Maledicte (34 page)

“Gilly,” Maledicte said, “don’t—”

“Don’t what? Don’t feel guilt? Don’t dream of them? The coachman, Amarantha, the babe? My head is already full of Vornatti, Kritos, that assassin, Love’s man, and poor Roach.”

“I need you,” Maledicte said. “You agreed it had to be done. I didn’t ask you to kill him.”

Gilly sighed. “I know. But tonight, I didn’t kill for you, in your defense. Tonight, I killed to make Janus’s path easier. And I can’t think of a single reason I should let myself be used by him, the way he’s using you.”

Maledicte shoved him, despair replaced with something stronger, hotter, more palatable. Gilly stumbled backward, missed the top step, and fell. He caught the railing with one quick hand before he fell more than a few risers. He righted himself, looked up at Maledicte.

Breathing quickly, Maledicte waited, aching for the fight. For something he could win. Once, he would have been able to use words to sway Gilly, but he found nothing to say now, all churned under Ani’s wings.

“And you worried that Ani would hurt me,” Gilly said. “That was all you.”

“Gilly,” Maledicte said, voice a thread of sound, forcing words through the rage that choked him.

“Think about what you want and need of me. I will not kill for Janus. If that’s what you want, you’ll have to find a new ally.”

“No,” Maledicte said. He stretched a hand out, but Gilly had already turned and finished going down the stairs. The door shut with a bang.

His hands fisted. Gilly just didn’t understand. He would apologize, explain that so close to their goal, he was unsettled, make him the promise he’d made before: that Gilly wouldn’t have to kill for him. This time, he’d make sure it was kept. If Gilly returned. If the blood on his hands hadn’t been too much for his honest nature.

Blond hair gleamed in the light and Maledicte’s breath caught. “Gilly?”

“No,” Janus said. “What are you doing on the stairs? Come down, let’s wait out the night and see death in with the morning.”

Maledicte stretched his hand out, and Janus tugged him to his feet, kissed his temple, driving away his moodiness, his anger and fear at Gilly. “What did Aris want of you?”

“Nothing,” Maledicte said, then laughed. “He asked me to stay out of the court while Amarantha was attending.”

Janus smiled. “You promised, of course.”

“Knowing what I know, how could I not?” Maledicte leaned against Janus, and they went down the stairs, through the quiet house, hand in hand.

· 31 ·

P
INK HAD JUST CREPT INTO
the sky when the great bells of the palace began to toll. Maledicte, dozing against Janus’s shoulder, sat upright, anticipation chasing the last sleep from his face. Janus turned his head, smiling. “A sweet sound of funeral bells in the air. You’ve done it. Amarantha’s dead.”

Maledicte didn’t respond, too caught up in the deep, slow voice of the bells. When they came to a stop, like a faltering heartbeat finding rest at last, Maledicte let out his pent breath in a languorous sigh. “It’s done. Finally done.” A bubble of lightness started in his belly, a seed of relief.

Janus kissed his forehead, his mouth. “Thank you, my cavalier, my dark swordsman. Now you may rest your sword.”

The relief in Maledicte’s belly refused to grow. Even as he murmured agreement, he wondered if Janus could sense his forebodings. Would Ani leave him now?

When he closed his eyes and listened to the dark recesses of Miranda’s body, he believed Ani had taken root like a child not easily ridded by potions and poison. “What will I do?” he said aloud.

“Anything you like,” Janus said. “We’ve won, Mal.” At the hushed velvet quality in his voice, a tone saved for long moments between the sheets, whispers in the dark, Maledicte let the last of his tightwire energy drain away.

Were Gilly in the room, he might see past the disguise now, see beyond his expectations. In Maledicte’s softening limbs and giddy smile, in the way he folded himself into Janus’s arms…all these had more in common with Miranda than any courtier. But Gilly was still gone from the town house, though no longer closeted in Lizette’s sheltering embrace. Instead, he roamed the early-morning streets, seeking information the bells could not give him—was the coachman alive?

What he heard, in whispers from servant to servant, from merchant to customer, and finally from the broadsheet criers, sent him home, running through the narrow streets.

M
ALEDICTE RESTED HIS HEAD
in Janus’s lap, let his eyes drift closed. Janus trailed his fingers through Maledicte’s hair, planning aloud. “I’ll need to attend Aris. There may be questions. Amarantha made no secret of her fears—”

The sound made them both stiffen, made Maledicte raise his head, eyes flaring dark and wild. “What is that?” The bright carillon continued, ringing off stone and rebounding, filling the air. Tumbling off the chaise, Maledicte put his hands over his ears. Within him, Ani twisted, churned, waking to malevolence.

Gilly burst into the room, and Maledicte looked up, near blind with nameless anxiety. “What is that sound, Gilly? What is it?”

