First Blood

by K. Gorman

  The priestess’ words rang through her mind.

  ‘Volaon li Naine is still in there, rnari, feeling his dead flesh move.’

  She stepped in and slammed the heel of her hand into his face.

  He hadn’t expected it. He jerked and stumbled back. She ducked the sword slash, lunged forward, and caught his arm before the backswing. Her knives sliced straight for the back of his neck and chopped down hard.

  His hair got in the way. Several chunks fell off, some sticking to the metal. The tip of her blade connected with the bone in a jagged crunch.

  Volaon twisted. She jerked back and spun a slash into the back of his knee instead.

  There was no indication of pain. She wasn’t even sure he could feel any—he was dead, after all. For several long seconds, the only clue that she’d managed to hit her target and sever the ligaments was a heavy hitch to the side.

  Then, he tried to follow her, picked up his leg, and couldn’t set it down properly.

  His lunge fell to the ground. She caught his sword arm and slashed deep at the underside of his wrist, cutting the tendons. The sword clattered to the ground, and she kicked it away.

  A gravelly rumble came from deep in his throat. His body shuddered. Muscles and tendons pulled. She stepped away.

  Prince Volaon li Naine rose to his feet, an angry snarl twisting his face. He stumbled toward her, arms going out, one leg useless underneath him. The fey’s canine teeth bared at her, his gray gums swollen and leaking dark blood.

  She let him come, stepped into his dead embrace, and drove her left blade deep into his throat and through the spinal cord at the back.

  He froze. Then, he went limp.

  She jerked her knife out when he began to fall and slid back a pace, ready and wary. On the ground, Prince Volaon lay in a crumpled, limp heap. As if someone had folded him up and dropped him there. His eyes were half-open, a slip of their blackness peering out.

  She didn’t know precisely how necromancy magic worked, but she had a feeling he was still in there. Trapped.

  Magic peeled the air. The priestess stepped to her side as if she’d always been there. She seemed to almost glow, the white of her like an imprint on her mind, regardless of the blood and dirt that desecrated them. Instead of the other feys’ unmarred marble skin, a series of light blue tattoos ran down in lines from her face, neck, and arms. Others, in a faint light gold, threaded into the fabric of her gown.

  Her presence seemed to make the air shudder when she moved.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I will take it from here.”

  This time, the words didn’t come in the eerie whisper she’d used before, but from her mouth, regularly.

  She bent down next to Volaon’s side, and magic began to spin. A light incantation followed, too fast and lilting for her to follow.

  Catrin stepped back, sheathing her blades, and almost ran into Caracel. His expression tense, he ducked around her, but not before she felt the denser spin of his own magic at work.

  So, they were going to have a magic ritual for this, and likely for the other dead fey around them, too.

  She’d leave them to it. She had a prince to argue with.

  She made a beeline for Nales. “We’re leaving.”

  His jaw tensed. “No. We need to get that orb.”

  “We need to get you out.”

  He still held the sword, she noticed. Her gaze slid over to the dead demon on the floor. They’d steal the scabbard on the way out.

  Nales pinned her with a look, his eyes fierce. “Catrin, I don’t want to force you.”

  “No,” she said. “You really don’t.”

  She returned the look with calculation, narrowing her eyes. It wouldn’t be hard to knock him out. Dead easy, in fact—he was human, and she a Twelfth Circle rnari.

  Doneil could carry him. That would leave Matteo free to use his firearm.

  Nales probably wouldn’t forgive her. She didn’t care.

  Doneil would back her. Probably.

  He didn’t speak, just looked at her. She had a feeling he knew precisely what she had just considered.

  She sighed. “It’s not a matter of won’t—we simply don’t have the manpower to go after it.”

  He made a gesture to Matteo. “He gives us a boost.”

