by Melanie Card
“Ward.” Goddess above, was he actually going to make her go after Ingrith with magic? So far he’d only been able to use magic when desperate. Did that mean he was desperate about Ingrith? That would mean their kiss really had meant something and setting him up with her would be easier than first thought.
With a groan, he dropped his head and the magic vanished. “It’s not safe.”
“No place is safe until the curse is destroyed.”
“And I can’t do that.”
“But you might be able to find a way to keep it at bay until help arrives.” She knelt, trying to get him to look at her, trying to find her Ward in this stranger sitting before her.
“Maybe,” he said.
“You’ve done more with less.”
He raised his eyes. The rage and strangeness was gone, replaced with exhaustion. Perhaps that was all she’d seen, and the stress of the situation had made her imagine things.
She offered a soft smile. “Let’s take care of that cut.”
He leaned forward and brushed a finger along her cheek, drawing a slight sting and a shiver. “You’re hurt, too.”
They were close, a hand’s breadth apart. Her battle-heightened nerves tingled, aware of where his hands, his lips, his whole body was in relation to hers. She trembled with the idea that if she dipped forward or turned her head to the side she’d make contact with lips or fingers. His mouth parted as if in invitation to her thoughts. Heat flooded her chest, and she remembered she needed those lips focused on Ingrith. It was best for him—better than her.
She eased back. “Let’s deal with your thigh.”
His gaze jumped to his leg and up to her again. “I can take care of it myself.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve stitched you up before.”
Red seeped across his forehead and cheeks. “It’s not my shirt I have to take off this time.”
That thing in her chest twisted—the emotions she didn’t want and shouldn’t have—and she couldn’t stop looking at his hand pressed against his wound. The knuckle of his thumb pointed to his waistband, a few inches from the buttons closing up the front of his pants. Pants he needed to remove. His shirt had come partially undone, the buttons ripped from the fight, revealing a hint of his lean-muscled chest. He looked rugged, fierce, nothing like the man she’d first met in Brawenal City. More like the hard-edged man she’d caught glimpses of in Macerio’s house a week ago.
The red on his cheeks deepened, and she jerked her gaze away from him. “I’m sure we can be professional about this.”
“I’m sure,” he said, his voice husky.
“How do you want me to—” She couldn’t say the words. Asking how to undress him seemed… She didn’t know what it seemed. Every nerve within her burned. She couldn’t focus on his injury, and she had no idea where to put her hands.
This was ridiculous. She’d undressed a man before.
She reached for the button at the top of his waistband. He grabbed her wrist with his free hand. If he inhaled, flexed his stomach, moved in any way, she’d make contact with his flesh.
“Celia.” His breath trembled against her cheek, sending more shivers racing over her.
Her stomach fluttered. There was something between them. There had to be. Surely he could feel it, too. This had to be more than some after effect of his spell. It felt like so much more, like nothing she’d ever felt before. It was like liquid lightning coursing through her veins, yet twisting in her stomach, yearning and aching and fearing all at the same time. She would have taken that dagger strike for him if she could have, and yet she knew he would never have asked it of her.
How could she make him see her? Really see her? Screw Ingrith. Celia didn’t want to sacrifice this feeling to be noble. She was a selfish, selfish assassin and wanted Ward to herself.
“Celia.” His voice was so soft. His hand on her wrist tightened and his chest rose with quick breaths.
If she looked in his eyes, what would she see? The same desire? The same yearning to cross that threshold, undo the first button on his pants…undo the following buttons? Break the law?
The door banged opened and a portly man in a powdered wig and red jacket rushed in, carrying a black leather bag. Ingrith hurried in behind him, and Celia jerked back, heat racing up her neck.
“My lady Tracker.” The man, a physician by his clothes and wig, gave her a curt nod and knelt beside Ward. “Bring the water jug and wash basin over here, then get out.”
“Excuse me?” She was not leaving Ward alone, regardless that the man didn’t have smoky eyes.
“It’s all right,” Ward said.
Ingrith rushed into Celia’s room and grabbed the basin and jug.
The man motioned for Ingrith to set them on the desk. “My dear, this isn’t something a lady like you will want to witness,” he said to Celia.
She cocked an eyebrow. “You are aware I kill people for a living.”
He stared at her as if her words didn’t make sense.
“That’s what Quayestri do, you know.”
“Can we discuss this when I’m no longer bleeding?” Ward asked, his face a brilliant shade of red. There were now a lot of people in the room, Ingrith included, and Ward still had to take his pants off.
Ah…right.
“Come on, Ingrith,” Celia said. “Let’s let the physician do his job.”
“My father’s physician is the best in the Union,” the girl said.
“I’m sure.” Celia grabbed the girl’s wrist and urged her out of the room, closing the door behind her.
“He’s going to be fine.” Ingrith hugged herself, a bloody handprint on her wrist where Celia had grabbed her.
Celia stared at her palm. She must have gotten someone’s blood, maybe even Ward’s, on her during the fight. Blood smeared dark on the side of her white shirt, too, but save for the nick on her arm and a few elsewhere, most of the blood wasn’t hers.
