First Blood

by K. Gorman

  Geneve bit her lip. A mask slid over her face, putting on a semblance of stoicism and sharp-eyed practicality, but it was a thin one. Easy to see the emotions that swirled beneath. Especially in her eyes. They tightened around the edges, little tiny wrinkles that gave her away. The blood-shot surface didn’t go liquidy, but it was a near thing.

  “Will you…” Geneve swallowed, her breath hitching on the inhale. “Will you be okay?”

  Catrin gave her a small smile, then, hesitating for only a short moment as she was reminded of the blood on her arm, reached forward and gave Geneve’s arm a squeeze. “Yes. It’s what I do.”

  “Hunt demons?” Geneve’s laugh was a small flutter, like the butterfly yesterday.

  “Fight. Kill.” Catrin squeezed harder. “Protect.”

  Geneve dropped her eyes, and her back hunched, as if she’d been hit. The next words came out in a tumble—fast, racing, chased by the hitch of a sob. “That’s what Bellfort did, too. He—he wasn’t fine.”

  Catrin was at a loss for words. She wasn’t used to this. And Bellfort’s death had shocked her—like the cold of snow in the shadows of spring, always lurking at the edges, waiting for the times when she stopped moving long enough to dwell on it. All she could do was continue to hold her, hope that her grip provided some comfort. A slow, stinging pain needled the muscles and tendons of her inner wrist, the result of an awkward blow and prolonged use, but that would ease with sleep.

  Geneve felt like a shuddering bird. Elrya, how she wished she could make it better.

  “It was a brave thing Bellfort did,” she said. “Unarmed, against a hellhound.”

  Geneve’s jaws trembled. Her nostrils flared quickly, then her mouth clenched shut. For a moment, it looked like she fought a silent battle with herself, the tension rippling through cheek muscles, her entire body pulling stiff as a board, quivering as she struggled with the emotion.

  Then, it was like something gave.

  She didn’t relax. Not really. The emotions weren’t gone. Anger, fear, grief—they all still blazed from her, but she’d put a shutter over them and turned them into a forge fire. Bottled up, but burning strong.

  When she looked up, her eyes met Catrin’s with a strong, quiet determination.

  “Yes. It was.” The quiver of her lips threatened to unravel her, but she held it together, only a slight hitch in her breath as she continued. “We will honor him tonight. Him and the others who will go beyond.”

  The Night Vigil. A human custom, though elves held similar. No one would sleep tonight.

  Catrin nodded. “We will honor him.”

  The click and rattle of a door and the patter of running footsteps interrupted them. A few moments later, Holic, a small, stocky lad who was training as Lord Stanek’s page, came around the corner in a near sprint, his expression of grim determination edged by borderline panic.

  He stopped short, eyes visibly rounding and brows shooting into his forehead as his gaze locked on her—or, more likely, all of the blood, dirt, and obvious gore that covered her armor.

  “Miss—er—Guardsman Ternadon,” he started, his brain obviously backpedaling on its rungs. “Ah, it’s His Highness, ma’am.”

  She hid the smile that threatened to twitch her lips. It always amused her to hear her father’s name around the castle. Elves didn’t use the same naming conventions as the local humans—the li Ternadon in her name referred to him, not her, and whenever one of the castle’s staff attempted to shoehorn her full name into their title system, it always felt like she might turn around and find him standing right behind her.

  Beside her, Geneve’s expression had gone smooth and professional, shoulders back and head straight. Her arms crossed over her chest.

  “What about His Highness?” Catrin asked.

  She’d left Prince Nales in the courtyard, on the periphery of where Treng was organizing castle defense. Last she’d checked, Prince Nales had been just about as covered in gore as she was, his face paler under the dirt than it had been yesterday. He had to be at least as tired as she was—humans, generally, had less stamina than elves—but she doubted he’d sleep.

  He’d looked too haunted for that. Too far past the point of slumber. Like a moon-blind fish in the middle of a stream.

  “He’s, ah, he’s taken a horse from the stables—one of his lordship’s—and is going out. Wants to keep hunting. We tried to stop him, but…”

  But he was a prince, and Holic and the rest of the guardsmen were not.

