The Defiant Heir

by Melissa Caruso

  If I got home. If I didn’t fail at my task here, and doom the Empire to ruin so profound that no one would write papers for the Imperial Library ever again.

  Guards lined the foyer, Ruven’s human soldiers taking the place of his father’s wolves; somehow, instead of being reassuringly normal, this only increased my sense of wrongness and dread. They stood stiff and formal in a double line to channel us straight through into the great hall. The throne room’s black ribs arched far over our heads, the light falling vine-patterned through its high windows. The throne stood empty, the wolf pelts removed; purple velvet cushions now softened its dramatic black points and curves.

  A handful of figures waited for us in the hall, clustered loosely around a stone bowl that stood on a pedestal, like a garden birdbath. They gave each other a wary space, each radiating power enough to suck the air from the room. One bore a crown of golden leaves and wore a long, high-collared coat in white and silver; I guessed this was the Aspen Lord, my great-uncle. Another had brilliant red-orange hair in a long ponytail and wore an artful patchwork of close-fitting leather in different shades of brown and russet.

  But the one who caught and held my attention was Ruven. He had changed.

  It wasn’t his floor-length black coat, with its jagged, asymmetrical purple embroidery; that was the same as always. It wasn’t his sleek blond hair, or the smile of wicked amusement curling his lips, or even his arrogant stance.

  It was his presence. His violet mage mark struck like lightning when he met my eyes. He filled the great hall, his power hanging in the air like a miasma of sickness. The absolute certainty of control lay upon him like a mantle.

  Graces preserve us. By killing his father, we’d unleashed the worst demon in the Nine Hells.

  He spread his arms wide in welcome. “The Crow Lord of Let. Welcome to my home. And what fascinating guests you bring!”

  Kathe offered him a bow so short and stiff it barely qualified as a twitch. “I’m delighted to meet the newest Witch Lord. I believe you already know the Lady Amalia Cornaro and Lady Zaira.”

  “Of course.” Ruven’s gaze landed on Zaira, and the air grew heavier. “You have some gall, Let, bringing my father’s murderer to his castle as your guest.”

  The other Witch Lords exchanged glances; the redhead raised his eyebrows at Kathe, and one woman whispered to a companion behind her hand.

  “Why, thank you,” Kathe said. “I do try to be shocking whenever I can.”

  “As it happens, I’ve been wanting to thank the lady.” Ruven flashed a bright smile at Zaira, all teeth and poison. “I owe you my ascension to my father’s domain. You have conferred upon me the great gift of immortality. I must consider what I can do to best show you my gratitude.”

  I would not have thought a curtsy could convey murderous intent before I met Zaira. “If you need suggestions,” she said sweetly, “I can think of a wide variety of things you can do.”

  Ruven turned to me. “And Lady Amalia.” He placed his hand on his chest. “It wounds me deeply to learn you are now courting another Witch Lord. Alas! I fear I moved too slowly.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Alas indeed, Lord Ruven. I fear courtship prospects are generally rather soured by preparations for war.”

  “Then it’s fortunate I am nearly done preparing,” Ruven replied, his eyes narrowing like a pleased cat’s. Dread settled in my stomach, and I sent silent, urgent wishes to Roland and Marcello to hurry up with their sabotage of the volcanic artifice circles.

  Kathe cleared his throat. “Where are my manners? Tradition first. The Truce Stones.”

  He stepped up to the basin on its pillar. It reminded me of the Lady of Eagles’ blooding stone; it seemed just as ancient, the gray stone worn smooth at the rim from years of handling. And indeed, a tiny pool of dark liquid stained the center of it. But the symbols that ringed the rim were unquestionably artifice runes—not of a style I recognized, and worn with time, but an artifice circle nonetheless. Graven lines stretched inward from the runes at the edge to form a diagram in the center.

  Excited, I approached with Kathe, peering closer. “This is some kind of binding, isn’t it?”

  The Aspen Lord nodded, interest lighting his eyes, which were gold as his mother’s in an angular face. He was shorter than I’d have expected for a man titled after a tree but radiated quiet strength. “I had heard you were a scholar, Lady Amalia. The Truce Stones are an ancient artifact of Vaskandar, created by the original Witch Lords with the assistance of a great Ostan artificer. This is the central stone; the others are placed to encircle the castle grounds.”

