The Defiant Heir

by Melissa Caruso

  “I’ll take the best salve you’ve got for healing deep cuts,” I said fervently. “Also, forgive me, but I can’t help thinking you look familiar. Do you perchance know Piero da Idrante?”

  Recognition kindled in the trader’s eyes. “Why, I believe I do. I met him once in Palova, during the Festival of Bounty.”

  He knew the pass phrases. Relief flooded me; it was as if the Serene City herself had thrown a line into the dark drowning water for me. If I recalled correctly from what my mother had taught me, the Festival of Bounty meant a low-level spy, but he would do.

  I gave him my most charming smile. “Ah, I thought so. I saw him just yesterday. He asked me, if I saw you, to see if you could get a message to his Aunt Mirabella.”

  Zaira had stopped eating, and stared at us in fascination. The trader looked positively faint; Aunt Mirabella was a high-level emergency code he’d probably never heard outside of training, and indicated he should drop everything and act immediately.

  “Of course,” he said. “Where is Aunt Mirabella these days?”

  “I believe she’s staying at the fortress of Highpass. I know it’s late, but I’m really hoping to get Piero’s message to her tonight.” I dropped a fistful of ducats on the table, just to show him I meant business. “Do you think you could do that?”

  The spy swallowed. “It’s dangerous traveling through Vaskandar at night, but for Aunt Mirabella, I’d do anything. What’s the message?”

  “Tell her that my companion and I are fine.” I gestured to Zaira, who grinned at the poor man in a most unnerving fashion. “Let her know we’re running a bit late because we ran into a delay on the road and we’ve decided to stay here overnight, but we don’t need any help and should be able to make it home without any difficulties tomorrow. Tell her we don’t want any fuss, or it’ll spoil the surprise.”

  The trader frowned slightly, clearly trying to work out what could be so urgent about this information. He took in the embroidery on my coat, the claws hanging from my neck, and finally the pile of ducats before him. The man was no idiot; he made the connection, and his eyes widened until they looked nearly ready to pop out of his head.

  “My lady,” he choked. But his expression became composed again almost at once, and he swept the money into his bag. “You can count on me, my lady. I’ll see that Aunt Mirabella receives your message tonight.”

  “Thank you,” I said fervently. “Grace of Luck go with you.”

  When he was gone, Zaira dropped her voice to a mysterious whisper and said to me, “The heron flies at midnight. The black dog craps on the palace floor.”

  “Oh, hush. It worked, didn’t it?” I sank back into my chair, letting the haze of exhaustion and pain claim me again now that I’d accomplished my pressing task.

  “I guess we’ll know for sure when we wake up tomorrow and find out whether we’re at war.”

  Not long after that, Zaira asked the innkeeper to show us to our beds. I paid him several times the worth of the room and dinner, which he took with wide-eyed horror, as if it were cursed gold from a ghost story. He then conducted us to the best room in the inn: it had a feather bed and down-stuffed quilt for Zaira, and a cot for me.

  As soon as the innkeeper bowed his way out of the room, Zaira dragged the cot across the door. Then she checked the window and pronounced it not too high to jump from in a pinch.

  I didn’t care. I could barely keep my eyes open while Zaira helped me smear on the alchemical salve the trader had given us and change the dressing on my arm and leg. Chances were good they’d murder us while we slept, or chimeras would crawl in the unwarded window, but I was too tired to worry anymore. We were in enemy territory, in grave danger—but there was a bed here.

  I fell into my cot like a drunkard off a bridge and sank into a deep lagoon of sleep.

  I woke to something soft thumping onto my chest. I sat up spluttering and reached for my dagger, sure it was an attack; but instead Zaira stood over me, smirking in the thin rosy light of dawn.

  She tossed another bundle at me. This one was warm and smelled deliciously of fresh-baked bread. The first, on a closer look, was a change of clothing.

  “The innkeeper’s up baking, so I got these for you,” she said. “And an earful of blather. The man can’t stop talking.”

