by Kira Brady
“But it doesn’t explain Corbette’s strange Aether storm or his behavior. His loss of self-control. His abandonment of the humans and his responsibilities to the council.”
“You haven’t shown much interest in the council either.”
As an accusation, it stung. So he’d been busy. So he’d assumed the people tangled in Sven’s strings would be happy not to have a ruler breathing down their necks. “But that’s a continuation of my behavior. Not a marked personality change. Something is wrong with Corbette. We have to assume the Heart is also calling to Kingu, and Kingu is following Corbette.”
They walked back to Butterworth’s. Grace had brought the new bike and chained it to a steel grate across the street. Leif allowed himself a small, private smile. “And the aptrgangr haven’t mentioned anything else besides the Heart?”
“What, do you think we sit around chatting?”
Chapter 12
Lucia lunged. A fine mist fell on the veranda of Kivati Hall, slicking her divided gown and plastering her hair to her face, but even a blizzard would be better than staying inside. Corbette’s emotions rolled through the building like their own personal indoor weather system. The Great Hall flashed hot then cold. Inside, ladies sweated in their corsets and petticoats, and the next moment froze beneath their thin shawls.
She slammed her knee into an invisible opponent like the Reaper had shown her. Crotch, eyes, throat. After this, she would practice running around the grounds. The Raven Lord hadn’t forbidden her that yet. Thank the Lady.
Lucia was afraid to sleep at night. Sometimes the nightmares were enough to keep her walking the dark hallways at midnight, but lately the real threat of fire kept her sleeping with a fire extinguisher next to her bed. Her memories of the Unraveling were etched on her soul. She remembered the earthquakes and the flames that raged through the city. She remembered the cyclone of souls that broke through the Gate to the Land of the Dead all too well.
And she knew that if Corbette’s control on the Aether continued to unravel and his anger sparked the tinder of this wooden palace, she would die in the flames. Her ability to manipulate the Aether, always weak, always shaky, was almost nonexistent now. She couldn’t call a rain cloud to smother the fire. She couldn’t force water from the air to dampen her skirts and keep her from becoming a living torch. Sometimes she wished she’d never read those history books on Victorian life, because she knew exactly how terrible it would be to have her skirts catch fire and her petticoats go up in flame. It would be a slow, agonizing death.
Sometimes she fantasized about the next world. But the hellfire she’d witnessed during the Unraveling kept her very sure she wanted to stay on this side of the Gate to the Land of the Dead. Nothing could make her go back down in that crater, and there was no other path through the Gate.
Lucia lunged again and this time slipped on the wet planks. Her slippers shot out from under her and she fell, hard. “Ye gods damn it!”
“Language, Lady Lucia.” She was startled to see Lord Kai watching her from the doorway. He looked disreputable as ever with his long, curling mane of black hair and his open shirt. Leather pants, not wool. Black motorcycle jacket and a bandoleer. He must have just come back from patrol. He shook his head in that slow, mocking way of his. “You’ve picked up some filth from your midnight strolls.”
“How did you—?”
“It’s my business to know what goes on in the Western House.” He took her gloved hand and pulled her off the deck. She glanced to his wrist. The leather thong peeked out from beneath his sleeve, showing just the edge of the jade Tablet. She swallowed and looked away. Being this close made her nauseated. “Don’t worry.” He pulled her near. “It’ll be our little secret.”
She extricated her hand from his.
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
She blinked at him.
“The Raven Lord’s sister is coming to visit. Does this mean the happy nuptials approach?”
Lucia felt like she’d taken a punch to the gut. Corbette still wanted her? He barely talked to her! Her parents would be ecstatic. She wasn’t ready. “He has a sister?”
Kai hooked a thumb in his bandoleer. “One big loving family. Lady Alice, the black sheep.”
