“If you know him at all, you know he will.”
“I do not know him,” the Elk Lord said. “Nor do I care to.” He returned his gaze to the mountains, in a clear dismissal. “If he oversteps himself, we will take care of him then. We do not require assistance from the Serene City.”
I bowed, biting back my frustration. “Then I hope you deal with him handily when the time comes.”
I stomped off, grinding my teeth. I wasn’t making nearly enough progress. But then, my mother always said the doge never admitted it when you changed his mind—he wouldn’t concede a single point but later would repeat the ones you’d made to him as if he’d always held that opinion. Like as not the Witch Lords, as fellow rulers, were the same.
“Ah, Lady Amalia,” a familiar voice purred, far too close. “I hope you are enjoying your stay in my home.”
I whirled and found Ruven at my elbow. Now that I faced him, his presence was so strong it nearly choked me, pressing poisonously on everything around him. From his cruel smile to his sleek blond ponytail, every inch of him radiated an absolute assurance of dominion.
“I prefer your hospitality this time,” I managed.
He chuckled. “It pleases me to hear you prefer Kazerath when it is mine.”
That wasn’t what I’d meant, but I seized on the opportunity. “You do have your own domain, now,” I observed. “So surely you have no further reason to seek war with the Serene Empire.”
“Ah, my lady, you know me better than that. I am not a man of such small ambitions.” He reached out a hand, idly; a servant passing a tray of tiny apple cakes veered from his course, eyes wide with alarm at his silent summons, and presented it to his master. Ruven selected one, then waved the servant on his way.
My shoulders unlocked; I’d been afraid he’d called the man over to do something terrible to him, just to make me uneasy. By the gleam I caught in Ruven’s eye, he knew it.
“Consider this,” Ruven suggested, turning the tiny plate on which the apple cake sat in his fingers. “When I was a young boy, and it first became apparent that I was a Skinwitch, my own late father wanted to put me down, as he worded it, like a mad dog.”
I winced. I wasn’t sure what was worse; that the Wolf Lord had said such a thing, or that I couldn’t help but feel his instincts might have been correct. “That’s terrible.”
“Oh, I do not tell you this for your sympathy. What need have I for that?” Ruven shook his head. “You miss the point, my lady. I am surrounded by sixteen powerful peers who are only waiting to see if I can be useful or if I must be destroyed.”
“You don’t seem the type to make himself useful,” I hazarded.
Ruven dropped the uneaten apple cake on the grass and ground it under his boot. “No,” he said. “I am not.”
“So you want power enough that they can’t threaten you.” I couldn’t keep a thin thread of contempt from my voice. “You’re doing all this because you’re afraid.”
The ground shifted and groaned beneath my feet, as if it might swallow me up. The sense of pressure in the air increased until I could hardly breathe. Something in the forest let out a howl that sounded disturbingly human.
Ruven smiled, his violet-ringed eyes full of death. A sliver of black ice slipped down the back of my neck. He was going to kill me right here—or worse, melt the flesh from my bones and leave me grotesquely alive. I’d made a terrible mistake.
“We all dwell in fear, Lady Amalia.” His voice was soft, caressing, but it resonated through my bones. “It is not an enemy, but a teacher. You would do well to learn its lesson.”
Then the weight of his power was gone, as suddenly as if it had never been. Ruven, smiling, offered me a courteous bow. “Enjoy the rest of the Conclave.”
I stared after him as he moved off to talk to the Serpent Lord. My hand slipped into my pocket, my fingers closing around Marcello’s button.
“The Hell of Madness itself has nothing on that man’s mind,” I whispered to it.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Not long after my talk with Ruven, Kathe sauntered up and offered me a glass of wine. “I saw this going past and thought you might like a reprieve from beer,” he said.
His lips quirked in a smile, and I found myself staring at them; suddenly all I could remember was our kiss. Like swallowing liquid lightning. I took the glass from him with a grateful nod, hoping he couldn’t tell what I was thinking.