All she wanted right now was to lean against the wall beside the door and wait for the physician to be done. Her muscles ached and the rush of the fight, as well as their escape, was fading. Every bruise and nick she’d earned squaring off against Allette flared to life and her cheek really did sting. But what she needed to do was get Ingrith to her suite, somehow convince her not to leave until Goddess-knew-when without telling her Diestro’s curse was back, and take this moment to return to Florino’s desk to search his notes.
Fabric rustled at the far end of the hall, drawing Celia’s attention. Rhia swept around the corner, her dress billowing behind her like a sail. She hurried to Ingrith and reached for the girl but stopped, her gaze locked on Ingrith’s wrist. “The physician was called. Are you hurt?”
Ingrith looked at the blood, her eyes growing glassy. “The lord Inquisitor is.”
“Apprentice Inquisitor, and it’s not bad,” Celia said, feeling compelled for some reason to reassure both women.
Rhia’s eyes narrowed.
“I’ve seen worse.” Done worse, too. But Celia wasn’t going to say that. “We should get you to your rooms.”
“I’m not leaving Ward,” Ingrith said.
“The apprentice Inquisitor will be with the physician for a while, and afterward he should probably rest.” It took everything in Celia’s power not to snap the words out. She was so tired of people not listening to common sense. Yes, that was it!
“You should get cleaned up.” Rhia squeezed Ingrith’s elbow.
“Yes, go to your rooms and get cleaned up. Then order a nice big meal and stay in for the rest of the day and evening,” Celia said. Hopefully by the time they woke it would be safe to leave…if one of them wasn’t possessed by the curse first.
Celia doubted they’d be possessed and that Ingrith would remain in her suite. And really, she had more important things to do. Keep Ward alive, keep the curse at bay, and get back to Florino’s desk. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was he had to have found something.
She twitched, burning
for action. Please let Florino have found answers and let Ward get out of here alive.
Twenty - Three
Nazarius opened the door leading to the small courtyard with the potted tree and reflection pool where Jotham had first led them from the dungeon. This was where Severin’s note had instructed him to be… He glanced at the sky. Heavy clouds still gathered overhead, threatening rain and making it impossible to tell what time of day it was, and fog still curled along the tiles.
It had to be close to sunset, but the courtyard was empty, and with the city in chaos and Talbot locking everything down, perhaps Severin hadn’t made it.
That thought brought a mix of relief and fear, which flashed then froze a heartbeat later when a shadow separated from the archway on the other side of the courtyard. Nazarius reached for his sword out of instinct, and the shadow tsked.
“Watch your welcome, Tracker.” Severin stepped away from the darkness into the foggy gray of the courtyard. His damp, close-cropped dark hair hugged his skull, but it did little to make his features unique. Everything was plain about this man. He was neither too noble or too peasantlike in appearance, in height, in weight, in everything, as if he was a doll, a life-size fabrication of a real man. And yet, there was something about his eyes—when he wanted to reveal it—that said he was dangerous. He was the Seer of the House of Bralmoore one of the most powerful men in the Union of Principalities.
“My lord Seer.” Nazarius clutched his sword hilt, taking comfort in the familiar grip for a heartbeat before letting his hand drop. “Tell me you foresee a way out of this mess.”
The Seer sat on the edge of the fountain. “It will come to an end.”
“Blessed be the Goddess. How do I get Ward out of here?”
“Your assignment isn’t done.”
“The assignment to get the grimoires has been compromised.” Which was putting it mildly. Ward couldn’t banish Diestro’s curse, and there was no way they could deal with Allette without first dealing with the curse.
“Your assignment isn’t done, regardless that things have become complicated.”
“Complicated?” Nazarius lurched forward, his hands on his matched hilts before he realized what he was doing. He was beginning to really hate that word.
Severin raised a dark eyebrow. His right hand twitched but stayed at his side. In that moment he exuded a deadly confidence, much like Celia Carlyle’s. Nazarius wasn’t sure how. The man didn’t move, didn’t even blink, but everything about him said if Nazarius took one more step he was dead.
“Celia no longer has the grimoire. I don’t know what she’s done with it,” Nazarius said, struggling to relax his guard. “And I don’t know where Allette is keeping hers.”
“All in good time.”
“We don’t have a lot of time left. Diestro’s curse is back.”
“I know.” Lightning flashed across the sky, punctuating Severin’s words.
Damned Seer. He’d probably timed his words to match that. “If you know, then you have to get Ward out of here.”
Thunder cracked, the sound booming around them, bouncing against the mountainside and the city walls.
“How do you know this isn’t Ward’s destiny?”
“He isn’t strong enough to destroy the curse.”
“Are you sure?”
“He’s already tried. If he was strong enough, it would be gone.” But even as Nazarius said them, the words didn’t make sense. Ward had been trying to banish a rith, not destroy Diestro’s curse. The necromancer was powerful beyond belief—saving that vesperitti, Val, and freeing Allette was proof of that—there was just something in his way, something he had to figure out first.
“Don’t worry about the curse.” Severin chuckled, but it held no mirth. “Rumor has it the ghost of Remy LeRoux is haunting the streets. Perhaps Ward can find his corpse and wake him, and he’ll help.”