Her lungs squeezed like she’d already run a mile. She didn’t know anything about Corbette. She’d tried so hard to become the perfect Kivati Lady since the Unraveling, but the effort was suffocating her. Be good. Be demure. Be proper. But she’d always had the heart of a rebel. She had more in common with Kai than she did with the straight-laced Corbette. At least until recently. Corbette’s control was slipping; it made him more real, but also infinitely more dangerous. Be careful what you wish for, she thought.
“You’re shivering,” Kai said. He shrugged out of his thick jacket and wrapped it around her thin shoulders. “Come inside out of the cold.”
She allowed him to steer her into the Hall. But Corbette met them, and she knew what he saw: his fiancée wrapped in another man’s coat, his trusted general with his arm around his china doll. A wave of heat bowled through the long hallway. Sweat trickled between her breasts.
Corbette’s eyes flashed violet. His head tilted. “Good morning.”
She wriggled out from under Kai’s arm and his coat. The Thunderbird knew what was good for him. He took a step back. “Good morning, my lord.” He took off like the gentleman he wasn’t, leaving her alone to face the demon.
Corbette scowled with his great black brows, looking down his great hooked nose at her like she was an ant to be crushed. Forcing her hands into her skirts to hide their shake, she gave a pretty curtsy. “I hear your sister is visiting.”
She waited for him to tell her about his sister, that the wedding was still on, that he still wanted her after everything that had happened. She watched his shoes. They didn’t betray his anger by tapping. They stayed perfectly still. Might have been carved from a frozen river. People said the Raven Lord didn’t have feelings, and he certainly pretended not to. But anyone who could feel so much anger had to have passion of the opposite sort. Once he found his mate, he would move the world for her.
Frankly, that ferocity of passion terrified the socks off her.
“Alice and her . . . husband will be joining us,” he said finally. “But don’t worry, we will have warriors guarding you. You don’t have to fear him.”
Her head jerked up. “Guards inside Kivati Hall?” She couldn’t even roam her pretty prison alone anymore? “Who is he?”
His lip curled. “Drekar. I will protect you.” This time hung in the air between them. “Nothing to fear as long as you stay here.” As usual he seemed to strip away her skin to the tender, hidden part of her.
How could he see so much and still be so blind? “Like Rapunzel locked in her tower. Safe from the wolves who bayed outside?”
His gaze slid off her like falling ice at the edge of a glacier. He turned to the open French doors. “Rapunzel was safe until she left.”
“But not from the witch.”
“No.” He took a step back into the hallway. “Not from the witch. But the witch wouldn’t hurt her. Never.” The illusion of feathers rippled over his skin.
He scared her. Not that he would hurt her deliberately; he would die first. But his stranglehold on himself and his ideals stifled her. She was not perfect. She had never been perfect. And he demanded perfection. From his people, from his generals, from himself most of all. The woman who would be his queen and rule beside him needed to be perfect too. No one, not even Lucia, would want any less for their leader. He had protected the Kivati way and kept their people from dying out after his father had almost lost the territory to the Drekar. He was the linchpin of their world. His mate had to be his match in everything, or she wouldn’t be able to compete with his true love, the Kivati.
Lucia would never be that woman. The crown of the Crane Wife had ground her down until she shattered like bones in the flames. She’d never been allowed to discover herself.
Even now, when she couldn’t bear his scrutiny, when nightmares kept her screaming awake and she had no Aether magic to speak of, he wouldn’t let her go. To let her go would be to admit defeat.
Worse, to admit he had been wrong about her, and the Raven Lord was never wrong.
She thought of the Reaper. Grace managed to wield personal power even enslaved to the Drekar. Lucia wanted to be more like her. Tough as nails. To get the Tablet, Grace needed access to Kai. This was Lucia’s chance to make a difference. She believed in Grace’s quest, but she knew Corbette would never hand it over if he thought the Drekar wanted it. Lucia needed to get Kai and the Tablet far away from Kivati Hall, and give Grace the opportunity to snatch it.
“Grant me an engagement gift,” Lucia blurted.
“Anything.”
“I want to see the city lit up again. I miss it. Make the Drekar Regent finish the Gas Works. Build gaslights across the Interurban to protect travelers.”
