The Defiant Heir

by Melissa Caruso

  “You’re asking me to murder them.” I pushed the words out through my teeth.

  “No, Lady Amalia. Not I. And not asking.” He shook his head, as if he regretted the need to clarify such unpleasant matters. “His Serenity is giving you an order. If you cannot get them out, you are to ensure they do not survive.”

  He passed me a velvet bag; I took it, instinctively, too stunned to refuse it. “That contains a vial of Black Malice,” he said. “Put a drop in their food or drink, or dip a dagger in it and give them the slightest scratch. The Empire is relying on you.”

  “I am no assassin, Lord Caulin,” I said indignantly. Outrage swelled up in my chest like a great wave.

  “I know.” He sighed. “But you are what I have to work with.”

  “This order is a violation of the trust the Falcons place in us. We’re supposed to protect them!”

  “Perhaps. But it is an order nonetheless.” He smiled apologetically. “And with help from the Grace of Luck, you’ll bring them home, and it will never come to pass. No one but you or I will know it was even a possibility.” He lifted a finger. “And, of course, this discussion is a secret between us. Do not speak to anyone about it; that’s another order from the doge.”

  “No one?” I sharpened my tone into a weapon. “Are you telling me the doge wishes me to keep this a secret from my mother, and the Council of Nine?”

  “Not the Council, of course.” He waved a hand, but a frown crossed his brow, as if it vexed him that I’d asked. “The doge can have no secrets from them, by law. But do not mention it to anyone in the military—not Captain Verdi, or your Falcon, or Colonel Vasante herself. We need to retain their confidence. They must gain no hint that we’re considering such an option. Do you understand?”

  I made my tone as cold as possible. “I believe you have conveyed your message, Lord Caulin.”

  “Good.” He nodded, seeming pleased. “In that case, Lady Amalia, my mission here is complete, and I bid you good day. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me, or the doge himself.”

  He bowed, deeply and formally, and seemed unperturbed when I did not return the gesture. I watched him walk away with my hands clenched at my sides, the velvet bag full of death hanging from my fist.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I tried to smooth out my face before stepping back into the meeting room, but I suspected the others noticed the fury pulsing in my temples.

  Zaira raised an eyebrow. “What did the little weasel want to talk to you about?”

  “Stupidity,” I growled. “Secret stupidity I’m not allowed to repeat.”

  Zaira shrugged. “Nothing secret about the Empire being stupid. And why would you want to repeat idiocy anyway?”

  “Excellent points.” I took a deep breath. “What did you come up with while I was gone?”

  I sat down at the table with them and plunged myself into planning with renewed fervor. There was no way in the Nine Hells I was going to carry out that order. Kill Terika and the rest? I’d rather throw myself on Ruven’s nonexistent mercy. But if I refused the order, it would be treason, and Ruven could keep using them against the Empire.

  We had to succeed.

  When we finished and everyone started off to dinner, I lingered behind and caught Ciardha’s eye. She closed the door, once the others were gone, and turned to me.

  “Something troubles you, Lady.”

  “Do you know what Lord Caulin spoke to me about?” I asked.

  A faint divot formed between Ciardha’s brows. “No, Lady. I was unaware he was coming here until I arrived.”

  “Really.” That was definitely strange. “He had an order for me from the doge. One I’m not fond of. Does my mother know about it?”

  Ciardha’s frown deepened. “La Contessa did not speak to me of any orders I would expect you to deem offensive.”

  “I suppose the decision could have been made after you left.” I gnawed my lip.

  But Ciardha shook her head. “I spoke with La Contessa in our personal cipher over the courier lamps this morning. She mentioned nothing of this order.”

  She would have found a way to warn me, even if she couldn’t tell Ciardha outright for some reason. My mother must not have known about Caulin’s scheme.

  “Can the doge give an order like that without consulting or informing the Council of Nine?” I wondered.

  “I don’t know the nature of the order, Lady,” Ciardha reminded me.