  I frowned at the basin, tracing the lines with my eyes and trying to muddle out the meaning of the runes. “I see reflection patterns. A defensive ward?”

  “It’s to make us play nicely with one another,” Kathe said. He unsheathed a bone dagger and drew it across the back of his arm. Red beads of blood rose up; he let them drip into the basin to mingle with what was already there. “We blood the stones every day, starting with this one. Now if we hurt anyone whose blood is mixed with ours while within the ring of the Truce Stones, the harm rebounds upon us. Or so it’s said, anyway.”

  I stopped myself from reaching out to touch the runes. They might not like me poking their artifact. “That sounds about right. I think your own blood would turn against you, somehow.”

  “Really?” Kathe seemed interested. “Sounds nasty.”

  “It is,” the Aspen Lord said, his voice deep and resonant. “My mother has seen it happen. She warned me it would be folly to break the Truce. While the punishment is not enough to kill a Witch Lord, it would leave you quite vulnerable to a return attack, and the Truce would no longer protect you.”

  “What happens if you accidentally step on someone’s toe?” Zaira asked, eyeing Ruven. I could see plans to trip him into another Witch Lord forming in her head.

  “The harm must be deliberate and serious to trigger the vengeance of the Truce Stones. A mere jostle or even a slap would not qualify.” The Aspen Lord lifted his head. “Someone else is coming.”

  A strange sliding, rumbling sound reached my ears first. Then the wide-open castle gates framed a wondrous sight: a living carriage, growing with vines and flowers that twisted and turned into new beautiful shapes as it rolled along with no horses to draw it. Roses and ivy trailed behind it like a queen’s train, and butterflies surrounded it, flashing colors like bright jewels. When it stopped, the woman who stepped out wore a gown of leaves and flowers, bright against the rich, deep brown of her bare arms, and a crown of laurel and live dragonflies above the long, dark fall of her many-braided hair.

  Zaira made a soft, appreciative sound. Beautiful though the lady undeniably was, however, ice threaded its way up my spine; she moved with the predatory grace of a mantis, and I had no doubt she was far more lethal.

  “The Lady of Laurels,” Kathe murmured. “I suppose I’d best step aside and give her a turn.”

  The three of us drew back to make room. I watched in awe as one Witch Lord after another arrived, each bearing an aura of potency and majesty, attended by nature itself like the Graces in the most romanticized paintings. The sense of power in the hall became oppressive, until I felt like I would faint from the sheer accumulated weight of it; but Zaira stood loose and easy, unaffected. She was their peer, after all, terrible as any of them.

  I was out of my depth, as a mere mortal. And the eldest hadn’t even begun to arrive.

  We weren’t the only guests to accompany the Witch Lords. The Lady of Bears rode up to the gates mounted on a great black grizzly the size of an ox, dressed in fur and leather armor; her three sons came behind her on their own ursine mounts. A rumble like thunder hung around them, below the threshold of hearing. It was all I could do not to back up until cool stone pressed against my spine to get away from them. The three sons jostled each other as they dismounted and followed their mother into the castle, rough and noisy, acting like boys despite the gray thickly striping the eldest’s
hair and beginning to streak the middle one’s beard.

  I’d heard of the Lady of Bears; she was one of the Witch Lords who’d invaded the Serene Empire during the Three Years’ War, seeking domains for her sons. My generation had grown up on terrible stories of the atrocities of that war—whole villages falling to snakebite, or smothered and buried alive under an avalanche of vines; soldiers ripped apart and devoured by packs of wild animals, or caught on the piercing branches of trees and then stung to death by valley-filling swarms of hornets—and it struck me with a lurch of horror that she was probably personally responsible for many of them.

  The Lady of Bears greeted Ruven with warm enthusiasm. “This fight will go better with you on our side. Never could trust your father not to get cold paws. Unless you’re out now that you’ve got your own domain?”

