The Defiant Heir

by Melissa Caruso

  I held little illusion it would be that easy. But I nodded, too weary to argue.

  “Zaira,” I asked, the words slow and heavy on my tongue, “do you want me to release you?”

  She blinked. “What, right now? Given up on diplomacy already? That was quick.”

  “Graces, no.” I held out my cold hands toward the fire, the one homey thing in this mad place. “But we’re in Vaskandar. We’re in danger every moment. I don’t want us both to die because I couldn’t say the release word in time. And more to the point”—I met her eyes—“the Serene Empire’s laws don’t reach here. It’s your magic. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be the one in control of it.”

  “Damn right there’s no reason.” But then she bit her lip. For a long moment, there was silence, save for the crackle of the fire and the occasional skitter of claws on the floor outside.

  Finally, she let out a long breath. “I’m going to be under a lot of temptation to violence in this place.”

  “You’ve got a lifetime of practice resisting that temptation. And if you lose control, I can always reseal you.” I shrugged, trying to sound more casual than I felt. This wasn’t what my mother would do; I could almost feel her disapproving gaze on me, across the miles. “It’s up to you.”

  Zaira paced over to the hearth and leaned on the mantel, staring into the fire. Then she turned to face me, back straight, eyes shining as if the reflection of the flames still danced there.

  “Hells, yes,” she said. “Do it.”

  I closed my eyes. “Exsolvo,” I whispered.

  I flinched from the word, bracing myself. But nothing happened. After a moment, I blinked my eyes back open.

  Zaira stood there, her palms open as if waiting to catch rain. But they were empty. She flexed her fingers, and a grin spread over her face.

  “Demons bless me, that’s better. Like taking off a corset.”

  I grimaced as guilt pinched me. “I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner.”

  “Hmph. Well, the way things are going, by the time we get back to the Empire I’ll be ready for a break from burning things for a while.” She gave me an odd look, then, frowning as if something about me annoyed her.

  “What?” I asked. “Is there something on my face?”

  “No.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “I caught myself being glad you could stop me if I lose control. I hate it when I have to admit you have your uses.”

  “Thank you,” I said dryly.

  I bent to give my injured leg a tender poke. The salve sped up healing considerably, but it still ached after all the walking I’d been doing. My arm hurt, too. If I’d been at home, I’d have felt terribly sorry for myself, and would have stayed in bed reading all day to rest. But now I was far more concerned with how much my limp might slow us if we had to flee from this place.

  Claws scuttled in the hall, and a knock sounded at the door. I levered myself to my feet; Zaira rolled her shoulders, ready to fight.

  I opened the door, stepping back and to the side, just in case.

  Terika stood there, pale as paper, her eyes nestled in deep purple hollows as if she hadn’t slept since we’d seen her last. Her curly hair was a dull tangle, and dirt streaked her clothes. Ruven stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder, smiling as if he’d given us a splendid present.

  “Terika!” Zaira started forward, then checked herself. “Are you all right?”

  Terika nodded, a stiff jerk of a motion. “I’m fine.”

  “Ah, such a happy reunion,” Ruven sighed. “See? Your friend is well. We haven’t been mistreating her. Have we?”

  Terika shook her head. But her eyes stayed locked urgently on Zaira’s, as if willing her to understand what she couldn’t say.

  “Then you’ll allow her to leave with us?” I countered.

  Ruven shrugged, his eyes gleaming. “If she wishes. Terika, do you want to leave with them, and go back to the Mews?”

  Terika’s lips tightened. She hesitated, then slowly shook her head again. “No. I want to stay here. I … like it here.”

  Zaira hissed, as if she were a snake chimera herself. “You can’t possibly like this Hell pit. I’ll believe you don’t want to go back to the Mews, but not that you want to stay here.”

  Ruven laughed, as if it delighted him to hear his home called a Hell pit. “But you see, there are certain advantages to being my guest. Show them, Terika.”

  Obediently, Terika lifted her hands between us, as if to ward off harm.

  Her wrists were bare.