  I twisted a lock of hair between my fingers. “I was commanded not to talk about it with anyone but the Council. But perhaps you can use your cipher to suggest to my mother over the courier lamps that she look into it. I don’t think she’d like this order, either.” She might be ruthless sometimes, but she practiced a sort of pragmatic benevolence: treating people poorly was rarely good politics. There were more problems with murdering Falcons than just the moral ones—though one would think those should be enough.

  Ciardha nodded slowly. “I am but a humble retainer, and I do not claim to know the mind of the doge, Lady. But if he’s giving you orders without telling the Council, logic would seem to suggest he doesn’t think La Contessa would like it, either.”

  “I am not going to let the doge use me as a tool to get around my mother,” I said crossly.

  “You are a Cornaro, Lady,” Ciardha reminded me, her eyes gleaming. “You do not let anyone use you as a tool at all.”

  The next morning, Ciardha found me in my guest room and handed me a message from my mother, translated from their personal cipher:

  This could be a delicate matter. I will investigate, but it will take time. Be wary of verbal secret orders. Try not to do anything rash.

  I looked up at Ciardha. “What does this mean?”

  “I do not pretend to fathom the mind of La Contessa, Lady. But I would suggest it means someone is being underhanded.”

  “But in Raverra, someone is always being underhanded.”

  Ciardha nodded. “As you say. And yet La Contessa feels this situation requires special handling. I notice that she warned you to be cautious.”

  “Yes.” I couldn’t keep the annoyance out of my voice. “Everyone is always warning me to be cautious, as if they expect me to act on some foolish impulse and stick my hand in a fire.”

  Ciardha’s eyes danced. “With respect, Lady, is that not precisely how you came to meet Zaira?”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. “Well, yes. But still, I don’t need to be reminded to be careful all the time, like a child.”

  “La Contessa knows you are no child.”

  I’d like to think she knew. She’d certainly been treating me more like an adult since Ardence, leaving the drawing room door open and letting me see the inside of some of her plans. Be wary of verbal secret orders. Try not to do anything rash. It was such a short message, and in cipher; would she have wasted time with an encoded message nagging me to take basic precautions?

  “She thinks this could be a trap,” I said slowly.

  Ciardha nodded, holding my eyes. “I don’t know the content of this order, Lady. But if it puts you in a difficult enough position you felt the need to ask about it, there is a chance someone is trying to force you into actions that could be used against you. To gain power over you, or leverage over La Contessa.”

  I puffed out a long breath through my lips. Refusing this order could be treason. Following it could destroy my ability to work with the Falcons and, even more important, to pass the Falcon reform law. Even setting aside the moral repugnance of the command, either path could put me in an untenable position.

  “And we don’t truly know whether this is the doge’s idea, or Caulin’s, or perhaps even some other adviser or member of the Council who has the doge’s ear,” I said.

  “Indeed, Lady.”

  I handed the paper back to Ciardha. “I suppose you’ll want to burn this?”

  Ciardha bowed. “Of course, Lady.”

  As the Conclave approached, I plunged into my boo
ks, researching everything I could about the mysterious event. Apparently the Witch Lords tended to call a Conclave every couple of years, but there was no set schedule to it; some years might have three Conclaves, while other times Vaskandar might go nearly a decade without one. It depended, essentially, on how much the Witch Lords felt they had to discuss with each other. My books claimed the whole affair was steeped in tradition and ceremony but, frustratingly, had no details on what those traditions or ceremonies might be, since none of the authors knew anyone who’d attended one.

  “I can’t even pack for it,” I complained to Zaira over dinner. “Do I wear Raverran court dress? Something more practical? Do they require ominous hooded robes?”

  “The blood of your enemies, more like it.” Zaira grinned wickedly. “Mind you, I wouldn’t mind seeing your crow beau dressed in nothing more than that. Or your great-grandma, for that matter.”

  “I don’t …” My mind wouldn’t even form the latter image, but it was disturbingly easy to imagine Kathe lounging on the Wolf Lord’s throne, wearing scarlet streaks and a mischievous grin, licking blood off his fingers. “I’m not going to respond to that.”