“Thank you.” My ring remained dark; I took a sip of the full-bodied red wine, chasing the taste of his lips from my memory. “I could use a drink. Your fellow Witch Lords are difficult to sway.”
“Try offering a trade deal to the Lady of Gulls,” he suggested. “She’d love to see more Raverran ships stopping by her island.”
“I will. Thanks.” I sighed, rubbing my tense neck.
He shifted closer to me, his feathered shoulders rustling. “I won’t be able to help you publicly as much as I’d like,” he said in a low, sober voice. “I’m working on something, and I need Ruven’s allies to be willing to talk to me. But I want you to know that’s all a game; I do support you here.”
I raised a brow. “I thought your support for me was a game as well?”
He laughed. “Some games I play for fun. Others I play to win.”
“And which one is our courtship?” I asked, with my best approximation of a teasing smile. I found myself unexpectedly invested in the answer.
“Both, of course.” He raised his eyebrows. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to put some ideas in the Lady of Laurels’ head for later.”
Feeling greatly daring, I offered him my hand. With languorous care, he lifted it to his lips; his eyes never left mine, the vivid yellow circles of his mage mark burning into me. After the kiss we’d shared, the touch of his mouth on the backs of my fingers seemed to light up every nerve in my body.
He released my hand with a roguish smile. “When the Conclave is over, you and I must take some time to court properly, without matters of war and death distracting us.”
“If we have no matters of war and death distracting us after the Conclave,” I said, “I will be pleasantly surprised.”
Kathe laughed and offered me a parting bow, cloak swirling. “Then perhaps I’ll have to work on becoming even more distracting than death.”
I watched him go, admiring the easy grace of his stride. He was well on his way.
But I still couldn’t be sure what he was up to. Not knowing what other games Kathe was playing could prove a disadvantage at best, and dangerous at worst.
“He’s pretty, but he’s no good for you,” said a fluid voice near my ear.
I turned, my mouth dry, to face the Lady of Spiders. Gold-legged spiders with ruby abdomens formed an elaborate net in her hair, webs strung between them in lacelike patterns. The spiders on her bodice wove an ever-moving knotwork design, clambering over and under each other with horrifying precision.
I let out a high, nervous laugh and backed up a step. “Perhaps, my lady.”
“Have you considered my offer? There is much I could give you in return.” She fingered the silver strands of her hair. Fat, jewel-hued spiders crawled out of it and lined up along her knuckles, like rings. “His secrets. Ruven’s secrets. The Lady of Thorns’ secrets. Sooner or later, I learn what each and every one of them holds coiled inside.”
That might even be worth it. The thought sent horror walking with eight legs down my spine.
But then I thought of everything she might learn in return. My dependence on the elixir I needed to survive. All the spy codes and signals my mother was teaching me, and the secrets I’d heard attending sessions of the Council of Nine. My shameful fear that I hadn’t earned my admission to the University of Ardence as a scholar but been handed it as a Cornaro. The pure, breaking terror I’d felt at being locked in the close, stifling darkness of a coffin.
I swallowed. “Ah, I’m afraid I will have to decline.”
The Lady of Spiders smiled, and it was a t
errible, knowing smile. Whatever secrets lay behind her eyes had left them dead and wise and full of crawling shadows.
“For now,” she said, her voice deep and oddly lulling. “There will come a day when you need something, Amalia Cornaro. When you need it so desperately, you are willing to pay my price. And then you will come to me.”
I tried to smile, but I couldn’t manage it. I could only stare at her.
“Until then. I look forward to it.”
She passed on her way, trailing a writhing gossamer train. I downed the rest of my wine in three long gulps.
I found Zaira still on the terrace, facing off with the red-haired boy, her hands on her hips. He scowled at her and clenched his paintbrush as if it were a weapon.
“So you don’t care that he uses the potions you make to enslave your fellow mages?” Zaira demanded of him.
The boy threw his hands up. “I don’t make it anymore! That old lady does. And I don’t see what the fuss is. They should be thankful to Lord Ruven. He saved them from the Mews.”