  Ruven returned a sharp smile. “Don’t worry. I’m as dedicated to the war effort as always. I am most eager to expand my borders, and more than ready to do so.”

  The way he said it set a deep chill of foreboding into my bones.

  Not long after the Lady of Bears, a pair of women arrived together, one of whom was all too familiar. The Lady of Thorns swept into the hall, her shimmering green robes trailing behind her, three pale braids shining down her back. I drew in a long, measured breath, unclenching my teeth; this woman might be a monster who had attacked my family and likely murdered my father, but I was here as a diplomat. The mantle of a Serene Imperial Envoy demanded I set aside my personal animosity.

  Her companion was ancient and stooped as the Lady of Thorns was young and tall. She leaned on the lady’s arm, every movement made with the careful frailty of extreme age. Thin wisps of white hair clung to her mottled skull, and her flesh hung loosely on her gaunt face, but her gray eyes stared clear and piercing from their pits, marked with bloodred blazing circles to proclaim her power.

  “The Lady of Thorns and her daughter,” Kathe whispered, his arm tense in mine.

  I caught myself before asking if he’d meant to say her grandmother. It was hard to accept that the fresh-faced Lady of Thorns was older than the crone she supported, who must be close to a century, if not past it. But by the tender care with which the Witch Lord escorted the old woman, I had no doubt of where her desperation to conquer more land came from. Whatever her flaws, her love for her daughter was real.

  A touch of pity mingled uncomfortably with my anger as the Lady of Thorns greeted Ruven and then settled her daughter in a chair at the edge of the hall to rest. It wasn’t until she finished the blooding ritual and turned to greet the rest of the Witch Lords that her eyes fell on me.

  Hatred flashed across her face at once.

  “You,” she hissed, stepping toward me. “Lochaver vermin.”

  It was hard not to recoil at the sheer force of her fury. But I drew myself up. “Is that what passes for manners in Sevaeth?”

  “I owe no respect to a common, powerless insect such as you.” She gave Kathe an acid glance; he grinned at her benignly.

  “The Lady Amalia is my guest,” he reminded her. “Protected by the rules of the Conclave. I urge you not to get ahead of yourself.”

  His choice of words didn’t escape me, and I gave Kathe a narrow look.

  “Then I have no choice but to allow you to live for now,” the Lady of Thorns said with disgust, “even though you profane this place with your presence.”

  I mustered all my cold politeness, learned from years of watching my mother devastate her enemies in court. “I haven’t any notion where this hatred of my family comes from, my lady, but it demeans you.”

  “Demeans me?” The Lady of Thorns seemed to swell, and the force of her power fell upon me like the shadow of a massive tree; the room grew colder and darker. “It is your grandfather who did the demeaning. He was my ally, little worm. We planned to take Callamorne together, to split the new domain between Vandrin and my daughter. But he betrayed me when he saw his chance to seize the entire kingdom for himself.” Her lips peeled back from her teeth. “She would be free of the grasp of death forever if it weren’t for his treachery. And you are the fruit of that betrayal, you vile, common creature.”

  I caught myself before taking a step back from her in shock. “You think my grandfather took Callamorne as his domain.”

  “Of course he did. You don’t think he married for love, do you?” The fury on her face twisted to poisonous amusement. “A son of the Lady of Eagles, marry some powerless clod for love?” Her laugh echoed from the high ceiling.

  “You might be surprised,” Kathe said, his voice deceptively light, “at how much the mage-marked can care for people with no magic whatsoever.”

  The Lady of Thorns seemed to miss his allusion to her killing of Jathan entirely. If she even remembered it. If it even happened, Zaira’s skeptical voice said in my mind.

  “My grandmother rules Callamorne in her own right,” I said stiffly. “I never knew my grandfather, but from everything I’ve heard, he would never usurp her sovereignty like that.”

  “You are a fool. Of course he claimed Callamorne as his domain. Who would give up such an easy chance at immortality?” The Lady of Thorns shook her head. “I had to kill him to clear his claim from the land my daughter needs to live. Just as I must kill every last one of his spawn; she’s too frail to challenge even a passive claim.” Her lips spread in a cruel smile, and her eyes pierced mine, the rings of her mage mark shining venom-green. “That’s why I sent a snake to make your father’s horse throw him on a treacherous mountain trail and snap his foul neck.”