  I blinked out the window at the stark black shapes of the mountains looming against the dusky apricot sky, Mount Whitecrown rearing behind them in dawn-ghosted glory. Reality sank in like snowmelt against bare skin, icy and unwelcome: we were still in Vaskandar. The dead soldiers, the whiphounds, our own terrible predicament—this was the hand we’d been dealt, and a new day wouldn’t let us shuffle it back into the deck. We had to play it out somehow.

  “Did you learn anything?” I asked wearily.

  “A way home, maybe. Sounds like a smuggler’s path. We have to slip past a castle to get there, but it’s not close to the road, so that shouldn’t be a problem.” Zaira sat on the edge of her bed. Deep shadows under her eyes suggested she hadn’t slept much last night; with a twist of guilt, I realized she’d probably kept watch. “How’s your leg? Up for some climbing?”

  “Let’s see.” I unwound the bandages from my leg and braced myself for the worst, but the salve had done its work. The bleeding had stopped, and the ragged gashes the claws had left on the outside of my calf seemed a bit smaller. It hurt far less, too. “Could be worse.”

  “Good,” Zaira said gruffly. “I’d hate to have to put you down like a horse with a broken leg.”

  My lips twitched. “I’ve seen you with dogs. You’d never shoot a horse.”

  “Hells, no. I’m not a monster. But people are worse than horses.”

  A few heartbeats of silence passed between us. It was long enough for the sick ache in my chest to swell painfully, remembering blood and death and sacrifice.

  “Thank you for not leaving me,” I said at last.

  Zaira shrugged. “It was one of your dumber ideas. You might be a blister on my arse sometimes, but you’d be even more worthless dead.”

  I smiled to acknowledge the compliment. From Zaira, that was all but a declaration of undying sisterhood.

  We came downstairs to find a strange sight: three cradles sitting near the hearth in the gray morning light, and the innkeeper rocking one and shushing the thin wail coming from it. He sprang up at once when we entered the room, bustling over and bowing as the infant’s cry gathered strength behind him.

  “My lady, my lady. Sorry about the noise and the, ah, clutter.”

  Zaira stared in astonishment. “Why are there babies in your tavern?”

  “They took everyone young enough and able-bodied for the army, you know.” The innkeeper scuttled back a few steps and reached out a practiced foot to rock the cradle behind him; the baby’s cry gentled to a discontented gurgle. “But the Wolf Lord in his mercy decreed that nursing mothers could stay home with their children. The Lady of Thorns made no such allowance for our neighbors in Sevaeth, so we are truly grateful.” His hand flicked out from his chest. “But there’s no one left to do the work, and we’ve got a lot to do to get ready for winter. So I’m watching the little ones while their mothers cut and haul firewood and make preserves, with help from the children old enough to walk and the grandparents. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

  A pang in my chest twisted so sharply it shut off speech.

  “No, that’s fine.” Zaira waved off any need for apology. “Take care of the brats.”

  Graces preserve the families here. If Vaskandar’s armies marched through the passes, it would be these babies’ families facing Zaira’s balefire and Istrella’s weapons. All because their lord forced them away from their own homes and children.

  A sick sympathy weighed down my gut. I wished I could stay here and help those poor exhausted mothers in the fields, or force out the petty bully whose vivomancy had given him power over these people. But too much depended on us making it back to the Empire.

  Zaira and I stepped o
utside the inn to find the village just as deserted as it had been at night; from what the innkeeper had said, what few people remained must be working in the woods or the kitchens. The subdued morning light picked out details I’d missed in the darkness, like deep scores of claw marks on the doors of houses and broken shutters gnawed at the edges. Without all the warm lights that had driven back the darkness, the huddle of houses looked gray and desolate. A light dusting of snow covered the fields; not enough to drown them in pure white, but enough to make flecks of black earth show through stark and barren in the steep furrows.

  Our breath frosted in the cold air, but water dripped from the eaves of the inn; the sun was warming up the world, and the snow wouldn’t last. Back in Raverra, the leaves would just be falling, and fine ladies would complain of the chill forcing them to cover their arms; it wouldn’t snow for another two months, if at all. I drew my soft leather gloves from my satchel and pulled them on.