  Catrin grimaced and rubbed her brow. “Where’s Treng?”

  “Attending his lordship. They went to the backwood.”

  Out of the picture, then.

  Catrin let out a low hiss, and Holic flinched—it wasn’t a human sound, but she didn’t quite care just then to censor herself. The flit of anger and frustration she’d felt yesterday at the prince’s arrival came back in full force, flowing through her muscles like a hot night drink.

  Gods damn it all. And he’d be going out alone, which was likely his intention, or he’d be dragging a burned-out party of equally dead-tired guardsmen with him to who-knew-where.

  With a grumble that was more of a growl, she shoved herself past Holic and back down the hallway he’d come from.

  Chapter 6

  Elrya. Why couldn’t princes just keep to themselves and fall in line?

  Geneve jogged after her, slippered feet as quick as darts on the carpet, her face a concentrated frown. “What are you going to do?”

  Catrin snorted. “I might hit him.”

  That, at least, broke the frown. Geneve’s eyebrows shot into her head, a mix of amusement and caution clashing on her face. “Really? You make a habit of attacking princes?”

  “If they’re all as stupid as I keep seeing, I may just.”

  Her left hand curled tighter at the thought, but she forced it to relax. The other prince hadn’t been stupid, but lacking in other qualities, and she wasn’t about to explain that to Geneve. By the sounds of it, the lady was one of the few who hadn’t heard of her recent past.

  But the others had. And, more importantly, Prince Nales had.

  She could use that.

  Schooling her features to her best impression of Treng’s sharp, predatory stoicism—it wasn’t hard, with half of her already leaning toward a darker mood—she beat Geneve to the door and shouldered it open with a clunk and a squeal, angling her face and blinking as her eyes adjusted to the outside light.

  A bleary sun rode at a midpoint in the morning sky, veiled with a thin fog that pressed a cool moisture into her skin and bones. The air was damp, heavy, threaded with the smells of smoke, blood, sulfur, and fresh-cut hay. Last night’s decorations still hung across the courtyard, dead and still, their colors pale and washed out in the early light. Buds of flowers and the green starts of leaves stood out on dark branches.

  With the smoke rising from a firepit on the other side, burning white, and a dozen of the castle’s guardsmen gathered in clusters of twos and threes around the courtyard in varying states of idleness, it looked calm. Peaceful.

  Until one noticed the tension in their bodies, and the careful stoicism on their faces. And the way they all had their attention cautiously trained on one spot.

  She followed it, spotting Prince Nales across the courtyard and in the process of putting a saddle on Lord Stanek’s black courser, which he’d lashed to the hitching ring on the outer wall.

  A few guardsmen stood closer, posture stiff, identical expressions of unease on their faces. Several turned her way when she walked out, and the tension broke to relief in their bodies.

  She hid a snort.

  Not sure what they think I’m going to do. I’m no more a prince than they are.

  But that wasn’t strictly true. Her status as both an elf and a rnari put her in an odd, outsider middle-ground. She’d been Treng’s second ever since she’d arrived.

  Plus, there was also her reputation for attacking princes.

  She wondered which o
f those reasons had sent Holic to find her.

  Geneve followed her out, but Catrin put a hand on her arm as she made to leave the door.

  “Wait here.”

  It’d be better to speak with the prince alone. Less posturing to deal with. Easier to get a read.

  Besides, he hadn’t seemed like a complete idiot last night. The opposite, in fact. He’d come off as quiet, intelligent. Cautious. Not the type to ride blindly into a situation.

  Her frown deepened.

  What was he up to?

  Ignoring the quizzical, half-worried expression on Geneve’s face, she strode across the courtyard, making a straight line to Nales.

  The already-hushed mood of the courtyard went dead silent, the stillness falling over her like the air before an electrical storm. If it had been quiet before, now one could have heard a titmouse squeak.

  Every face turned toward her.

  She stiffened, the underside of her skin crawling with the weight of their stares—far more attentive and wary than she’d thought they’d be—but gave no outward sign of concern, instead keeping her attention locked on Nales.

