The Defiant Heir

by Melissa Caruso

  Ruven must have heard the danger in his father’s voice. But he stepped forward anyway, the mage mark flashing violet in his eyes. “You will win this war with the Empire because of my ‘twisted schemes’! If you throw aside my plans simply because I choose methods more complicated than brute force, you’re a fool.”

  Outside, wolves howled.

  A rustling and groaning stirred along the castle walls, and a hundred black claws reached in through the windows—the vines of the decorative lattice, grown sharp as spears and creeping into the hall. The air thickened until my temples pulsed with the weight of power. Zaira sucked in a breath at my side. I flattened myself on the floor, filled with the sudden terror of a rabbit in a hawk’s shadow, sure we’d been seen.

  But the Wolf Lord didn’t move from his relaxed slouch. The white rings of the mage mark in his eyes stayed fixed on Ruven.

  “Are you challenging me, pup?” he asked, his voice deadly soft. “Here, in my own domain?”

  “I?” Ruven laughed, a sound sharp as spilled nails. “I have not yet taken leave of my senses. You are the Witch Lord of Kazerath. I am merely your son.”

  The Wolf Lord held his gaze, unrelenting. Finally, Ruven bowed, his spine stiff, deep enough to bend himself nearly double.

  “That’s right,” his father growled. “Don’t forget it, Ruven. Not for a minute.”

  The pressure in the air eased. The vines slithered back through the windows, resuming their decorative shapes. Zaira caught my eyes and mimed wiping sweat from her brow. I blew out a nervous breath.

  Grace of Mercy. And I thought my relationship with my mother was complicated.

  We moved away from the balcony as swiftly as silence would allow. Zaira caught my gaze and shook her head, her own eyes white-rimmed. My pulse still carried a searing thrill through my body, the instinctive dread of a hunted animal.

  We needed to get out of here. But we needed to find Terika first.

  Of all the rooms along the shadow-girdled hallway, two showed the warm glow of firelight beneath. In a mountain castle without the benefit of artifice to heat it, I rather doubted any room without a fire would be occupied. Zaira and I crept closer to the first lit door; she applied her eye to the keyhole, and I bent down to peer under it.

  The room within wasn’t quite as fine or spacious as ours and held only one bed, though it was still draped in purple velvet and furs. A clutter of possessions suggested this room had a permanent occupant: an easel with a half-finished painting, shelves with jars of paint and brushes and all manner of art supplies, a bookcase, a pair of muskets with fancy engraving hanging on the wall. A red-haired boy of perhaps fourteen years sat in a chair by the fire, reading a book.

  I frowned. His abundant freckles suggested Callamornish ancestry, but this was the room of a pampered young nobleman, not that of a prisoner. I exchanged glances with Zaira; she shook her head, I shrugged, and we moved on.

  At the next door, I didn’t even need to peek. Zaira had barely bent to glance through the keyhole when she straightened and nodded, lips pressed together. I watched for any sign of prowling chimeras, wolves, or Witch Lords as Zaira crouched before the lock and got to work—though I wasn’t remotely certain what I planned to do if any showed up.

  It must not have been much of a lock. I’d hardly taken three breaths when she pushed the door open. Terika’s startled voice called, “Who’s—oh!” as Zaira charged into the room.

  By the time I stepped through, they were in each other’s arms, Terika’s head buried in Zaira’s shoulder.

  I closed the door softly behind me and glanced around the room, trying to give them a moment. It was half the size of ours, without the decorative lattice on the walls or the velvet curtains on the bed, but it was still finely appointed, in a hunting lodge sort of way. I couldn’t help but consider it barbaric to use so many pelts as decor; the four bedrooms we’d seen must have held the skins of a few packs of beasts.

  I was prepared to stare at the walls for quite some time, if necessary. But it was only a few minutes before Terika stepped back out of Zaira’s arms.

  “Lienne,” she said urgently. “Is she …”

  I shook my head. Terika pressed her lips together, tears gleaming unshed in her eyes. By the look in them, she hadn’t held much hope.