“That’s like saying you saved someone from a bad marriage by feeding them to a shark!”
I paused at the edge of the terrace, entirely uncertain of how to join such a volatile conversation. They didn’t seem to notice or care that I was there.
The boy stepped toward Zaira, more aggressively than I would have recommended. “Don’t you speak ill of Lord Ruven! He treats me like a prince. The Falconers are monsters. They tried to take me from my home, and when Lord Ruven sent people to rescue me, a Falconer shot at me!” He brandished his paintbrush at her. “He would have killed me if Lord Ruven hadn’t saved me!”
Hells. I knew who this boy was.
“Emmand,” I blurted. The child Marcello had failed to save, four years ago. The one the assassin had kidnapped.
He turned at the sound of his name. “Who are you?” he snapped.
“Someone who knows the truth.” I came closer, holding out my hand. “Emmand, the Falconer was trying to save you. He wasn’t shooting at you; he was shooting at your captors. The people who ‘rescued’ you sold you to Ruven for dream poppies.”
“I know what really happened,” Emmand scoffed. “I was there.”
“They killed your parents.”
Emmand went still. “They did not. My parents sent me to Lord Ruven to protect me from the Falconers.”
“Who told you that?” Zaira’s voice oozed cynicism. “The kidnappers? When you asked where your parents were, after they murdered them?”
The boy threw his paintbrush down on the hard stone of the terrace. “That’s not what happened! Lord Ruven is my patron. He’s only giving the others the potion temporarily, until they see reason and stop trying to rush back into captivity. Then he’ll help them find good homes, like he did with the others.”
The others. I exchanged glances with Zaira, remembering what Selas had said.
Zaira let out an exasperated sigh. “Brat, you’re living in a world less real than that painting. Ruven is a lying bag of pig vomit, and you’ve eaten up everything he fed you.”
“Don’t you dare speak ill of him!” The boy quivered with rage. “Go away and leave me alone! I want to paint in peace.”
“Fine.” Zaira turned from him with a contemptuous swirl of skirts. “You keep poisoning good people for the man who had your parents killed, if that makes you happy. I don’t waste time talking to bridge posts, either, and they at least listen better than you.”
I fell in by her side. “This has not been my day for convincing people,” I murmured.
“That’s human nature. You can warn a brat not to stick his hand in the fire, but he still has to try it himself and get burned.” Zaira kicked a loose bit of shale down the terrace steps. “What’s next?”
I glanced around the gardens as we descended to the grass. Everyone was absorbed in deep discussions; no one was paying any attention to us. There was at least one vital thing we could accomplish today.
“We go find that control circle,” I said. “It’s time to put an end to Ruven’s volcanic ambitions.”
The map Namira had sketched for us showed the control circle at the crest of the next hill toward Mount Whitecrown; a saddle-shaped ridge connected it to the hill upon which the castle sat. A path at the edge of the gardens led off into the pines in the direction of the ridge. At the beginning of the path stood a knee-high Truce Stone, its designs worn with age, the hollow in the top stained with fresh blood.
We waited until Ruven was busy talking to the Yew Lord; distracted and with the power of sixteen other Witch Lords around him overwhelming his magical senses, it seemed unlikely he would detect two mere mortals wandering astray in his domain. Zaira checked thoroughly to make sure no one was watching us, and then we stepped beneath the trees.
The cold, shadowy air beneath their boughs immediately swallowed the murmur of conversations behind us. The scents of fresh pine and decaying leaves overwhelmed the perfume of the purple flowers in which Ruven’s mother had shrouded their family castle. A squirrel scolded us from a bare, gray tree branch, and I heard water flowing somewhere. The oppressive, expectant atmosphere I’d come to expect from the Vaskandran forest was muted—perhaps because Ruven’s attention was focused elsewhere.
Our boots crunched in the inch of snow on the trail. There was no way to avoid leaving footprints. We’d have to hope the Conclave kept Ruven too busy to come wandering down this path.