  She grimaced. Yes, he and that gun were quite a bit more effective than she’d ever imagined them. He stood in the open, his back to one of the cages a few paces from him, body angled to see both doorways—good, at least one of them was paying attention to the exits—but he glanced up when they all looked at him. His eyes met hers, and his eyebrow arched upward in a question.

  At least he looks to me for direction, not the prince.

  “And when he gets picked off by a spell?” she asked. “Not only will we have the death of a very helpful, bystanding foreigner on our blood, but we’ll be stuck. He doesn’t know, and we can’t explain. He isn’t one of your soldiers. He isn’t even one of Gaia’s soldiers.”

  “I can protect him,” Doneil said. “I have a close-quarters shield spell, and I’ve studied long-range tactics.”

  Her teeth ground. She pinned Doneil with a look that he ignored.

  Great Goddess Elrya, I am going to murder him later.

  “No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

  “Catrin,” Nales said warningly.

  “No,” she said. “The fey are going through the gate, after which we’ll be on our own, without the protection of the glamour spell. We need to leave the fortress. We won’t make it twenty minutes if we try to infiltrate deeper. Do you know what’s protecting it? How many soldiers? How many of them are undead, or have magic?” She took a rasping breath, anger making her bare her teeth. “Do you even know where this orb is?”

  A small pause followed her words. Doneil glanced over to Nales. Nales’ expression tightened, and his grip clenched on his sword.

  “No,” he said, finally. “But we still have to find it.”

  Magic stirred the air, like a bell. An electric jolt buzzed through her nerves.

  “I know where it is.”

  The fey priestess was standing again, apparently finished with whichever ritual she’d performed over Volaon’s body. Catrin glanced around. Most of the other bodies had moved, no longer in the limp, rag-doll poses they’d taken when they died.

  She hadn’t seen the fey moving about and re-posing them, but there was an echo of magic in the air, and a whisper of the Veils. As if a number of spirits had just gone through to the beyond.

  “I know where it is,” she repeated, her voice quiet but clear, the Janessi lilting but fluent. She made an opening gesture to Nales, her thumbs bringing the palms of her hands up as if opening a small book. “And I agree with you. The demon who abides in this castle cannot be permitted to keep it. It is far too powerful and dangerous.”

  She was walking toward them now. Caracel followed behind her, his face stony.

  By the look in his eyes, he and the priestess had already had a discussion, and he had not liked the results.

  “Don’t you need to get to a gate?” Catrin asked.

  That had been the plan, anyway. Caracel rescues her, they disappear through a gate and back to the Fey world, and the rest of them figure out a way to get out of the fortress.

  “We do.” The priestess glanced from her to Nales, reading their faces. “I know where that is, too. I can work it. That will give you access to your magic.”

  She nodded at the tattoo on Catrin’s arm. Caracel must have told her about it, because it was currently hidden by both her armor and a thick coat of blood and other things.

  Gods, she was filthy.

  But her magic…

  Giving her access to Kodanh would certainly shift the scales. They’d have two long-range attackers, and she could control where opponents came from, not to mention freeze a lot of them.

  What she’d done with the bird demons before had been barely a scraping of his power.

  The old lizard was powe
rful.

  She thought about it. “If you open the gate, won’t that alert the demon?”

  “Yes. That is why we should only do so if we need to.” The priestess was soft-spoken, but her words sounded sharp and exact. She looked Catrin in the eyes, and some of that otherness came across again, reminding her of who she was.

  Her blood stirred. She gritted her teeth and resisted.

  She turned to Nales. “Treng entrusted me to keep you safe. That means bringing you home intact, whether you like it or not. You don’t have to be conscious.”

  He ignored her threat. His mouth quirked.

  “Actually,” he said—and damn him, was that quirk to his mouth a smile? “Treng did not specify your job. He simply offered your services.”

  She frowned and opened her mouth to argue.

  Instead, though, her frown deepened.

  Bright tits, he was right. His words had been ‘offer.’ He hadn’t specified what for.