  “But Bree took the ingredients you gathered back to your village to give to the Highpass alchemist,” I said quickly.

  Terika let out a relieved sigh, her shoulders drooping. “He should be able to make the cure. I don’t think he has the mage mark, but that shouldn’t matter for a simple recipe like that.” She put her hands on her hips, then, and glanced sternly between us. “And what are you two doing here?”

  “Rescuing you, of course.” Zaira grinned.

  “You have to leave,” Terika said urgently.

  Zaira nodded. “Right. Grab anything you need to take with you.”

  Terika pressed her hands over her mouth. “I can’t go with you.”

  “Can’t, or don’t want to?” I asked, eyeing the barely touched dinner and half-empty cup of water on the table in her sitting area.

  “Can’t.” Her eyes flicked to the table, then back to me.

  I closed my hand around her cup. My ring immediately glowed with golden light.

  Zaira clenched her fists in her own hair. “Alchemy. Demons rot it, I don’t know anything about alchemy. Did he give you a mind control potion?”

  Terika shook her head. A bit of the usual spark came back into her eyes. “There’s no such thing as mind control potion. Potions that muddy the mind, yes. Ones that make you suggestible, certainly. But no one’s created a potion that bends someone else’s mind to another’s will.”

  I sank into one of the chairs flanking Terika’s table, thinking. “Can you tell us what you think of Prince Ruven, Terika?”

  “I hate him,” she said immediately, with passion. “He’s a terrible person. He’s done unspeakable things.”

  “Like what?” Zaira clasped her shoulder. “What did he do to you?”

  Terika shook her head. “Nothing. He’s treated me well. I like it here.” She kicked a chair leg, frustration clear on her face. “Damnation!”

  “Hells have mercy.” Zaira threw her hands up. “We don’t need to do this dance. I get it. You can’t tell us. Come with us, and we’ll get you out of here.”

  Terika backed away, her hands lifted. “I can’t! I can’t go with you. If you try to take me with you, I’ll fight you. Please, don’t try.” Real panic strained her voice.

  I passed my hand over Terika’s dinner and frowned as my ring glowed again. “How did a Witch Lord’s son get his hands on so much alchemy?”

  Terika pulled up a chair and sat next to me, nodding eagerly. She said nothing, but her eyes burned imploringly into mine.

  “You wouldn’t have made a potion to slip into your own food,” I said slowly. “So there must be someone else.”

  “Everyone is very happy here,” Terika said, leaning her elbows on her knees. “Everyone.”

  “Grace of Mercy,” I breathed. “Everyone?”

  Terika nodded, vigorously.

  “What is it?” Zara demanded.

  “The murdered Falcons.” I gripped the arms of my chair as the full implications settled in. “They weren’t murdered at all. They’re here.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Terika said triumphantly, squeezing my hand. “There are no other Falcons here.”

  Zaira started pacing. “Oh, I’m going to roast that wretch like a festival pig. So he snatched up Falcons, made it look like he killed them, used his flesh-melting trick to get their jesses off, and gave them some kind of potion to make them have to follow his commands. How many does he have here?”

  Terika shook her hands out, making an annoyed sound behind her closed lips.

  “There are some half dozen unaccounted for, I think,” I said, trying to remember the particulars of the last report I’d heard. “We’ll never sneak out of here
with that many. Especially if he’s ordered them to fight us.” But that still bothered me. I leaned forward, tapping the table. “I don’t understand how you’re compelled. I’ve never heard of any alchemical potion that could force someone to follow commands against their will.” There was the matter that he was exerting vivomancy upon her from afar, too, which wasn’t supposed to work—except for Witch Lords.

  “I’m not compelled. Why would you ever think that?” Terika bit her lip, clearly thinking. Then she said, casually, “Say, didn’t you meet Prince Ruven in a library in Ardence last year, when he was conducting research?”

  Zaira snorted. “We caught him stealing a book, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Interactions of Magic,” I recalled. “Domenic said there were sections in there about combining vivomancy and alchemy. Is this potion some mix of his powers and an alchemist’s?”

