by Karin Cox
“What of the question none of us will speak?” one of the other Councilors—Yisena, wearing the brown cloak of Selindor—changed the subject. “The Crux is our burden, but if the prophecy of the Cruor comes true, how shall we survive? What the Cruximus tells us of that is obscure. Without them, shall we all starve?”
“How some of us are surviving now.” Jania held her goblet up in salute and drank from it deeply. “On Haemil.”
Pentros of Hiltenhall’s booming laugh bounced around the chamber. “As cannibals, eh?” He waggled thick black eyebrows at me. “None of us know if we can live like that forever.”
Cannibals! My threshold for the ridiculous had been crossed. All the while, I had been listening, trying to make sense of their words. Swans and betrayals, pride and survival. Feuds and prophecies and bloodwine, but cannibals ... it was nonsense. The world outside was real, and dark, but here ... Silvenhall was a dream world, a place for thoughts and theories, theologies. Here, their doings and undoings, their petty arguments were all they saw. I shook my head.
“Speaker,” I addressed Shintaro, leveling my gaze to his. “Such talk of politics and rivalries wearies me. I confess that I neither care for it nor understand it. It does not concern me. If you will not hunt, if you will not fight, then leave me to my mission. If I may have your leave to go, I shall fly far from Silvenhall. Take it as my troth that I will seek out only my own company and the company of Sabine, the Sphinx Skylar speaks of.” My voice caught. “She alone has been true to me in centuries, and my loyalties in this world lie with her. I followed Skylar here for one purpose: that I might find, in your Cruximus, the power to revive Sabine, and that I might love her as she has loved me, whole-heartedly and truly, and that I might avenge her and others the undead have destroyed.”
Jania crossed her arms over her chest. “Your charge himself does not wish to remain, Skylar.” I heard mockery beneath the even tone. “What a swan it is that would choose a cat over its own kind.”
Shintaro’s expression remained unmoved. “Amedeo the Exiled, I would that I could give you my leave to flee Silvenhall and never return, but alas, I cannot.” He shifted uncomfortably on his chair. Raising the goblet before him, he turned the stem in his hand, as if measuring the weight of it. With a deep sigh, he set it down.
“I have heard the accusations in your thoughts and in your voice, and you are right. The Council has failed.” He placed his hand on the book again. “Commitment to our lore has waned.” His head swung to pin Jania with a stare from his watery eyes. When she turned away, scowling, he turned them on Daneo and Jiordano.
“We have doubted the Cruximus,” he began, “and the Swan, as we have doubted those who should have kept both true. But perhaps Skylar is right. Neither ever failed us; instead, we have failed them. No good can come of such a transgression. No good can come from the darkness at our backs that we keep at bay with this.” He pushed the goblet away from him.
At that, Jania once more sprang from her chair. “Speak plainly, Shintaro, for this conversation has been a long time on your lips. Come, you are the Speaker,” she taunted him. “You hold the Speaker’s gavel. So speak! Tell them what we have always known, that you blame Milandor for your cowardice. That you think our way of life an abomination. That you would sooner see war than peace. Tell them that you will cast out our treaty again, forego Haemil, and once more make a war upon your own kind for the simple crime of loving each other.”
I straightened in the dock. Now here was something interesting! Once more, the sanctuary of Silvenhall was a roil of raw emotion. They spoke of love and swans and peace, but their actions were of rivalry and dissent.
“It is not the crime of your love that troubles me, Jania,” Shintaro rumbled. “Nor even that the Swan’s wings have become so clipped and bloodied. It is the Crux. I fear not another war with Milandor but a war to end all wars. I feel it welling within me, a wave of blood, starting to crest.” He rose slowly to his feet. “And perhaps Skylar is right: perhaps we must run toward it, dive into it before it rushes upon us and carries us away.”
Jania pointed at the book, and her was tone strident as she said, “Where does it say we must suffer so, and why? Take me to the page! I have armies at my ready if I need them, Shintaro.” She threw her head back wildly, and her menacing tone became an accusation. “How is Milandor doing more or less than Silvenhall or than Dusindel? You think that because we do not hunt we are not Cruxim. Pah!” She snorted. “You barely hunt yourselves, leaving it to the Aspis. You know yourself that it has nothing to do with our Haemil. It is that our people do not die, Shintaro, not like yours do. They are not alone. Not like you are, old man. It is envy.”