  Zaira caught one in her hand. “Demon’s piss. He did that to you? Slid your jess off through your wrist? Did you ask him to?”

  My stomach turned queasily at the memory of Ruven’s knife pushing through his guard’s wrist as if it were butter, when he showed Zaira how he could set her free. By the look of horror in Terika’s eyes, she was remembering, too.

  But she said, her voice flat, “He did it to help me.”

  Zaira swore and turned away, her shoulders rigid.

  “Tell her,” Ruven urged Terika softly.

  “I’m glad to be free.” The words fell from Terika’s mouth like lead musket balls, lifeless and heavy. “You should let him remove yours, too. Then we could be free together.”

  From where I stood, I could see the corner of Zaira’s eye. A faint blue light gleamed there, as if a spark had kindled deep within, and my stomach dropped. I’d picked the wrong time to release her.

  I stepped forward but didn’t take Terika’s hand—not with Ruven’s on her shoulder. I couldn’t take the chance of giving his powers a bridge to reach me. “I’m glad you’re well,” I said, my voice bright and false. Terika’s eyes pulled away from Zaira and caught mine, haunted and pleading. “We were worried about you. But you look as if you haven’t bathed or slept.”

  Ruven sighed. “Alas, I fear she had quite a harrowing day yesterday. I’m sure she’ll take better care of herself today. Won’t you?”

  Terika held my gaze. “If you wish it.”

  “Please do.” I wished I dared hold her hand or give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We don’t want to leave here until we’re sure you’re safe and happy.”

  Terika’s cheeks tightened, and her eyes shone with suppressed tears or fury.

  “Never fear,” Ruven assured me. “You can stay here as many nights as you wish. In fact, I am certain your stay will be a long and pleasant one.”

  He reached out, quick as a striking snake, and brushed a hand down my cheek while I was distracted by Terika. I jumped back; lingering magic prickled and burned my skin. I raised a hand to my face and felt heat there, as from a slap or a sunburn. But it could just have been my own red rage.

  “Prince Ruven,” I said coldly, “I had thought you a gentleman.”

  Ruven laughed. “My, my. So jumpy, Lady Amalia! I will not further offend your sensibilities. Now, Terika here is tired, and I suspect she’d love the chance to bathe and eat. Wouldn’t you?”

  Terika stared miserably at us. Her head barely moved in the requisite nod. Zaira spun back to face Ruven; the blue gleam was gone from her eyes, thank the Graces, but the look she gave him was no less lethal.

  “By the Nine Hells,” she said, biting off each word, “I swear to you, you’ll answer for this.”

  Ruven placed a hand on his chest. “Me?” he protested. “All I’ve done, Lady Zaira, is set her free.” He bowed. “Now, if you’ll excuse us. Good night, my ladies, and pleasant dreams.”

  Terika stared with mute desperation at Zaira, but Ruven shut the door between them.

  There came the unmistakable sound of a key turning in a lock. Then two sets of footsteps receded down the corridor.

  Zaira snatched a candlestick off a nearby table and hurled it at the door. “Hells take you, you pox-faced bilge rat!”

  A hiss sounded from the hallway. Claws scraped at the door, dragging into the wood.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  We waited for nightfall. I understood the need for the
castle to settle into sleep, and for all the servants and soldiers who might otherwise spot us creeping around the castle to go to their beds; but every minute we spent in this place of madness and dread was a loss I felt in my bones. Soon, Bree and the captain at Highpass would realize something had prevented us from making it home from Vaskandar, and they would have to decide what to do about it. What’s more, after I swallowed down an anise-scented evening dose of my elixir, I was halfway through my emergency supply; if we met more complications on the way to my luggage in Highpass, the few hours we delayed now could make the difference between life and death.

  Zaira chafed at the inactivity even more than I did, pacing the furs and muttering curses on Ruven, his father, and their entire nation. Finally, she flopped down in a chair by the fire, staring broodingly into it.

  “Look at us,” she said. “Stuck in a Witch Lord’s castle, with a dozen people dead to get us here, and for what?”