  She’d just assumed she’d been hired as a bodyguard.

  “Gods fuck it,” she muttered.

  “Besides, even if he had, I still outrank him,” he reminded her gently. “You are still under my command.”

  “A command that, if you exercised, would no doubt have consequences for you,” she shot back.

  “Not a whole lot of consequences, if we’re being honest.” He blew out a sigh, suddenly seeming tired. “Look, you wanted a way out of some blood-oath you owe the Raidt crown?”

  She looked at him sharply. Adrenaline spiked in her blood, and her heartbeat picked up. She remembered Tarris, the royal jade eyes, the firelight, the Council that ripped her apart at their leisure, and her lip curled.

  She wasn’t going to win this. Tarris’ transgression had been little more than a blip in his radar. Calling a rnari into his service would doubtless be as inconsequential to Nales’ life, even if it did cause tension between the Cizeks and the Raidt. For her, it would be a different story.

  Following the direction of a fey priestess, however…

  As if echoing her thoughts, the fey spoke again.

  “That orb is of the utmost importance,” the priestess said. “I will take it back to my people. We can keep it safe.”

  I’ve already done a service for you, she thought.

  But she was already losing this fight, and the others were all sure to die without her.

  She sighed. He relaxed when he saw her shoulders go down.

  “I still think this is a stupid idea,” she said.

  “It’s honorable,” he said. “We’ll be stopping an all-out war.”

  “We’re all going to die,” she informed him. “Horribly. And then, we’ll be resurrected and used in his army.”

  His grim face looked up at her. “So let’s go get it over with. But first, I need to get a book.”

  Chapter 24

  “A book,” she grumbled, stalking her way up the stone corridors, her eyes flashing under the light of the crystals. “I can’t believe you’ve got us risking our lives for a book.”

  “It’s a special book, and it’s on the way.”

  “It’s a book.”

  And she also couldn’t believe the fey had gone along with it. Yena li Vaness, who in addition to being a full-fledged fey priestess was also a member of the same royal line as Volaon had been and came with a bloodline of powerful magic, walked close to the back of the group, Caracel bringing up her back. Once again, glamour buzzed over Catrin’s skin, though this had a different feel to it which made her suspect it was Yena’s and not Caracel’s. That would make sense, given her obvious advantage in power—it would leave him one less thing to worry about when fighting—and it had already saved them from being exposed to three squads of demonic warriors.

  Doneil had healed her. She hadn’t needed much. Apparently, Grobitzsnak had discovered her quite by happenstance on Abiermar’s fête. He hadn’t hurt her, but he’d killed all those who had been with her. She also confirmed that the greater demon had been as confused as the rest of them about the malfunctioning of the gates and his sudden appearance on Gaia, and then reiterated the importance of retrieving the orb of Cnixe.

  Conscious of the others, and how the volume of their argument was rising—Doneil and Matteo only a few paces behind them—Nales stepped closer and lowered his voice.

  “Look, do you want that loophole or not?”

  Oh, seven suns. She hissed through her teeth, her tongue on the edge of some very unprofessional swearing. “That was Doneil’s idea, not mine. If you care to recall, I thought he was bat-fucking nuts for even suggesting it.”

  “It’s true,” Doneil piped up from behind them, proving that elven hearing worked quite a bit better than Nales had assumed. “I’ve never seen her laugh so hard.”

  That seemed to keep him quiet. For a few moments, anyway. He didn’t glance at Doneil, but his expression turned back to that stony concentration she had grown to recognize. He still looked like shit. Dirt and bits of old blood smeared his face, and his clothes looked as through he’d been dragged for quite a lot longer than she’d seen him be, but his stride was strong and resolute, matching hers with a steely determination, and the demon’s sword hung loose and ready in his hand. It looked good on him, she had to admit.

  They got to the next corner, and she checked around it before they continued on. Midway down, as they were passing a few rooms that rumbled with the sound of grinding machinery, he spoke again.