  Zaira waved her spoon at me. “But you’re going to think about it,” she crooned.

  “Anyway,” I said hastily, fighting off a blush, “I was thinking I should send Kathe a message asking him for more details, but then I realized they don’t have courier lamps in Vaskandar.”

  “I’m going to wear whatever I damn well please, and anyone who doesn’t like it can eat balefire.” Zaira shrugged. “I’d lay odds they’re going to do the same. These are Witch Lords. They’re mad as magpies, and they don’t respect anything but themselves.”

  “Kathe does,” I objected.

  “Maybe. I’m not convinced.” She eyed me closely. “You trust him too much. Just because he told you a sad story.”

  I poked my own spoon into my potato soup. “It was a true sad story. He’s never been anything but honest with me.”

  “He’s using you.”

  “He’s been honest about that, too.”

  Zaira shook her head, taking another spoonful of soup. “All right. But when he knifes you in the back, don’t give me big surprised-and-hurt eyes about it. Everyone has sad stories. That doesn’t mean they’re nice people.”

  I sighed. “I know he’s not nice. But we have to trust him at least a little. He’s our protection at the Conclave.”

  Zaira snorted. “No. I’m our protection at the Conclave. If you rely on him, you’re going to regret it.”

  Zaira’s words echoed in my mind as we stood together on a dirt track that ran alongside a stream through a narrow, mossy ravine. Mist filled the chasm today, dripping off the moss and swirling above the river. I peered into the hazy distance, where the looming stone walls turned to hulking gray ghosts crowned with the jagged suggestion of pines, watching for any sign of the escort Kathe had promised us. In theory, our safe passage to the Conclave was guaranteed as invited guests, but I saw no reason to take chances. Not when the Empire itself was counting on me.

  Fortified towers watched over us, guarding the road, such as it was; artifice circles graven into the walls of the ravine could collapse the whole thing on the heads of any army foolish enough to attempt to invade the Serene Empire this way. It was no surprise that Kazerath had not chosen to position troops here. And the lack of enemy forces, in turn, made it a good place for us to cross the border and head back into Vaskandar for the Conclave. If there was such a thing as a good place to enter Kazerath; I couldn’t quite bring myself to be sanguine about returning to Ruven’s domain.

  Marcello shifted, his hand resting on his pistol. He’d brought along a complement of soldiers to see us off; he saw no reason to take chances, either.

  We still hadn’t talked about anything but business since I’d told him not to wait for me. The space he’d left between us was big enough for two people to stand in. Shadows gathered in new hollows beneath his eyes; I could tell by the way he’d hovered near Istrella over the past week that it was still eating at him that she’d been controlled and he hadn’t noticed.

  And now he had no one to talk to about it. Guilt pricked my breastbone. Honesty was all very well, but in retrospect, I’d picked terrible timing.

  He met my eyes at last. Pain and worry clouded his. “Promise me you won’t do anything foolish, at least,” he said, his voice catching.

  “I like to think I’m not in the habit of doing foolish things. Calculated risks, perhaps.” I kept my tone light, trying to extend a safe bridge across the ice between us, which was full of brittle places and dangerously melting patches. “Besides, I’m in excellent hands.”

  I waggled my fingers at him, adorned with the unfamiliar burden of seven new rings, all gifts from Istrella.

  Worry pinched a divot between his brows. “Yes, about that. Do you know what all of those do?”

  “More or less.” I examined the runes etched into the bands, running them through my memory again. Left index finger, defense against magic; right middle finger, to incapacitate without killing; left ring finger to wound or kill; and so on. “She was so excited she could barely explain them, but I asked her questions about anything I couldn’t work out on my own. They’re good for one use each, to be thrown at one’s enemy. I feel quite dangerous.”

  He grimaced. “Maybe too dangerous. She can’t have had time to test those.”

  “Life continues to be an adventure.”

  Zaira nudged me with a sharp elbow. “Here he comes.”