  “We got Bree out,” I said quietly. “And we’ll rescue Terika, too.” I hesitated, then added something I’d been thinking about over the past hour or two as I watched the colors fade from the world outside our window. “Also, this is an incredible chance to gather information. We should see if there’s any spying we can safely do before we leave.”

  “I suppose we might as well. We’re just as buggered either way.”

  “Well, at least we’re together.” I said it with an edge of irony but then discovered I meant it. I shifted my leg off the stool I’d propped it on, leaning toward her. “I’d be terrified if you weren’t here with me.”

  Zaira snorted. “Always nice to have the ‘set everything on fire’ fallback plan.”

  “No, not because you’re a fire warlock. Because …” I struggled for the words, and then couldn’t keep the disbelief out of my voice once I found them. “Because for some peculiar reason, I find you reassuring. As a person.”

  Zaira blinked at me. “You’re mad.”

  “Well, perhaps. But you keep a cool head in a crisis.” I shrugged. “And you’re good company, once one learns to overlook all the foul language and personal remarks.”

  She laughed. “And you’re better than an infected tooth, I suppose. When I can ignore your rich brat airs and general obliviousness.”

  I tried a tentative smile. “We make a good team, you know.”

  “We do.” Zaira lifted her brows, as if the discovery surprised her. Then she nodded decisively and surged to her feet, glancing out the window at the moonlit sky. “All right. It’s late enough. Let’s do this.”

  I rose, shedding the exhaustion that had overtaken me. My leg took my weight with far less pain than it had earlier. “I have no doubt you can pick the lock,” I said, “but do you have a plan for dealing with those chimeras?”

  “No.” She threw open the window, letting in a blast of frigid air. Then she tied up her skirt and hoisted a leg over the sill. “But I have a plan for not dealing with the chimeras. How good are you at climbing?”

  I watched with growing alarm as she swung her other leg out as well, twisting to stand braced on something I couldn’t see. “Ah, I’ve never really had occasion to try.”

  Zaira shook her head in disbelief. “Graces grant me patience. Never tried? Did you spend your entire childhood sitting in a fancy chair reading books?”

  “Well—”

  “Don’t answer that.” She sighed and shifted her grip on the window edges, seeming at ease as if she stood on flat ground. “You can either come with me and try to learn quickly, or you can stay there and rot. It’s not far, it’s not hard, and if you fall from this height you’ll break both your legs but probably not die.”

  “You make it sound so delightful.” I swallowed and pulled off my boots, stuffing them in my satchel. “I’ll give it a try. I don’t mind heights, at least.”

  Getting out the window was the scariest part. Zaira talked me through it with surprising patience, coaxing my bare toes down onto a curving woody ledge—the top of Ruven’s mother’s lattice. The arch of the vine gave slightly under my feet, but it was strong and smooth as polished wood.

  I clung there, my freezing toes hooked over the vine, grabbing on to the edges of the window tight enough to make my fingers ache. A cold night wind raked my back and stirred my hair, and Kathe’s claws rattled on my chest. I didn’t look down, but there was only open air behind me, with none of the close shadows of looming pines. Stars teased at the corners of my eyes.

  Grace of Mercy, what would my mother think if she could see me now?

  The idea shook my shoulders with laughter. For a wild moment, I felt strangely free, as if I could leap away from the side of the castle and soar off into the night.

  Then a howl rose from the forest, not far off. The wolf pack, hunting. I pressed myself against the cold stone of the castle wall.

  Zaira guided me across to the next window, offering a hand to steady me for the last gap before I could grab the stone molding of the window frame. We peered in on another guest room, empty, its hearth dark. We inched along past two more windows, my bare feet aching in the icy air and my cheek pressed close against the castle wall, as Zaira muttered instructions and encouragement. Then we climbed into a third guest room, this one on a corner. I dropped to my knees, hands buried in the fur rug, arms trembling.

  “Oh, get up. You’re pathetic.” Zaira nudged my ribs with her foot.

  “Forgive me if my education lacked climbing practice.” I heaved myself back to my feet. “I shall have to write a stern letter to the university.”