“Hells take this whole country,” Zaira grumbled. “I can’t wait to get back to Raverra, where there are about six trees altogether, none of which are trying to murder me.”
“And where people want simple things, like money and political influence, not immortality or magical dominion,” I agreed.
Zaira shrugged. “That doesn’t bother me as much. Power is power, and that’s what all these bastards want in the end.”
I supposed that was true. Even Kathe—and my mother. “It’s what they want the power for that makes the difference,” I said.
Zaira shook her head. “I don’t give a flea’s tiny bollocks what lofty reason someone has for wanting power. What matters is how they use it. That bitch back in Ardence—Savony, the old duke’s steward—wanted it for the sake of her city, and the Lady of Thorns wants it to save her dear sweet daughter; and either of them would climb over a mountain of corpses to get it. I’ll take a principled rogue over a ruthless idealist any day.”
“You have a point,” I conceded. “But still—What’s that smell?”
A sharp odor came and went on the wind, faint with distance or time, but still pungent enough to wrinkle my nose. I couldn’t make out if it was decay, animal musk, or some combination.
“Death.” Zaira’s mouth set in a grim line. “Over there.”
She jerked her chin ahead, to where a steep bluff beside the path fell down perhaps thirty feet into a wooded gulley. The wind shifted, and I caught a whiff of the unpleasant scent again.
“Come on.” Zaira held her sleeve across her nose and drew her dagger. “Let’s take a look.”
We crept cautiously to the edge of the dropoff. Lichen-crusted rock fell away below us to a large patch of barren ground where heavy animal traffic had beaten down anything that might have tried to grow there. Game trails cut thin, converging lines through the white-floored woods to this spot, and pawprints churned up the thin coating of snow into muddy slush.
Directly below us lay a scattered pile of well-gnawed human bones.
Some were newer, still held together by enough lingering scraps of sinew to be called a carcass. The shredded remnants of clothing still clung to these skeletons, or lay in faded tatters, trampled into the mud. But all the meat was off their bones, even their faces gnawed away; the wolves had taken the good parts.
“Grace of Mercy!” I recoiled from the charnel pit, grabbing Zaira’s arm.
“Ruven’s dumping ground.” Zaira shook me off and crouched by the edge, staring down. “No doubt that servant we saw him kill will wind up here
soon enough.”
I steeled myself to creep closer and take a second look. “There must be dozens of bodies down there.” If you could call them bodies at this point.
“And some of them were children.” Zaira jammed the words through her teeth. “That rotting piece of demon dung.”
She was right. A few of the oldest-looking bones were too small to have belonged to adults. My stomach clenched against a heave.
They all eventually displeased him, Selas had said.
“Graces rest their souls,” I breathed. “They must be the other mage children Orthys sold him. From before he had the potion. The ones who refused to obey.”
Zaira’s breath hissed in. I expected a barrage of fluent cursing, but she stood and whirled to face back along the path.
“Going for a walk in the woods?” she demanded.
I rose and turned, more slowly. The Lady of Thorns advanced toward us, her gown running eerily silent along the snow, as if she’d told the ground itself to make no noise. Her lips curved into a smile in her too-young face, her eyes narrowing to dangerous venom-green gleams.
“How convenient,” she purred. “Ruven won’t need to bother himself to remove the body.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I loosened one of Istrella’s rings: left index finger, for defense against magic.
“The rules of the Conclave forbid harming invited guests,” I pointed out, forcing more confidence into my voice than I felt.
The Lady of Thorns raised her eyebrows. “But we are no longer at the Conclave. Didn’t you see the Truce Stone? Those rules don’t protect you once you stray past their bounds.”
She laid her hand casually on a tree trunk. A new branch shot out of it, sharp as a spear and bristling with thorns, straight at me.
I ripped off Istrella’s ring and threw it.
It bounced off the branch in a shower of sparks; the thorny spear stopped as if it had struck a wall. The last few feet of it splintered and fell to the ground, unable to hold together without vivomancy to sustain its unnatural growth.
The Defiant Heir Page 39
