Days of Blood & Starlight (22 page)

An elder bastard half sister named Melliel had dared to ask Joram if the Misbegotten would be given their due, and their father’s answer had been, in his sly way making even the refusal
a boast of his virility, “There aren’t castles enough in Eretz for all the bastards I’ve sired.”

Still, for all the benefits the Dominion enjoyed, they served at Jael’s pleasure, and Jael’s pleasure was, by all accounts, a gruesome thing.

“Go on,” said Hazael. “What else?”

Liraz counted off another finger. “Second, being Misbegotten, I will never
lie
under Jael.”

Akiva could only stare at her, aghast. It was the first time he had ever heard his sister make reference to her own sexuality, even in such an oblique way. She wore her ferocity like armor, and it was purely asexual armor. Liraz was untouchable and untouched. The image of her… beneath Jael… was one to reject immediately, abhorrently.

Hazael looked aghast, too. “I should hope not,” he said, sounding weak with disgust.

Liraz rolled her eyes. “Look at the pair of you. You know our uncle’s reputation. I’m only saying I’m safe, because I’m blood, and thank the godstars for that if nothing else.”

“Damn the godstars,” said Hazael, indignant. “You’re safe because you would gut him with your bare hands if he ever tried to touch you. I’d say that
I
would do it, but I know that by the time anyone else got there
our uncle
would already be pulled inside out, and less ugly for it, too.”

“Yes, I suppose.” Liraz sounded weary, looked it. “And what of all the other girls? Do you think they don’t want to pull him inside out, too? And what then? The gibbet? It comes down to life, doesn’t it, and whether it’s worth keeping on with, whatever happens. So…
is
it?” She looked to Akiva. Was she asking him?

“Is what?”

“
Is
life worth keeping on with, whatever happens?”

Was she talking about living broken, living with loss? Did she count his loss a real one, and did she really want to know, or was there a barb in this somewhere? Sometimes Akiva felt like he didn’t know his sister at all. “Yes,” he said, wary, thinking of the thurible, and Karou. “As long as you’re alive, there’s always a chance things will get better.”

“Or worse,” said Liraz.

“Yes,” he conceded. “Usually worse.”

Hazael cut in. “My sister, Sunshine, and my brother, Light. You two should rally the ranks. You’ll have us all killing ourselves by morning.”

Morning. They all knew what would happen in the morning.

Liraz rose to her feet. “I’m going to sleep while I can, and you two should, too. Once they get here, I think there will be very little rest for anyone.”

She walked off. Hazael followed. “Coming?” he asked Akiva.

“In a minute.”

Or not. Akiva looked to the sky. It was still dark for as far as he could see, but he imagined he felt a change in the air: a pull from the draft of many, many wings. It was illusion, or prophecy, or just dread.

He had a long way to go tonight, territory to cover, chimaera to save. No rest for him. The Dominion were coming.

35

The sphinxes stretched out delicate cat feet to land, small tufts of dust eddying around them. The rest of the chimaera host were emerging from doors and windows to gather in the court and hear their report, and there was Thiago, striding from the guardhouse. Karou’s mind was sharp with wondering. What had they done? Not just the sphinxes, but all the patrols. It was with a sense of unreality that she found her feet carrying her toward all the others.

“Karou,” Ten called after her, but she kept walking.

Thiago caught sight of her and paused, watching her approach. The soldiers followed his gaze, the sphinxes, too. All regarded her with identical nonexpressions, but Thiago smiled. “Karou,” he said. “Did everything go all right in town?”

“Oh. Fine.” Her hands were clammy. “You don’t have to stop. I was just going to listen.”

The Wolf cocked his head slightly, looking perplexed. “Listen?”

“To the report.” Karou felt herself shrinking, faltering. “I just want to know what we’re doing.”

She didn’t know what she expected Thiago to say, but not this: “Is there someone in particular that you’re worried about?”

Karou’s face went hot. Insidious implication. “No,” she said, affronted. She was also rattled, realizing that anything she said now would come across as concern for seraphim. For Akiva.

“Well then,
don’t
worry.” Another smile from the Wolf. “You have enough to think about. You’ve lost the whole day today, and I need to have another team ready by tomorrow. Do you think you can do that?”

“Of course,” Ten answered for her, and she took Karou by the arm as she had the day before. “We’re just going.”

“Good,” said Thiago. “Thank you.” And he waited for them to be gone before resuming speaking.

Karou felt pinched awake from some stupor. It wasn’t that Thiago didn’t want her bothered with details, it was that he flat-out didn’t want her to know what he was doing. As Ten drew her away, she locked eyes—briefly—with Ziri. He looked so guarded. Thiago’s remark… Did they all think she still loved Akiva? And they didn’t even know about Marrakesh and Prague, or that she’d met him again so recently. Met him and…
No.
Nothing. She’d left him behind. That was what mattered. This time, she had made the right choice.

