as Seterin. Arenza was a common enough visitor, but never the Traementis alta. Grey drew himself into Captain Serrado’s demeanor—captain no more, though—and opened the door. “Alta Renata. What brings you here at this hour? Not Traementis problems, I hope.”
She came inside without a word. By the time he’d shut the door, the rigidity he’d glimpsed in her bearing had thrown off its cloak. Ren wasn’t just tense; she was terrified.
“I looked for you at the Aerie,” she said. In Renata’s accent; then she shook her head, and the next words came out with Vraszenian pronunciation. “They took great pleasure in telling me you’d quit.”
“Yes,” Grey said cautiously. Was that what had her so on edge? No, it couldn’t possibly be. “The stingers—” What point was there in keeping his own accent Nadežran? With Ren, he needed no masks. “But you came not for that. Ren, what happened?”
“I got Tricat back.”
Grey steadied himself on the door frame as a flood of emotions—not all of them his own—threatened to knock him off his footing. Relief, worry, pride… but also anger and fear.
Fear like that which made Ren hug herself as if winter’s bite was upon her. She had the Tricat medallion, with all the problems that went with it. He shoved down the Rook’s suspicions—Why had she retrieved it without telling him? What did she want with it? Where was it now?—and searched for comforting words. He doubted she’d come to him for an interrogation.
“Will you sit?” he asked.
Like a badly manipulated puppet, Ren sat down in the chair he pulled out for her. Grey dragged his own close, but not quite touching. He couldn’t tell whether it would be a comfort right now or not. The last time he’d seen her this badly rattled, it was when she’d laid his pattern and seen the darkness of his future. He’d risked touching her then, and it seemed to have helped. But her arms were still wrapped around her body, maybe just to hold herself together, maybe to ward him off.
She spoke without looking at him, her gaze fixed and blinking too rapidly. “We had a plan. Me, Tanaquis, Vargo. I was going to take ash and go into the dream after it.”
Ash. Sickness rose in Grey’s throat. For Ren to do that, after her experiences before—
But she’d said she was going to. “What happened?”
A brief sound rose from her. “Vargo went in before I could. To spare me from it. But he got stuck, so I went in, too—not with ash. There was a woman, a szorsa’s szekani—” She shook her head. “We got it back from the zlyzen. Vargo did. Then he gave it to me.”
The tight knot of unease unbound itself. But—zlyzen. Grey risked laying one hand on her arm. What he wanted to do was to fold her into his embrace, until his warmth drove away the cold shadows haunting her.
For a heartbeat Ren leaned into his touch; then she flinched away. “I’m sorry,” Grey said, withdrawing.
The sound she made was nearly a cry. “I— Tanaquis had to uncurse Vargo, because he’d had the medallion. She saw Tricat. And she recognized…”
Her pupils were wide in the dim light, drowning in fear. “It’s a Primordial. A’ash, the Primordial of desire. That’s where the Tyrant’s medallions get their power. What taints people—what taints me—it’s—it’s—”
Grey recoiled. Only the Rook’s leash on his thoughts kept him from breaking as Ren was. A Primordial? If the zlyzen were a child’s nightmare, then Primordials were the darkest fears of an entire people. Fiavla, the Ižranyi… A Primordial had consumed them both. At least Kaius Rex had been a man. Primordials were beyond understanding or control.
Except. If what Ren said was true, the two were intertwined through the medallions.
You’re not tainted, Grey wanted to tell her. But he knew that for a lie, more than anyone save perhaps Ryvček. He had memories two centuries long of watching that taint spread and destroy. Fiavla had fallen in eleven nights of howling madness. Nadežra sank as slow and silent as a drowning man.
“We’ll destroy it,” he promised, his breathing uneven. “We’ll figure out a way.”
Her head jerked in an approximation of a nod. “We must. But—these things. They affect the mind. The emotions. You told me yourself, people who have medallions, by their own desires they are consumed. If that is true…” Sickness twisted her expression. “How can I trust myself? Circumstances brought me back to Nadežra, against my choice. But when we landed here, it seemed natural that I should take what I deserved—what I wanted—from this city. Get revenge for what it had done to me. Just like the Traementis used to seek revenge. And to do it, I infiltrated their family. Would I have done that, if I had not the Tricat medallion?”
Tears trembled along her lashes, on the verge of spilling as she looked at him. In a whisper, she said, “Even wanting you. Is what I feel for you real… or is even that desire poisoned by this thing?”
She’d flinched away from his offer of comfort; now he realized why. Ren saw lies everywhere she looked. Her many lives had been built on them. For her, truth was a thinner thread than the one he’d used to pull her out of Ažerais’s Dream, during Veiled Waters.
Veiled Waters. When she’d lost the medallion.
They’d been dancing around this attraction for months, in all their various guises… but its start could be traced back to a fraught night in a kitchen cellar. After Tricat had been lost to the dream.
He leaned forward. “Felt you anything for me back when I investigated you? Or perhaps that has only begun this evening?” The shake of her head was small, but unhesitating. “Then how can it not be real?”
Grey offered his hand, another rope to lift her away from the nightmare. “If you cannot trust yourself, then trust me. My feelings for you go far beyond mere wanting… and I’ve never heard that love is a Primordial’s domain.”
Now the tears spilled. Ren looked at his hand—then at Grey—then flung herself at him hard enough that she almost overturned his chair.
He wrapped his
arms around her, held her close, the way he’d wanted to for so long. Ren curled against his chest, shaking, as Grey drew her legs over his so he could cradle her in his lap. He stroked her hair and whispered soothing words in Vraszenian, the sound of that language flowing over them both like warm water, washing away the fear.
There was still plenty to be afraid of. But not what they felt for each other.
When Ren shifted, he let her stand. She yanked at her coat, opening the buttons, then stripped it off and hurled it into the corner; the muffled thunk as it landed told him why. The medallion must be in its pocket.
Dragging Grey to his feet, Ren cupped his face in her hands, her gaze searching his with a wordless question.
He answered it as best he could, lips brushing hers, catching the gasp as they parted. And then holding firm as she fell into the kiss.
For the first few heartbeats it was comforting. Soft, soothing, the two of them melting against one another. But the heat between them had been building for too long to stay banked. Somehow they made it past the chair without tripping; their blind journey up the stairs was more bumped elbows and hissed breaths than grace. Grey’s arms got trapped between his back and the bedroom door, his wrists bound by coat sleeves. Ren’s breath on his neck gave way to tongue, then teeth. Her legs parted around his thigh, and he managed to struggle free of his coat so he could pull her flush against him. The landing echoed with their shared moan.
“We are not doing this standing up,” Grey whispered into her cheek.
“You’re the one who stopped.” Her breath dragged shivers in its wake.
“I’m trying to recall how doors work.”
Her giggle remade him. He’d spoken of love earlier, but it was that soft sound curling between them that took root and twined the three parts of his soul into one certainty.
He was so lost in the warmth, the scent, the weight of her draped against him that they almost fell when she reached past and lifted the latch. Grey managed to guide their stagger across to the bed instead.
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