  Sure enough, the vague outline of a lone figure appeared through the mist, gray and insubstantial at first, making its way toward us. But even before I could pull details beyond a soft outline from the shrouding fog, I knew him from the way he walked right at the edge of the dropoff into the river, as if he were incapable of falling.

  Marcello tensed. “He came by himself? Where’s the escort?”

  “He’s a Witch Lord,” I pointed out. “Between him and Zaira, we’ll be more deadly than a thousand musketeers.”

  He turned to face me as Kathe approached, words struggling to make it past his lips. “Amalia …”

  Graces. When he said my name like that, so full of suppressed emotion, everything I’d been so sure of crumbled into doubt. “I know, Marcello,” I said quietly. “I know.”

  He swallowed. “Try to come back in one piece.”

  “I’ll be all right.” I slipped a hand into my pocket and pulled out his button; it lay gleaming in my palm. “I’ve got you to keep me from doing anything too reckless.”

  He stared at the button a moment; when he looked up, it was with a faint, wry, tender smile. But he said nothing.

  Zaira clapped Marcello’s back, breaking the moment like a thrown rock shattering the stillness of a pond. “I’ll take care of her. We’ll bring everyone home—Terika, Namira, all of them. You just be ready to come pick up the package when we call for you, like a good delivery boy.”

  Marcello blinked. “I think that’s one of the nicer things you’ve called me.”

  “Don’t get used to it.”

  Kathe finished materializing from the mists, the edges of his cloak feathers and the dyed tips of his hair coming into sharp focus at last. His eyes sparkled, and he gave us a broad grin. “Good to see you both again.”

  I offered him a slight bow, which he returned with a flourish. “I’m honored you came to collect us yourself, Lord Kathe.”

  “I could do no less for you, Lady Amalia. Are you ready?”

  I stared off between the steep chasm walls, along the rushing gurgle of the river. If I could peel back all the layers of gray with my eyes, I could reveal the ancient forest that waited on the far side, gathering patches of shadow and snow beneath its boughs.

  Once I stepped past that border, I’d be in Ruven’s domain. His presence would wind through every living thing: staring from the eyes of a fox, reaching in the branch of a tree. The last time we’d entered Vaskandar, we’d barely m
ade it out alive, and our enemies hadn’t known we were coming. This time, I carried far heavier burdens: the writ of the doge and the Council declaring me a Serene Imperial Envoy, and the tiny vial of Black Malice in a velvet bag.

  Zaira caught my eye. “We can do this. We’re a good team, remember?”

  I nodded, feeling grateful. “Just like in Ardence.”

  Zaira snorted. “Let’s hope it goes more smoothly than Ardence.” She punched my shoulder, which I took as a sign of affection.

  “We’re ready,” I told Kathe.

  We stepped forward together into the mist.

  Chapter Thirty

  We have to time our arrival carefully,” Kathe said, glancing out the tavern window at the mist-damp trees across the road as if he could somehow discern the hour from the general cloudy grayness. And for all I knew, he could.

  We’d stopped for lunch at a lonely tavern near the foot of the hill on which Ruven’s castle crouched. The place seemed to have been built to serve the castle’s staff and guards. The proprietress, a hard-faced and silent woman in her fifties with a scar like finger marks across her mouth, served Kathe with an unflinching reserve that suggested she had seen the worst many times and was braced to do so again at any moment. She’d sent the other server, a young boy, from the room with a jerk of her head when we walked in.

  “Why is that?” I asked, nervously turning one of Istrella’s rings on my finger. Left index, for defense against magic.

  “Precedence. We enter the Conclave in order of seniority, from youngest to oldest.” Kathe’s mouth quirked. “Ruven is spared the indignity of going first by virtue of being the host, and thus not needing to make an entrance at all.”

  “And where do you fall in the order?” I asked.

  Kathe’s eyes crinkled, his mage mark gleaming yellow. “We haven’t played a game in a while. Why don’t you guess how old I am?”

  That was right. Kathe was a Witch Lord, and thus more or less immortal. He could be hundreds of years old, for all I knew.