  Terika sighed. “I have no idea what potion you’re talking about. That’s quite an interesting theory, though. You might want to pursue it. But first, you need to get out of here.”

  Zaira’s hands formed white-knuckled fists. “We came through the Nine Hells to rescue you. People died to get us here. We can’t just leave you.”

  Terika went to Zaira and clasped her hands, easing them gently open. “Please,” she said. “I’ll be fine. They’re not going to kill me, or even hurt me. Get yourself to safety first, and then you can figure out a way to …” She struggled over the words, her tongue tangling on what she’d wanted to say. Finally, she settled on, “… for us to be together again in a good place. Ugh, this is impossible.”

  Zaira tried an uneven grin. “More impossible than me?”

  “Nothing’s that impossible.”

  Zaira swallowed. “Terika, about what I said on the road. Uh, about your grandmother.”

  Terika frowned. “That’s right. I’m angry at you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Terika crossed her arms. “It was a rotten thing to say.”

  Zaira shrugged uncomfortably. “That’s no surprise. I’m a rotten person.”

  “That’s not true.” Terika wagged a finger at her. “I’ve figured you out. You said that about my grandmother to drive me away, didn’t you? Out of some foolish notion that you don’t deserve me?”

  Zaira gave her a guilty, caught-in-the-act grimace. But a pang of recognition caught my breath in my chest. Zaira had been right about one thing: her enemies were already using Terika against her.

  I clasped Marcello’s button in my fingers. It was easy enough for me to urge her to follow her heart, then blithely ignore my own advice. But nothing was simple for a fire warlock, any more than it was for the Cornaro heir.

  Zaira spread her arms wide, with the dubious air of someone showing off a dress she had serious reservations about purchasing. “This is who I am, Terika,” she said. “I’m a Tallows brat—crude and bitter. I’m like a flea-ridden dog that bites anyone trying to be kind to it.”

  A smile teased Terika’s lips. “I seem to recall that we first caught each other’s interest because we both have a soft spot for stray dogs.”

  “But you can do better than a grumpy bitch like me.”

  Terika tapped Zaira right on the nose. “Stop saying mean things about one of my favorite people.”

  Zaira blinked. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. I like you. I don’t care whether you think you deserve it. I like you, and you make me happy.” She put her fists on her hips. “And unless you sincerely don’t want me around, you’re stuck with me. So there.”

  Zaira seemed to struggle a moment. Then she whispered, “I like you, too.”

  Terika lifted a hand to Zaira’s cheek and leaned in, closing her eyes. For half a second, Zaira hesitated. But then she tipped her head and parted her lips, and they were kissing with the desperate tenderness of people who didn’t know when they’d see each other again.

  I looked away, thinking, Tell her you love her, fool. Say it now, while you still can.

  She didn’t say it. But it was a long kiss. Maybe Terika already knew.

  “You have to go,” Terika said, clasping both of Zaira’s shoulders. Her voice was calm, sensible.

  Zaira didn’t look calm or sensible. She looked ready to dismantle the castle stone by stone with her teeth. “We could knock you out and drag you with us,” she said desperately. “Or I could force-feed that bastard Ruven balefire, and see how he likes the taste of it. Or—”

  “Or you could leave, and get Amalia to safety, and come back here soon with a carefully picked team and a real plan,” Terika said.

  “We can’t drag an unconscious or resisting person up the mountain,” I agreed reluctantly. “Not with a Witch Lord after us. Zaira …”

  “Shut up,” Zaira growled. “I know all that.”

  “Ruven needs me. I’ll be safe,” Terika promised. “But you two won’t.” She hesitated, then, as if choosing her words carefully. “Please don’t underestimate my ability to stop you if you try to take me with you.”

  “Fine.” Zaira turned away, her voice strained. “We’ll go. I hate big, stupid, dramatic gestures. But we’ll get you out of here. Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” Terika said, with a tender smile.

  They held each other for a long time, while I busied myself checking the contents of my satchel several times. Finally, Terika all but shoved us out the door into the dark hallway. Droplets of moisture stood like tiny diamonds at the corners of Zaira’s eyes.