Shintaro shook his head, slowly, as if ashamed of her. His hand shook where it rested upon the Cruximus.
“You think us weak? It is your will that is weak!” Her fist slammed the table. “I tell you that if we should be helpless, unable to combat Vampires in their numbers, that if the Maker’s lore is to force us to orphan our children, to lose our partners, then it is unjust. Who would worship such a Maker? And at least when battle comes to me in Milandor I shall have Kaleb and Yiran at my side.” She pointed to two black-clad male Cruxim in the front row of the crowd.
The two men’s eyes flickered to each other, and they nodded in unison.
“And Melania and Ceriana too.” Jania pointed out two black-clad women. “All have stood together with me for centuries and have loved for centuries, and, yes, have fought with me too when the need arose. Do you forget—here in Silvenhall or in Dusindel—the War of the Black Cloaks? Have you forgotten why Lilyana and I sit at this table? We won that war, Shintaro. We can win another. The Cruxim of Milandor fight well because they love well. It may be that they love truer than you, old man, with your loyalties to ancient ways, your ideals and faith and arranged loves. So, do it. You want a war? You need a Cruor? Then let this creature stay in Silvenhall. Let him bring his marble she-bitch here. Let hordes of Vampires follow them and tear you all to feathers and dust, for that is what will happen, and you shall face it without Milandor’s aid, and without our blood.”
Snatching the goblet from Daneo’s hand, she tossed it down upon the table. A snake of crimson slithered from the table’s edge. Its thin dripping was drowned out by Shintaro’s hiss of displeasure.
Daneo stayed his arm.
The woman Skylar had addressed as Lilyana rose and swung her black cape back off her shoulders. “For Milandor!” She snatched a scimitar sword from the wall behind her and brandished it, releasing a high-pitched, ululating cry. The ebony-cloaked Cruxim in the crowd matched it as the two women, clutching hands, strode from the dais. Cruxim wearing the black of Milandor peeled off before them, stamping in syncopated rhythm. Capes fluttering, they led their Proxim from the Council hall.
“And so the great rift yawns again,” Shintaro boomed after them. “Beware, Jania, of its teeth. Let Milandor no longer sit at the Council of Paleon. No more let us treat with those who cannot bear the task the Cruximus placed upon us, for he or she who bears no Crux is no Cruxim. So have I spoken.” He swung the gavel with all of his might. It crashed down upon the table and sent a chip of the inlaid pearl cross on the tabletop skipping into the silent assembly.
I sat in the dock, stunned. What had happened? I cleared my throat. “If it pleases you, Speaker, this has nothing—”
“Shintaro has spoken,” Herenios cried, cutting off my words. He made to salute with his goblet but caught himself and toppled it instead, adding to the pool of sticky scarlet that snaked off the table.
One by one, the other Councilors repeated his words. Finally, Daneo, the last to speak, repeated, “Shintaro has spoken.”
I noticed that his face looked green with the effort of it.
Jania, at the door, turned and drew herself up to her full height. “Traitor,” she said with a voice full of venom. She motioned with her head at Jiordano, too. “Do you think He won’t remember all of those who clipped the wings of the Swan?”
&nbs
p; Her eyes flew to mine. “Let him stay. He may fit here in Silvenhall, with the other traitors, even if his mother did not.”
I bristled. “Let her leave,” I responded loudly. “It will be one less of you to insult me and keep me bound in secrets.”
The Council Chamber now emptied of black cloaks, the ranks of white and silver and blue and red closed to fill the gaps. Only the clack of boots on the marble path outside filled the uneasy silence until the slamming of the heavy Council door alerted all that Milandor had left the Council.
Shintaro put his hands to his head and rubbed at his temples. “Perhaps I have been wrong.” He fixed me with a beady stare and raised his voice. “But when the Speaker speaks, the assembly must listen. If I have given the Council,”—he spread his hands to the remaining Councilors—“another trouble, then I ask them pardon. But I feel the mountain move beneath us, and perhaps the day of the Haemacra draws near. If he is the Cruor, if indeed he is the one to solve the Sphinx’s riddle so she may lap away this trail of blood we follow, then so be it. If he is not, then his coming here has rekindled a war among us for nothing.” He rubbed his temple again and shut his eyes. “Either way, it would be a poor time to let him leave.”