“That would be helpful. Do you know where Brother LeRoux was buried?” That might actually be the first good idea anyone had suggested—although Nazarius had no idea how difficult it was to wake someone long dead.
“Not your concern,” Severin said, his voice dark. “The Necromancer Council of Elders was notified.”
“So it isn’t his destiny to destroy it?”
“You need to focus on the job at hand.”
More lightning lit the sky.
“But Ward—?”
Severin stood, a hint of the danger radiating from him, his dark eyes hard. “Now is not his time to die.”
Not this time, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t face it with whatever Severin had foreseen, and it didn’t mean he’d get through this without serious scars.
“Concern yourself with the grimoire. Nothing else.”
Nazarius bit back a growl. “I don’t know where it is.”
“Which is why I’m here to tell you. Remember your place. You are my man, sworn into the service of the Grewdian Council to be placed and moved as the Goddess tells me.”
And with a decree, Severin could destroy Nazarius’s life, and Pietro’s life, and the lives of their families. There was nothing he could do. Goddess above, there was nothing he could do but obey. “What does my lord Seer wish?”
…
Ward’s thigh burned. He’d eased into his only other pair of clean pants and settled on the stiff couch with the journal and his dagger close at hand, but no matter how he sat he couldn’t find a position that didn’t hurt. The physician had sent up wine laced with henbane and as much as it would ease his pain, it would also make him sleepy, something he couldn’t afford right now. That, and he wasn’t sure if anything could ease the ice trembling through him.
Flashes of light snapped around him, his imagination impossibly seeing magic in the inanimate objects in the room, not just in people and blood anymore, which only proved he was going crazy, since only beings—creatures with blood and a soul—had significant magic within them. He ground his teeth against it, against all of it: the cold, the spinning, the pain. Back in that storage room, he’d resisted using that man’s blood to cast a spell against Allette. He could resist this now. But it was so hard to concentrate.
At the thought, the urge to go back, to embrace that power and end Allette, exploded within him. The ice swelled and his teeth chattered.
Goddess above. He couldn’t take any magic, that was what the curse wanted—for Ward to embrace the blood magic lure and become more than just an Innecroestri, but a blood magi. Just like the man who’d created the curse in the first place.
A shiver swept through him, igniting a spike of pain in his thigh, but a sudden white light flashed and heat nipped at his leg.
He scrambled off the couch, knocking the journal to the floor. More pain, another burst of light, and a pinch of heat.
What the—? He pressed his hand to his thigh. Heat radiated through the cloth from the locket in his pocket—the one he’d stolen for the Master of the Assassins’ Guild.
Ward pulled it out. The small gold oval pulsed like a heartbeat, the same as it had when he’d discovered that secret grave, but the pace now was rapid, like his own pulse.
The light flashed again and, as he watched, a nick in his hand scabbed over.
He squeezed his eyes shut. It was exhaustion. He’d imagined that. But when he opened his eyes, the scab looked three days old and was starting to itch.
His knees buckled, and he sagged back onto the couch.
Impossible. Yet, the scab dried and flaked off, revealing a hint of red where the small, shallow cut had been.
Completely impossible. The locket had belonged to a necromancer. Necromancy couldn’t heal, not permanently, but it could, for a short while, make the body think it was fine. It took a lot of power to make a patch, and no matter the strength of the necromancer, it never lasted long enough for the body to actually heal.
He set the locket on the far end of the couch, but the nick in his hand didn’t return.
He hobbled to the far end of the suite.
He returned the locket to his pocket, pressing it against the cut on his thigh, and eased back onto the couch. The Master of Brawenal’s Assassins’ Guild had said not to sell the locket, that Ward would need it.
There was hope after all. Celia would return soon with Nazarius. They would confirm Talbot had summoned the Necromancer Council of Elders, and all Ward would have to do was figure out a way to stall the curse long enough for help to arrive.
Goddess above, they might just survive.
…
Celia eased open the heavy library door and peered inside. No sign of Allette or her friends.
Good.
Not that Celia would mind another opportunity to run her silver knife through the vesperitti’s heart now that Ward was safe, relatively speaking.
Which was ridiculous. She needed a better plan than just a desire to vent her frustration. Allette was a serious danger, particularly since she seemed to be in league with the curse. But the compulsion, the clawing desire to kill the bitch, was overwhelming. It was all she could think about.
That, and the moment with Ward and his pants…
She adjusted her grip on the knife, grabbed a witch-stone marble, and headed back to Florino’s desk. How in the Goddess’s name were they going to get out of this one? She couldn’t even grab Ward and drag him from Dulthyne without risking him turning his magic on her like he had the last time she’d tried that.
A shiver raced over her at the memory. She’d been trying to get him to leave Macerio’s mansion—forcing him, actually—and he’d shot a bolt of magic into her, knocking her out. He hadn’t meant it. It’d been all instinct. But that only made her feel more at ease, knowing that if push came to shove his sense of self-preservation would actually kick in, even if his common sense never did.
She glanced around a corner. All clear. Only a hint of witch-stone emanated from among the shelves.