  Zaira didn’t seem to feel the cold. She looked about her with bright eyes, her cheeks rosy. “It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Then her face fell. “I wish Terika were here to see it with us.”

  “We’ll get her back,” I murmured. But the sick feeling in my stomach and the memory of Lienne’s bloodstained body belied my words. We would be hard-pressed to make it home alive ourselves, and Terika was running out of time.

  The black castle loomed over the forested valley at the crest of a low foothill, rearing black towers like unsheathed claws against the cloudy sky. It crouched on the hill’s uneven, rocky crest like a creature that had settled there only for a moment before springing down on prey below.

  It bore no resemblance to the practical, efficient military fortresses of the Empire, with room for thousands of troops and battlements lined with cannons. Nor did it evoke the dainty façades of Raverran palaces, with their sugar-spun stonework, built as homes for wealthy aristocrats. Its towers were too slender and its windows too wide to be useful for defense, but its jagged lines shaped rather a forbidding profile for an inviting retreat built to entertain guests. And it wasn’t large enough to shelter an army or an extensive noble court, but no town lay at its feet either.

  It made no sense. Someone had built that castle not to serve a need or purpose, but because they felt like it. Someone who didn’t need walls, armies, or wards to protect what was theirs.

  As we came directly beneath it, the trees around us stirred in a nonexistent wind. A squirrel with black ear tufts stared down at us from a branch, unblinking. All the small sounds of the forest fell silent. My stomach tightened almost to the point of nausea, remembering the change that had come over the woods in Sevaeth before the chimera attack.

  “Zaira,” I muttered, “Do you get the feeling someone knows we’re here?”

  But she wasn’t by my side anymore. She had stopped and was staring at the road that wound a scar up the side of the hill to the castle.

  “She’s up there,” she said. “Terika.”

  “You don’t know that,” I protested, alarmed at the determined look in her eyes.

  “Where else would they take her?”

  “Zaira—”

  “I know.” She bit off the words. “We can’t kick in the door and burn the place down to find her. It would start a war, I’d just get everyone killed, all that mealy-mouthed stuff you like to spit.”

  “Well, it’s true.”

  “Demon’s piss, I know.” She whirled on me, fury and pain mixed on her face. “But what sort of jellyfish am I if I walk past that place, knowing she’s probably right there and needs my help?”

  “A live one,” I said.

  A sound broke through the rustling of the leaves: hooves. Horses approaching on the road ahead.

  “You there!” a commanding voice called.

  “Bollocks,” Zaira muttered.

  Tendrils of panic unfurled in my stomach as a handful of uniformed and mounted soldiers rounded a bend in the road ahead. The officer in the lead spurred ahead to meet us, frowning, one hand on his pistol. Zaira straightened with the lazy grace of a cat rising from sleep; I could feel the dangerous readiness in her stance.

  I forced a smile and waved. “Hello!”

  The officer reined to a halt before us. “What is your business here?”

  “We’re passing through on our way to visit my friend Kathe, the Crow Lord of Let.” I tapped the claws on my chest.

  The officer straightened, eyes widening at the sight of Kathe’s token. But then he frowned, examining us more closely. “You’re going the wrong way. Who—” He broke off, paled, and saluted Zaira. “My lady! Forgive me. I didn’t mean to show disrespect. I didn’t see the mark in your eyes.”

  “Since it was an honest mistake, I won’t kill you for it,” Zaira said magnanimously.

  The officer bowed, as best he could from horseback; the other soldiers followed suit. “You look weary from the road, honored lady. Let me escort you to the castle for hospitality and rest.”

  Something was wrong. The way the soldiers exchanged glances; the way the trees whispered to each other; the way a trio of sparrows gazed down at us from a nearby tree branch. We needed to get out of here. But we couldn’t outrun soldiers on horseback, and the woods were no safe place to hide.

  Zaira waved off the invitation. “That’s quite all right. We’ve got places to be. On your way.”

  The soldier bowed again, almost touching his nose to the saddle. “Please, great lady. You would surely not risk offense by refusing my lord’s hospitality. I must insist.”