When they were out of the court, Karou pulled her arm from Ten’s grip, wincing as it dragged at her bruises. “What the hell?”
she said. “I think I have a right to know what my pain is paying for.”

“Don’t be a child. We all have our roles to play.”

“Oh. And yours is what, babysitter? I’m sorry, I mean
traitor
-sitter?”

Ten’s eyes flashed with defiance. “If Thiago asks it, yes.”

“And you’ll do whatever he asks.”

For a second Ten only stared at her as if she were dim-witted. “Of course” was her answer. “And so will you.
Especially
you. For the good of our people, and the memory of all we’ve lost, and the very great debt you owe.”

Karou’s shame response was instant, but it was followed this time by a surge of anger. They would never let her forget what she had done. She was here willingly, when she, unlike they, had a choice in the matter. She had a whole other life, and right now she really just wanted to fly back to it, back to Prague and her friends and art and tea and worrying about nothing more dire than butterflies in her belly—
Papilio stomachus
, she recalled with an ache. How quaint and small that life seemed now, like something you could fit inside a snow globe.

She wouldn’t go. Ten was right: She did owe a debt. But she was sick to death of the cowering thing she’d become. She thought Brimstone would scarcely recognize this compliant little shame-creature; she had certainly never followed his orders so meekly.

When they had climbed the stairs back to her room, she picked up the necklace she had begun earlier, while Ten, impatient, spilled her case out on the table. Brass clamps clattered in
all directions. Karou picked one up but didn’t put it on. She was in no state to conjure a body now.

What wasn’t she allowed to know?

“Do you want me to tithe?” Ten asked. Karou looked up at her. The she-wolf didn’t offer up her pain very often, and Karou surprised herself by saying, “No. Thanks.” It was only when she heard her own reply that she realized she was going to do something.

What am I going to do?

Oh.

She toyed with the vise, twisting the screw tighter, looser. Did she even remember how? It was a long time ago.

What shall I do for pain?

Nothing. No pain for you. Only pleasure.

Still fidgeting with the vise, she said to Ten, “I don’t suppose you know the story of Bluebeard.”

“
Blue
beard?” Ten eyed Karou’s hair. “A relative of yours?”

Karou shot her a wry smile. “I have no relatives, remember?”

“No one does anymore,” Ten said simply, and Karou realized it was true. Everyone here had lost… everyone. They were a people with nothing more to lose.

“Well,” she said, calmly fitting the vise over the web of flesh and muscle that connected her thumb and palm. It was a tender spot. “Bluebeard was this lord, and when he brought his new bride home to his castle, he gave her the keys to every door and told her she could go anywhere she wanted except this one little door down in the cellar. And there she must
never
go.” She tightened the screw, and her pain began to open like a flower.

“And I suppose that was the first place she went,” said Ten.

“The minute his back was turned.”

Ten had just turned to reach for the teapot. At Karou’s words, she spun back around, and cursed.

Karou knew by her reaction that it had worked; she had remembered Akiva’s invisibility manipulation after all. Funny, the pain had seemed like a big deal back then. Not anymore. It throbbed to the tune of her heartbeat and felt nearly as natural.

It didn’t occur to Ten that Karou might not have moved from her seat. She just thought she was out the window again, and so when she unfroze, she lunged toward it, and Karou slipped out the door. Ironically, the absence of the bar made it easier for her to get away. Holding the glamour in place, she whipped down the stairs and out to the court to hear whatever she could before Ten bolted down with the news of her vanishing.

It wasn’t much.

It wasn’t her shadow that gave her away. The glamour didn’t conceal shadows, so she kept to the shade and she didn’t make a sound. She was certain of that. She wasn’t even touching the ground. Still, she had been in the court only a couple of minutes, just long enough to learn the sickening nature of the “message” that the rebels had been sending to the seraphim, and… the emperor’s response—dear god, the sky dark and bright with Dominion, a merciless display of might, hopeless,
hopeless
—before Thiago cut off midsentence, pivoted on the pads of his wolf feet, and, lifting his head just slightly, nostrils flaring delicately, scented the air.

And looked at her.

She froze. She was already still, and she was yards away, but she stopped breathing and watched those colorless eyes with dread. They couldn’t quite fix on her, but they narrowed. Again he sniffed. He couldn’t see her, she knew that, and neither could the rest of the company, who followed his gaze. Still—
stupid, stupid
—they knew she was near the same way Thiago did.

They were creatures. They could
smell
her.

36