  He watched her approach, his expression neutral. Guarded.

  But, as she drew closer to the prince, she found her own expression softening. She crossed her arms over her chest, her aching muscles giving a slight twinge of pain before they rested, and took in the scene with narrowed eyes, her posture moving toward familiarity rather than the hard-assed intimidation she’d originally been going for.

  The prince watched her over the back of the saddle, his light-colored eyes striking on his olive-tinted face.

  She twitched an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going out.” His jawline tensed, and a quiver took his throat, a battle similar to the one Geneve had fought only minutes ago wavering behind his face. “Someone has to keep killing these things.”

  Understanding clicked in her mind.

  Bellfort had been orphan-raised, likely picked for the prince both as a guard and a companion.

  Nales had lost his best friend last night.

  She ignored his pointed stare, and the blame behind it, instead turning a cool, judgmental gaze over the horse he’d half saddled.

  “Really? You’re going out, alone, to kill demons?” Her eyebrow lifted, and she pursed her lips. “We’re supposed to live for the dead, not follow them into the grave.”

  He stared at her. He was wary, which surprised her. Tense. As if he really were expecting her to attack him.

  And, as she re-examined the tension in the courtyard, and the way everyone was staring at her rather than him, she realized he wasn’t the only one who expected that.

  Huh. Perhaps her reputation was stronger than she’d thought.

  Then again, most of them had watched her slaughter demons last night.

  “Are you going to stop me?” he asked.

  “Oh, no, far be it from me to halt the stupidity of the royal line.” She gave a soft snort, only then drawing her gaze back up to meet his. A smile tightened her lips. She tilted her head, giving the guards around them the barest of checks. Her skin still crawled from their attention. A few of them, she noticed, had drawn closer. “Huh. They really think I might attack you.”

  “You wouldn’t?”

  “I probably should. You’re a Cizek, after all. It’d be an excellent way for me to gain favor. Elrya, they’d likely give me a promotion.”

  The royal line of the Raidt and the Cizeks, historically, had never had the best blood between them. In fact, those of the Raidt were technically undersworn to them, turned under by the Cizeks’ infamous demon-cursed blade.

  Prince Nales didn’t move. She suspected he wasn’t sure whether to take her words seriously or not.

  She stepped closer, put one hand on the smooth leather of the saddle, and dropped her voice as she leaned in.

  “I am not currently planning to attack you, but I didn’t peg you as this stupid. You going to tell me what you’re really up to?”

  A ripple went over his face, but he held her gaze steadily. Bright blue eyes dipped into a harder metallic edge toward their center—as if they had an undertone of silver in them—never wavered from hers. She didn’t blink.

  Then, like last night, something seemed to give. A barely-perceptible sigh slid from him, and his shoulders dropped—just slightly, but it was enough.

  “Do you remember that symbol on the hellhound’s shoulder?”

  “The… brand?” It took her a moment to recall it. Since killing it, she hadn’t had time to do more than throw a distant glance at the corpse.

  “Yes. It’s the marker of a greater demon. According to lore, it would bind that hound to it.”

  Her frown deepened. “A… greater demon?”

  “One with more power than most, either by birth, conquest, or sorcery,” he supplied. “Similar to the fey.”

  A part of her cringed at the prince’s easy, matter-of-fact comparison between the two—fey were very much not demons, and in fact part of her ancestry—but she had to admit it helped. Not all fey were graded equal. Even a simple comparison between a tree spirit and the spirit of an entire forest was enough to spell that out. Then there were those in the royal lines, and all the ones in between.

  She went still as her mind connected the pieces.

  “You think there’s a greater demon here?”

  Temdin, they’d had enough trouble fending off the little ones like the hellhound. If the demonic equivalent to Kodanh had made it over…

  Ten hells, he could freeze an entire city.

  “I’m hoping not—except for the hellhound, there was only one symbol among all those we killed—but it would do to check. That symbol is linked with one based around Ulchris.” He hesitated. “You remember those lights in the sky? The gate flare?”