  Zaira glanced up at the castle, and longing entered her eyes. I knew she was thinking of Terika. And she heard the steel in his voice as well as I did; if we didn’t want to turn this into a fight, we had no choice.

  “Oh, all right,” she said airily. “I’ll stop by for a quick drink, but then I must go.”

  The officer nodded with obvious relief. “As you say, great lady.”

  The mounted soldiers fell in around us, and we started up the road to the castle. I exchanged worried glances with Zaira. She mouthed, Now what?

  I shook my head. “We keep bluffing,” I whispered, “and hope the local nobility don’t realize who’s dropped in for tea.”

  The castle loomed above us, black against the muffled light of the clouds, magnificent with jagged asymmetry. Its balcony railings made me think of bones or antlers, and its battlements resembled teeth. The road curved before it to form a circular drive; at the center of the circle stood a tree with drooping, willowlike branches, its leaves the color of orchids. A garden of bushes and small trees spread out around the castle, some with sickly-sweet blooms in shades of deep violet, all twisted into clawing shapes.

  What I had thought were statues flanking the castle steps moved, and I realized they were great gray wolves. Their yellow eyes stared at us, watchful, as we approached, and some deep instinct raised all the tiny hairs on my spine.

  Wolves. The Wolf Lord of Kazerath. Oh, Hells.

  I threw Zaira a panicked glance, but she frowned, uncomprehending. Then the soldiers escorted us up to the massive black doors, and they swung open before us, and it was too late.

  A grand entryway swallowed us, all done in black and gray marble, with high, vaulted ceilings and a sweeping double staircase. The curve of the two sets of stairs and the balcony above framed an archway into a soaring hall, lined with tall, narrow windows and forested with slender columns—all focused on a throne at the far end, which dominated the hall in its spiky, asymmetrical glory. It might have been artfully crafted from a thousand real bones, so far as I could tell, if bones were jet black and bent to the hand like willow branches.

  If you were a Witch Lord, maybe they did.

  Our hosts stood waiting for us, framed in the archway. The one I assumed was the Wolf Lord of Kazerath wore a grizzled fur cloak that swept down to the floor, and had hair to match; if he shaved, he did so infrequently. A hard light shone in his eyes, which bore a mage mark white as winter. There was a broad power in his shoulder
s, and I had no doubt his scarred hands knew well how to use the broadsword sheathed at his side.

  Beside him, holding a wineglass as if we’d just interrupted them over drinks, stood a genteel figure in a black leather coat with a high collar and jagged purple embroidery, his sleek blond hair pulled back in a long ponytail. A smile spread across his face at the sight of us, delighted and incredulous, as if we were the most wonderful thing he’d seen all year.

  “Well, well. Welcome to my family’s castle, Lady Amalia Cornaro,” said Prince Ruven.

  Chapter Twenty

  Such a delicious surprise.” Prince Ruven swept into a graceful bow. His wine barely tipped in its glass. “And Lady Zaira,” he added. “What auspicious guests. We are honored to have you.”

  I returned a bow, stiff and formal, my heart and mind stumbling over each other to see which could race faster. “We were in the area, and it seemed rude not to visit.”

  At my side, Zaira’s hands clenched and unclenched. Grace of Mercy, the last thing I needed was for her to punch Ruven in the jaw for stealing Terika. Especially when we had no surety whatsoever that he’d actually done so.

  But she let out the breathless laugh she saved for people she held in the highest contempt and dropped him a curtsy. “Charmed. So very charmed, you have no idea.”

  Ruven gestured grandly to the fur-cloaked man at his side, who regarded us with the cold stare of a predator deciding whether we were dinner. “Allow me to introduce my father, the Wolf Lord of Kazerath.”

  A glib reply died on my tongue. There was old blood in his gaze, bound by those white circles. Rivers of it. I could feel the power coming off him like steam; it was different than the electric energy Kathe radiated—a deep, murky lake rather than a clear, bright stream, or thunder to Kathe’s lightning. The stone floor beneath my feet felt insubstantial compared to his presence.