Skylar’s face was as still as stone, waiting.
“Calira’s son shall stay,” Shintaro said, after a long pause. “I wish to know where he is at all times. He shall be granted asylum in Silvenhall but on one condition, Skylar Emmanuel.”
Her mask fell a little to the makings of a smile.
“He must remain here, under your guard. Skylar Emmanuel, you must swear to keep him in your sight—at all times. You must use the wisdom and compassion we know of you to teach him only that which will help him. Should he betray us, or if he would compromise the sanctuary of Silvenhall, it will be deemed your betrayal also. Should he face exile, it will mean your exile. And should he knowingly bring death to us, it shall mean your death, Skylar Emmanuel of Silvenhall. Do you accept this trust in the name of your Crèche and under the order of the Council of Paleon ... what remains of it?”
Skylar’s eyes shone, and the milk-white points of her fangs were revealed when she smiled. “I do, Shintaro, Speaker of the Council.” She put one hand on her heart and bobbed her head. “I thank the Council for it.”
“Councilor Shintaro, if I may.” I spread both hands over the rail of the dock. “These terms are unacceptable to me.”
Skylar’s head whipped around, her stare so fierce it almost made me smile.
“They do not permit me to protect the anchorstone of the Sphinx Sabine,” I continued. “My condolences for your recent ... troubles, but I have my own wars to wage and my own vengeance to exact. You cannot expect me to submit to these terms, nor to remain here, war or no war. I have been my entire life at war. You call it asylum; I call it captivity.”
He eyed me speculatively, and I could see his teeth grinding in his jaw. “He will test you Skylar,” he cautioned. “You are aware of that?”
She nodded, her slitted eyes warning me off.
“Very well. Your term of service as Amedeo’s guard shall begin immediately.”
“But Speaker—” I began.
“Silence, fool!” Shintaro rubbed his chin. “A month hence, should you keep your vows and not trouble us, you shall be granted leave, in the company of others, to retrieve the stone of which you speak. If you cannot be grateful for our asylum, be grateful for her guardianship.” He pointed a shaking finger at Skylar.
“A month! Who shall protect the stone for me while you incarcerate me here?” Even a day was too long without Sabine. While I tarried here, she was alone, in a cage of her own fear and loneliness. I knew that feeling, knew what it was.
“Perhaps you might try to accept our hospitality.” His bleak smile seemed a bone thrown down to appease a tethered pup. “Or to trust us, if we would trust even you. The stone will be safe in your absence. I shall see to it.”
“And when might Skylar’s ‘guardianship’ end?”
He brought the gavel down for the final time. “When it ends. Now, if there are no more objections...” He paused, raising one eyebrow as if expecting some, but the crowd before him seemed shocked into silence, and the Proxim on the dais along with them.
“I, Shintaro, Speaker of the Council and First Proxim of Silvenhall, call this meeting to a close.” He gestured to me. “Let he who seeks asylum here in the sanctuary walk among you safely.” He lowered his head and glowered at me under beetled brows. “Walk safely among us, Amedeo. Even Cruxim must learn to walk before they can fly.”
I gave my wings a flap in agitation. Would that I could turn and fly far from here.
The Proxim on the dais stood as Shintaro beat one fist over his chest. “For Crèche,” he said loudly.
“For Crèche!” The Cruxim in the crowd and on the dais followed his lead.
“And Crux!” He crossed the fist with the other and gave his wings a mighty flap.
“And Crux!”
Before me, Skylar did the same. The smile she turned on me was fierce and proud and knowing all at once, and it stirred something in me that prevented me from turning away. She nodded to the others, their hands crossed over their chests, as if I might now copy them. But my heart, when I pounded it with my fist, felt false, and the wind of my wings was cold as I called down on me a cross I knew not whether I might safely bear.
CHAPTER NINE
It felt strange to walk out among them, and stranger still to ignore their whispers as I passed. I could tell from their eyes that many still hated me.