“So Lord Kai wants to redeem himself.”
“It’s not about Kai, but you should give him the chance. He lost the first coal shipment. His dishonor reflects poorly on us.”
Appealing to the Kivati honor worked as she had hoped. He gave her a sharp smile.
“Consider it done.”
The chimes above the door to Thor’s Hammer jingled. Grace ignored them, but it was harder to ignore the sudden alertness in Elsie’s body, spread naked beneath her needles and ink.
“Stop moving,” Grace ordered. All her concentration was on the copper hammer as she inked the rune into the skin above the last vertebra. Complete focus was essential. She felt the Aether humming through the needle, saturating the ink of the tattoo. She couldn’t lose her focus or the protection rune would be worthless.
“But hello, handsome,” Elsie purred.
“I said don’t move.” Grace blocked everything out. She didn’t smell cinnamon and iron. She didn’t feel an electric presence sneaking up behind her. She didn’t . . .
“Freya take you.” Her fingers slipped and the thread of Aether snapped. She threw her tools on her worktable and spun around. The bone knife slipped into her hand without conscious thought. Asgard stood there like a brilliant, blond sun god. “Can’t you read? It says DO NOT ENTER. What is unclear about that?”
He towered over her. The point of her knife pressed into the silk of his cravat, but he ignored it. His eyes pierced into her, daring her to push farther. He could break her like a twig. Tension snapped the air between them. Tension, and something hotter.
She would tell him what he could do with his interest.
Elsie broke it. “Do introduce us, Grace.” She sat up, milky white skin glowing in the light of the biodiesel lamp. Long blond curls artfully fluttered around the rosy tips of her nipples. Pink lips pursed, inviting.
Grace dropped her knife and gave him her back. Next to Elsie, she was invisible. Short. Plain. Temper like a bear cub. She liked it that way. “Regent Asgard, may I present Elsie, Maiden of Ishtar. Elsie, the Regent.”
She stuck her hands in the bucket of water on her worktable and scrubbed at the red and black ink on her fingers. Behind her, Elsie cooed, something artful and witty and well rehearsed. Grace didn’t envy Elsie her profession, but sometimes she wished for Elsie’s training. The ease with which she turned men’s minds. The power she maintained, even flat on her back.
“I live next door with a few other Maidens, but you may usually find me at the House in the square.” Elsie’s tone danced like the light of a flickering candle, so different from how she spoke to Grace.
“Mmm,” Asgard said. “Where Ianna’s High Priestess.”
“Oh, you know it! I can’t believe I missed your visit. We must have been ships passing in the night. I serve there four nights a week and high holidays.”
Grace couldn’t help sneaking a peek and found him staring at her. The beautiful, naked blonde beneath his nose might have been a fly for all the notice he paid Elsie. A hint of laughter danced at the corner of his elegant mouth.
She grabbed a towel and scrubbed her hands.
“It would be an honor to have you worship with us,” Elsie said. The invitation lingered in the air like incense from a night-blooming flower. A sensual promise.
Grace busied herself cleaning up the remains of the ritual. She crammed the lid back on the ink bottle and tucked her needles into her leather holder. Better that he turn his attentions elsewhere, where they were wanted. It was always a relief when Norgard had sought more fertile pastures. Well, not always. At first it had hurt. She’d been naive, but what sixteen-year-old wasn’t? Once the scabs on her heart had toughened up, she’d realized what a fool she’d been. No one would ever have the power to hurt her again.
Norgard was dead, but if Asgard thought he could pick up where his brother left off, he had another think coming. He might own her slave bond. He might demand her body. But he would never touch her heart. That was hers, and hers alone.
“Elsie, come back tomorrow,” she snapped. “We have to start all over again.” Elsie started at her tone. “And you.” Grace turned to Asgard. “What do you want?”
One blond eyebrow rose. “I wasn’t aware I needed an invitation to my own business.”