  We crept through the castle corridors; flickering oil lamps cast wavering shadows against the walls. All that was left was to search what remaining rooms we could for useful information and find an unguarded window to climb out of.

  We groped our way down a servant’s stair. Without windows or luminaries, the steps were so black I couldn’t see Zaira in front of me and had to keep my hand out to avoid bumping into her. We came out near the kitchens but had barely stepped through the door when the unmistakable sound of claws scraping the floor and heavy breathing approached us in the darkness.

  Zaira mouthed a curse and pulled at my sleeve; we slipped around a corner, out of the cramped, hidden world of the servants and into the spacious corridors of the main castle. We ducked into the first empty room we came to that had an outside window. Zaira listened by the door, making sure the chimera hadn’t followed.

  I blinked in the darkness, letting my eyes adjust. This wasn’t a bedroom; the shadowy shapes of furniture were square and blocky, bookshelves and desks, rather than soft-draped beds or mirrored wardrobes.

  It was a study. I’d chanced on a vein of gold.

  I scanned the room for any sign of papers; my gaze lit on a large scroll unrolled on a table under the window and weighted down at the corners. A map or diagram, from the look of it, and with the moonlight falling directly upon it. Perfect. I crossed to the table, peering at the great white rectangle shining in the darkness.

  It was an artifice schematic. A dozen complex artifice circles, each layered with diagrams and runes, formed a greater ring, with a breathtakingly detailed control circle at its center. In the dark, it was hard to read the runes and follow the lines of the diagram, but it looked dreadfully familiar.

  My pulse quickened. I’d seen that pattern of nested circles before, in Interactions of Magic, the book Ruven had studied and tried to steal. This was the enchantment to trigger a volcanic eruption.

  “I hope you can make sense of that, because it’s all pretty doodles to me,” Zaira whispered.

  “Too much sense.” I pulled paper and a charcoal pencil from my satchel and bent closer, peering at the design. A crudely sketched map and a few notes suggested the location of each circle on Mount Whitecrown; I copied the information down as quickly as I could. “This isn’t exactly the same as the design I saw in the book. Someone knowledgeable has helped him modify it.”

  “So he needs artificers to control the volcano, and alchemists to control the artificers.” Zaira shook her head. “That bastard.”


  I peered at some notes scrawled at the edges of the diagram, hoping to learn more. It was hard to make out the writing in the dim light, but it seemed the control circle would allow him to direct the eruption and keep it from impacting his own lands. There were extensive notes about prevailing winds and how far away the ash might fall. Colored lines marked the extent of destruction from minor, middling, and major eruptions, with imperial fortresses, towns, and cities marked as to which would get caught up in each level of catastrophe.

  Graces preserve us all. Even a minor eruption could kill thousands of people and open up the border defenses quick and brutal as a gull cracking open a crab. A major eruption that reached Ardence would kill tens of thousands of civilians and blanket half of Eruvia in choking ash.

  “He’s remembered far more than I would have imagined,” I said. “And whatever artificer helped him knew their business. This might actually work. We have to stop him.”

  Golden light poured over us as the door behind us swung open.

  “Well, well. I thought I scented you here. It seems my son can’t even keep you contained, let alone controlled.”

  My heart spasmed painfully. I spun to find the Wolf Lord’s shaggy silhouette filling the door, his presence building around him like a thunderhead.

  “I’m out of patience with his schemes,” the Wolf Lord growled. “It’s time to end this.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I didn’t wait to see what the Wolf Lord meant by end this.

  “Zaira, eyes!” I cried, and flipped open my flare locket.

  He let out a snarl of rage and threw up his arm to block the blinding flash of light, but he was too late. Zaira spun the instant the burst of brilliance ended and leaped out the ground-floor window, and I hurled myself through after. I crashed into a thorn bush, rolled to my feet, and started running after Zaira through the frost-silvered grass toward the looming shadow of the woods. Terror rendered the scratches on my face and hands as irrelevant as the dull pain that jolted up my injured leg with each step.