  A hot rushing wave seemed to crash over me. I had never felt such an overwhelming, physical need for violence in my life. Words had always been my preferred weapons, but in that moment, my own two thumbs seemed quite enough, if I could gouge them into her hateful eyes.

  A hand closed on my arm, stopping me before I could move. Not Kathe—Zaira. I tried to shake her off, but I couldn’t; her fingers were too strong.

  I whirled on her, ready to snap, but her eyes stopped me: grave and somber, and all too understanding.

  Revincio, she mouthed. The corner of her mouth quirked.

  The word hit me like a bucket of cold water. I took a deep, ragged breath and gave Zaira a nod of thanks.

  Then I turned back to the Lady of Thorns.

  “Duly noted,” I said in a voice of glacial ice.

  It was what my mother said to her opponents in the moment she decided the time for diplomacy was over and the next step was their utter and complete destruction.

  But of course, the Lady of Thorns didn’t know that. She turned to Kathe, dismissing me. “And you, Crow Lord. Giving your attention to a powerless wretch whose existence pollutes an ancient line is beneath you. I expect better of you.”

  “You need to learn to think beyond the impulse of the moment. I have my reasons.” He winked at her, for all the world as if they shared a secret joke and he didn’t hate her at all. “As you know.”

  The Lady of Thorns nodded slowly. “Have it your way, crow. I’ll not break the rules of the Conclave. But protect her beyond it at your own peril.”

  Kathe shrugged. “The Lady Amalia doesn’t require my protection.”

  With my blood still burning from my burst of fury, it was easier to appear confident that this was the case. The Lady of Thorns made a contemptuous noise deep in her throat, turned from us without another word, and swept back across the hall to her daughter.

  “You handled that quite well,” Kathe complimented me.

  I didn’t trust myself to speak. I’d suspected the Lady of Thorns had killed my father, and I knew she’d only confirmed it to my face to provoke me into attacking first so she’d be within rights to kill me. But knowing she wanted me to feel this anger didn’t keep it from shaking my bones.

  Zaira faced Kathe, hands on her hips. “What was that wink about? What game are you playing?”

  “Merely keeping her on her toes,” Kathe said airily. “I’ve cultivated a reputation for being clev
er and unpredictable, so when I say vague and mysterious things, everyone assumes I’m up to something. The Lady of Thorns is the type to play along so she won’t look like a fool.”

  “Well, I don’t care if I look like a fool, and I think you are up to something.”

  “Of course I am.” Kathe’s eyes widened in pretended shock. “I’d be very disappointed in myself if I weren’t. Anyway, it got her to go away, didn’t it?”

  Zaira’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t trust you.”

  “Good.” Kathe smiled benevolently. “You shouldn’t.”

  I forced myself to turn that over in my head instead of thinking about my father as the next Witch Lords arrived. Of course Kathe had his own plans and schemes; we were allies, yes, but uneasy ones. And I still knew very little of this extraordinary and dangerous being at my side.

  When Kathe was busy talking to the red-haired Witch Lord, Zaira leaned in and whispered to me, “He’s going to stab you in the back.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “But so long as I have something he wants—holy Hells!”

  Another Witch Lord had entered the hall. Her silver-gray hair trailed loose and free down the back of a Raverran-style corseted gown—though its lines were slimmer than had been in fashion for fifty years. I’d just realized that what I’d taken for beading on the bodice and skirt was in fact a patterned arrangement of thousands of live spiders.

  Zaira turned to see what had elicited my reaction. “What? It’s … Hells have mercy, are those real?”

  “Unfortunately,” I managed. I wanted to look away, so very badly, but I couldn’t. The Witch Lord stepped up to the basin, greeting the others cordially, and the spiders on her skirts swarmed over one another, forming new patterns.

  “All right, that’s impressive,” Zaira admitted.

  “Impressive is a word that one might use.”

  Kathe had said the Lady of Spiders was one of the influential Witch Lords I should try to sway to my side. I was going to have to talk to her. Up close.