He had a point. She had forgotten that he had inherited all of Norgard’s possessions, Thor’s Hammer included. She was too used to calling this shop her own. Her black drapes covered the thin windows. Her silver-threaded couch—found after hours of combing secondhand stores—provided a safe place to crash after long nights. Her bottles of herbs and potions lined the walls. Her chalk circles and painted wards decorated the floor and door frame.
But Asgard owned the building. And these hands that had fashioned the drapes, that had spent long hours in the vats of slime to make those potions, that had drawn those wards, he owned them too. She would have to remember. She owned nothing.
Elsie slipped her sheer chemise over her head, letting the silk flow softly and slowly over her curves. Grace gave her a flat look. The Maiden usually tugged her clothes on like any normal person. This seductive act was all for Asgard.
It pissed her off.
“A moment.” Asgard reached out to halt the flow of silk down Elsie’s back. He examined the unfinished mark over the last bone in her spine. His large fingers traced the delicate skin above Elsie’s perky, rounded ass.
Elsie gave a breathy little moan, and Grace tried not to roll her eyes.
“An interesting design,” he said. “What does it mean?”
“Ishtar’s wrath,” Elsie said. “Most Maidens get the symbol for her sacred courtesans or her sexual power. But she was the goddess of war too.”
“So you’re channeling her anger.” He gently pulled the under gown over Elsie’s rump and turned to Grace. “Is that what’s tattooed all over your back too?”
“Oh, no,” Elsie said. “Grace doesn’t need any help with aggression.”
Asgard smiled.
Very funny.
“Ishtar led an army of the dead, did you know that?” Elsie slipped on her corset over the chemise and motioned for Grace to help lace it up. Grace obliged. She felt Asgard watching her. His presence radiated outward, like a rip in the Aether, impossible to ignore. “The High Priestess won’t talk about it, but Grace and I have been researching.”
“Tell me,” he said. He turned that movie-star smile on Elsie, and she preened like a flower turning to the sun.
Grace bungled the laces. Elsie knew she didn’t know how to do this girly crap.
“Allow me.” Asgard took the laces from her. Grace snatched her hands away and backed up. Another little smile played along his lips. So much for not letting him see how he affected her. She had to do better.
Elsie was oblivious to the power struggle tainting the air behind her. “Ishtar knew how to stand up for herself. She took what she wanted. Grace, find that passage, will you?”
Grace was only too happy for another task that didn’t involve corsets or men or sex. An army of the
dead? That was more her style. She picked up the book she’d stolen from the House of Ishtar, flipped to the page on the Epic of Gilgamesh, and cleared her throat. “The oldest mention of aptrgangr anywhere in the world is found on Ishtar’s tablets. She was a petty and vengeful goddess, and when she didn’t get her way she threatened to raise the dead. When Gilgamesh spurns her advances, she says, ‘I’ll wreak havoc of my own right down to Hell. I’ll loose the goddamn devil. I’ll rain corpses. I’ll make zombies eat infants and there will be more dead souls than living ones!’” She flipped a couple pages. “And here again when Ishtar goes into the underworld she threatens, ‘I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld. I will smash the doorposts and leave the doors flat down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living. And the dead will outnumber the living.’”
“She sounds downright bloodthirsty,” Asgard said.
“Most old myths paint powerful women in a negative light, but this is pretty explicit. She commanded an army of the dead to do her bidding. I think Kingu is leading her army. He’s raising aptrgangr to do his searching for him.”
Asgard helped Elsie slip on her gown. He certainly knew his way around a Maiden’s clothing. “So Ishtar, in her pity, gave Tiamat’s children three gifts: her sacred courtesans to feed our soul hunger, her army of the dead to extract vengeance, and a soul mate to end our curse.”
There it was again: that intense longing that cracked the calm beauty of Asgard’s face. Only an instant, and it was gone. But Grace had seen it twice now. How could he believe that soul mate crap? It was a death sentence. What immortal would give up forever just to be with one woman? What idiot would chain her soul to a Dreki for eternity?
“That is so romantic!” Elsie said. “Grace was telling me about your soul mate. You poor dear.”