  “What happened between you and Tarris?” he asked.

  She flinched.

  Of course, that question would come up. Even if he wasn’t a royal, he’d be curious.

  Rnari weren’t sent away from the Raidt very often.

  She shrugged it off. “What’s there to say? I broke his hand. Given our families’ histories, it was deemed best that I spent a short while training elsewhere until I learned better manners.”

  Another small silence moved between them, but it wasn’t empty. She didn’t need to look at his face to see that the gears in his mind turned.

  “Bullshit,” he said. “I don’t believe that for a second. What really happened?”

  “Drop it. It’s none of your concern.”

  “The Raidt wouldn’t send a warrior of your skill away for a small thing like that—there are healers. Prince Tarris knows how to fight. I’ve seen him. He’s no weakling—”

  She gritted her teeth. “Drop it.”

  “—so they must be hiding something.”

  He stopped, pulling her with him. She tensed at the hand on her arm, but he quickly dropped it, a deep frown on his face as he looked her up and down. “What is it?”

  She brushed him off, continuing on. “It’s none of your concern is what it is. Raidt business.”

  Gods help her. Doneil was being awfully silent. She could almost feel his temptation to say something.

  Nales frowned. She began to walk again, leaving him behind.

  She got five strides before his soft voice followed her.

  “It wasn’t a training accident, was it?”

  Oh, for the love of—

  “I broke his hand because Prince Tarris is a dickless asscrumb who can’t take ‘no’ for an answer!” she yelled. “There! Are you happy?”

  A demon that had been blending into the wall beside them growled.

  Apparently, she’d been loud enough that it heard her right through the glamour.

  “Fuck!” The word turned into a growl as she leapt off, giving the thing a savage kick with her grieves. It snapped at her, the scent of oil rising as its camouflage shifted. Teeth clamped shut inches from her leg.

  She drew her blades and stabbed it through the skull.

  The demon went limp immediately, blood welling from the wound.

  She jerked her blades back, wiped the blood off on its scales, and re-sheathed them.

  Nales stood a pace behind her, frozen in ready position.

  “A book, Prince. We’re going out of our way for a book.”

 
“It’s a very important book.”

  “It’s a book.”

  “Is Tarris li Talanos really a dickless asscrumb?”

  She sighed. In the back, the two fey were looking on, both of them either part of a royal line or close to one. Between Doneil’s black humor sex jokes and her airing of the Raidt’s dirty laundry, they were getting all sorts of information to titter over in the Fey world.

  Suns, if she wasn’t exiled now, she would be soon enough.

  She sighed. In for a penny, in for a pound. Might as well let them get the whole story. “I decided not to give him the chance to prove he wasn’t dickless.”

  “Ah. Hence the hand-breaking. And the exile.” He grimaced. “They wanted you swept under a rug.”

  “Yes. My father swept me away before they could make it official. It was the only way to avoid even more political awkwardness between the families.”

  Nales lifted an eyebrow. “They care that much about what your family thinks?”

  “They have to. It would be politically bad for them to fall out with my parents. Dad’s line has been protecting the royals since the Raidt elves came down from Sinya.”

  “Ah.”

  They passed into silence again. Thankfully. One of the crystals down the next stretch had burnt out. They slunk by in the dark.

  In two minutes, a familiar scent caught her nose. She perked up, repressed the urge to cast around with her woodcraft—the low-key pressure headache let her know it was still unhinged—and forced herself to look around, noticing the details.

  “We’ve been in this hall before,” she said.

  “Yes,” Caracel said from the back of the group, proving that fey hearing was just as good as elf hearing. “It was just before we went upstairs.”

  “I sense something ahead.” Yena lifted her head, a gold glint entering her eyes from the crystal light at the sides of the hall. She appeared smaller, somehow, more delicate, and she still had that glow. It looked like moonlight, she realized, as if Yena stood under both the crystals and a full moon.