  Her brows knit together again. Gate flare? In truth, she’d forgotten all about the lights. The demon attack had occupied her attention. Plus, she knew next to nothing about gates.

  “I saw a large burst of it toward the south-east,” he continued. “Which would align it to the gate.”

  Yes. Yes, it would.

  Her frown deepened. She’d been right. He wasn’t stupid. He’d clearly thought quite a lot about this.

  But…

  “You’d planned to go alone?”

  She directed a skeptical look to his pack. It was small, light. Largely empty. He’d likely planned to get out as quickly as possible, stop at the village for supplies, then head on—no muss, no fuss, no watchmen.

  Which was either brave or foolish of him. More likely both.

  Even riding, Ulchris was a day and a half’s journey, part of that through forest.

  And he was potentially going after a greater demon.

  She nodded.

  “Put that away. Get some sleep. Reports are coming in. You’ll have an idea of the roads tomorrow, can make better plans.”

  She regretted the words as soon as she saw him recoil, and a surprisingly sharp slice of emotion cut through her throat at the reminder of his friend’s death. She winced, turning into the bleary light of the morning. The fuzz of her mind expanded. Her head felt like it was inside a hot balloon, breathing in fire smoke.

  “You want me to sleep,” he said, enunciating the words calmly, with a precision that cut an exact trace of every syllable. “While a greater demon is potentially gathering strength to subjugate us all? I can guarantee you, he won’t be sleeping. And neither will his servants, who will kill more and more while we rest.” His tone dropped into a hiss, mirroring her earlier one. “Bellfort would not rest.”

  She resisted the urge to turn her eyes skyward, to where Elrya was hopefully not judging this show of idiocy. “Do you go out riding when bandits murder people along Lorka’s riverbanks? Or do you wait until you know where the fuck they are, what their numbers are, and then cut them down? Don’t pretend you’re more than you are. Royal blood or no, you’re still just a man—a very vulnerable, mortal m
an in a world that now has demons thirsting after his blood.”

  His stare penetrated her. Icy, stubborn. She met it for a few seconds, seeing the obstination inside, the raw fire of anger warring with grief, and inwardly winced. She’d pressed too close to the wound, too close to what had happened, too close to what was spurring him to mount the horse and ride out from the walls.

  Then, he sneered.

  “I have a duty.” His lip curled, head tilting upward in a defiant challenge. “I don’t expect someone like you to understand.”

  The breath stilled in her lungs, and it felt like the entire courtyard stilled with it. She stared at him, eyes locked on his. A ringing filled her ears, like the knell of clashing sword steel, and a roar like storm waves came howling to her mind.

  Something in her snapped.

  Rage bubbled up, hot and eager, and cut into her mind like a hot knife sizzling through butter.

  “Don’t you dare talk to me about duty.” Her lips peeled back in a snarl. Her entire being vibrated, energy coursing through her as hot as the sun. “I have worked my entire life for duty—for the mere fucking chance to follow in my parents’ footsteps.”

  A hard expression had clamped down over his face, leaving it a cold, distant mask. He didn’t move. Instead, his metal-tinged eyes stared, their own quiet rage simmering like icefire.

  It touched her to her core.

  “You think you can intimidate me?” His tone trembled with emotion, anger shuddering like a bowstring. “Everything you have done is nothing compared to what I have had to endure. Every second of my life has been spent living up to my duty.”

  “Oh, fuck off,” she snarled, leaning into the horse. Her canine teeth were showing, and her tone had ground more into a subsonic growl. She didn’t care. “Don’t give me that. You princes—you just do whatever the fuck you want.”

  Emotion twitched in his eyes—a touch of surprise, confusion, then understanding, like a clue had just slipped into place—and she cursed herself.

  These fucking princes.

  Luckily, before either of them could say any more—or anyone else in the courtyard could intervene—a flurry of activity interrupted them at the mouth of the courtyard. Lord Stanek’s scouting party returned from the backwood, hooves clattering on the paving stones. Her anger chilled as she spotted Treng trotting along at his lordship’s side, riding easily in the one-handed style of the Sarasvatani as he stood in his stirrups, speaking to the lord in low tones.