Skylar ignored them, and me. Was she angry still? I supposed she thought I made her look a fool.
“Not me, only yourself.”
“I never asked you to defend me.”
“I did not—only myself. Shintaro defended you.” Her face and voice remained infuriatingly placid.
I rubbed my wrists. “Shintaro’s defense felt like an accusation.” I laughed, trying to break the mood.
She ignored me.
“I should thank you,” I said as I followed her to a wooden boardwalk.
She smiled, still looking away. “But you will not.”
She was trailing her hand along a hedge of Jasmine alongside the path. It was a familiar gesture that at first pained me. Only the scent had changed, and the girl, and yet her face was as soft and lovely as Joslyn’s had been, so long ago. My heart ached at the expression etched there. I had been unkind, then and now, and it shamed me. Whatever her reasons, I did not doubt her kindness.
Stopping, I reached for her other hand and pressed my lips to the back of it. “Do you truly think me so rude that I would not say it?”
“No. Only so proud.”
I laughed at that. “Then you have the measure of me, for I am no swan but a peacock.”
Skylar pulled her hand away, frowning. “You are glad to remain?”
I squinted up at the sun. “Gladness is not something I do well.”
“You have had little to be glad for?”
I almost agreed, until I realized it was not a statement. Skylar phrased even her accusations sweetly.
I sighed as I watched her walk on, the scent of Jasmine rising around us with the bees.
“No,” I answered, catching up. “I have known gladness. It is just that I have had too much to regret. And my regrets need me. Sabine needs me there, not making enemies here and attending hearings I do not understand. What did you mean, in the Council, about the Swan and the regrets? What is this bird you all speak of? You said you would not make the same mistake as Daneo. He seems a man who has made many.”
She turned to face me. “You never said it.” Her eyes laughed, but her smile was forced. She had caught me in my own snare, changing the subject.
It was there again: the hedge between us, the hum of her mysteries. It frustrated and intrigued me in equal measure. Letting my questions drop, I took up both of her hands. “Thank you, Skylar Emmanuel.”
Her irises were paler than dawn
over the sea. She held my gaze. “You are welcome, Amedeo—” If she had more to say, she swallowed it and let go of my hands.
“Now, if I must be stuck here, am I able to learn Cruxim lore?”
“Because you thanked me?” Skylar smiled. I could see she was glad for my apology. “Yes, as long as I am here to watch you.”
“Then long may you be here.” I returned her smile. Much as my heart wanted to flee Silvenhall, I knew, too, the sadness of exile. I could not foist that upon her. She had brought me here unprepared, to a place she knew would be hostile to me, and yet, in this “sanctuary” she and Kisana alone believed in me. Was her belief misplaced? Only the Cruximus or the Maker might tell me. “Where shall we start? Tell me what it is, this Cruor.”
I was more eager to learn the riddle that had brought me here, but from her expression I sensed it would be kept from me until she was sure I would accept her guardianship.
A frown drew Skylar’s brows together. “Let us start with Haemil,” she suggested. “That is where this feud with Milandor began.”
I shooed a bee away. If it was honey I sought, I had first to find a hollow. Let her teach me in her own way first, and then I might charm it from her.
“You would teach a Cruxim history?” I joked, eager to keep this easiness between us. “I have seen many centuries. Many wars. Mortals war as often as your Crèches, but there is only one war that concerns me, and it is not with humans nor with Cruximkind.”
She plucked at my wing, playfully. “I will not war with you, Amedeo. Let there be peace between us for now, and patience. You think yourself old, yet to many in Silvenhall, you are barely fledged. Learn your history.”
“Might I learn yours too?” I asked, wondering her age. It was a flirt, but it made her smile for a moment. The beauty of it, unmasked by secret emotions as it had always been, made me step back a little and draw a breath, but my return smile, drawn involuntarily by the hot, sharp constriction of my heart, was tinged with guilt.
Skylar’s smile vanished. The light in her eyes extinguished. “I have lived not so long as a Sphinx. I fear I must make a poor guardian.” She focused on the path ahead, where it circled steeply down the grove then fell away to sky. “My history would only bore you.”