  Zaira listened at the door of the darkened guest room. “The chimeras shouldn’t be able to see us from here,” she said softly, “but they might hear us. I don’t know how good their ears are. I’m betting on them following orders and staying by the door, and being too stupid to figure out we’re not in there anymore. If they’re smarter than they look, we could be in trouble.”

  “We could be in trouble anyway, I suspect.” I pulled on my boots. “Let’s see if we can spy on Ruven and the Wolf Lord. We won’t have another chance like this.”

  Zaira grunted. “Only if it doesn’t slow us down too much. I want to get Terika out of here.”

  “Out into the forest full of wolves, chimeras, and assorted other unknown horrors, where the trees themselves could start trying to kill us at any time?”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  I sighed. “No. Very well. Lead on.”

  She eased open the door. I tried to step quietly as I crept down the lamp-lit hallway behind her, but by the glares she shot back over her shoulder, I had mixed success at best. Every nerve in my body ached with the expectation that chimeras would bound after us at any minute, fangs dripping venom, but so far all seemed quiet.

  “Where do you think Ruven and his father are?” I whispered near Zaira’s ear, irrationally afraid the Wolf Lord would somehow hear. But then, with vivomancy as strong as his, he might well already be listening to the racing beat of my heart.

  “With arrogance like theirs? The throne room,” Zaira muttered, and headed for the center of the castle.

  Soon, one wall of the hallway turned to a balcony railing ahead, and I recognized the high arching ceiling of the great throne hall. Sure enough, voices drifted up from below.

  Told you, Zaira mouthed, smirking. Holding my breath, I crouched with her at the end of the wall to listen.

  “… worked well enough with the others.” That was Ruven’s unmistakable tenor. “It matters little that they’re suspicious. All living things must eat and drink, no?”

  I edged forward until I could peer between the balusters. Below us, the Wolf Lord sprawled in his throne, regarding his son from under heavy gray eyebrows. Ruven leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, his black coat falling back from his shoulders.

  “And then what?” Contempt laced his father’s deep, rumbling voice. “If you think a potion will be enough to make that fire witch docile, you haven’t looked in her eyes.”

  I could feel
Zaira thrumming with anger beside me and had to agree with the Wolf Lord.

  “Think of the advantage it would give us,” Ruven pressed, stepping away from his pillar. “No one could stand against us—not the Serene Empire, not the other Witch Lords. You have nothing to lose by giving my plan a chance—”

  “I did not become the Wolf Lord of Kazerath by giving people chances.” His tone froze Ruven where he stood. Even up on the balcony, a chill settled in my spine. “I judge your plans on their own merits, boy, and this one is folly.”

  “Folly?” Ruven’s voice held an edge less smooth than I’d ever heard it. Fear? Hatred? Or merely frustration that his father couldn’t understand his vision? I’d never thought what it must have been like for him, growing up in a Witch Lord’s household. “When have my ideas served you anything but well? It was I who won you the alliance of the Lady of Thorns—”

  “An alliance that is of little use.” The Wolf Lord cut him off. “She intends to use you to get a domain for her daughter and cast you aside without one of your own.”

  Her daughter. A shiver of recognition raced across my shoulders. Kathe had said the Lady of Thorns’ daughter was dying. That must be why she wanted land so badly—to get a domain for her daughter and grant her the immortality of a Witch Lord, so that she could live forever.

  “I am giving you the measureless destructive power of a volcano,” Ruven insisted. I strained closer. “Mount Whitecrown will cast your reach farther than any Witch Lord before you. No one else in Eruvia could have taken the magic of the Empire and wound our power through it the way I have. If you would only listen to me—”

  “Enough.” The Wolf Lord cut him off with a growl that set the stone of the castle to rumbling. I cringed beneath the force of that one word. But Ruven stood before it, hands in fists at his sides. “When you’ve carved out a piece of land from the Empire and claimed it with your own blood, you can make all the moon-mad plans you want. Until then, in your mother’s memory, I may choose to allow your twisted schemes—but only when they’ll get you out of my domain faster. Enough, Ruven.”