Gilly panted for breath, his chest shuddering, too distraught to mince words. “A child has been born to the royal family,” he said, staring at Maledicte’s face, as white as milk or marble. “Dantalion cut him from her belly. The bells mean they expect him to live.”

Maledicte screamed, the sound soaring up over the bells, ripping free of the confines of his maimed throat, beyond human range. Outside, the rooks burst into panicked flight, wheeling and setting dark flickers behind the window glass. Janus released him, face blank in alarm and chagrin.

“Gilly, are you sure?” Janus said, but Gilly had no time for Janus, no time for anything but the swelling blackness in the slim form before him. Gilly stroked countercharms in the air with all the fervor of a country intercessor, but the empty wildness in Maledicte’s eyes remained unchanged.

“The earl is dead…Long live the earl…I will not allow it.” The voice was barely recognizable as human; it raised hackles along Gilly’s nape, the rattle and rasp of it like old bones, like his dream of Ani brought to life.

“Maledicte,” he breathed. “Please.”

Sword drawn, Maledicte moved toward the door, inexorably dragging the shadows after him. “Stop him,” Gilly said.

Janus reached out with alarming casualness and seized Maledicte’s arm, his face annoyed. “Mal, enough with the melodrama. We need to—” He sucked in his breath and lunged back as the sword sliced toward his belly. Gilly leaped forward, taking advantage of Maledicte’s half-turned body, taking that slim form in his rush and bearing it to the floor. Maledicte shrieked again, thwarted blood in his voice; the rooks crashed through the windows, shredding themselves on the glass, pelting them with bone and feather and blood.

“The sword,” Gilly gasped, trying to keep Maledicte down, when it felt as if Maledicte was as muscular and as agile as a serpent. If the countercharms were worthless, removing the sword from Maledicte’s grip might be the only chance left. Sliding over Maledicte’s back, he pushed Maledicte’s arm out, spreading the sword hand farther away from himself.

Janus, assessing, shook himself and then stamped on Maledicte’s out-spread hand. Despite his desperation, Gilly winced when the bones cracked. In an elegant motion, as well suited to a dance as to a duel, Janus swept the sword across the floor with a booted foot.

“Elysia, in the butler’s pantry,” Gilly panted.

Maledicte, heedless or insensible of the pain, heaved himself to his hands and knees, reaching for the sword. Gilly exhaled, made himself heavy, thought of immovable boulders, of nets. Janus’s footsteps moved swiftly away, and Gilly thought
hurry, hurry.
He could not hold him much longer; with every pulse of his heart, Maledicte gained on the sword.

Gilly yanked Maledicte’s leading arm up and back, spilling him from his inexorable crawl. Then Maledicte slipped sideways, rolled, got his knees between his body and Gilly’s, and kicked. The blow was all out of proportion painful; Maledicte shook free of Gilly’s spasming fingers, and only Janus’s quick grasp saved the sword from making its way back to Maledicte. Janus backed away, the sword held awkwardly in his grip, bloodying his fingers, the Elysia bottle in the other hand, the syringe slipping through the cage of his hand. Gilly made a gasping effort and caught it, rolling clear of the space between them.

“That’s mine,” Maledicte growled; as if Ani tired of the pretense, of the games, the sword twisted in Janus’s hand and clattered across the floor, skidding up against Maledicte’s boot. He scooped it up with his foot, kicking it into the air, and caught it with his sword hand.

The bones reknitted, the tendons flexed, and the sword shifted to a better grip. Janus dropped the Elysia bottle, staring at Maledicte’s burgeoning shadow, at the drift of bloody feathers saturating the air. Maledicte stepped forward and broke the bottle underfoot.

Janus met Gilly’s eyes and for once, his poise was stripped from him. “Keep him here,” Gilly said.

Janus stepped between Maledicte and the door. Faintly, a frown crossed the blank mask of Maledicte’s face. Gilly wished it concern, but was far more afraid that the emotion was outrage.

“Hold him!” he called, then ran for the stairs and Maledicte’s rooms. Slamming the door back, heedless of damage, he started searching for the poison chest. Below him, steel crashed against steel, and Gilly wondered, his heart in his throat, how much time Janus could grant him. More, how little time would pass before Janus realized that he was preventing Maledicte from his goal, a goal that Janus wholeheartedly craved.

The chest in his hands, Gilly pawed through the contents carelessly. All the little crystal vials seemed maddeningly identical to his frantic eyes. But beneath them, a bottle, bigger than the others, caught his attention—what had Maledicte planned for that? Shaking the question off, he snatched it and bolted for the parlor.

Janus, backed against the door, panted, holding Maledicte at bay with the parlor poker; Janus’s sword, notched and scarred, lay trembling across the room. Feathers littered the air as the maddened rooks spilled unceasingly into the room.

Gilly gritted his teeth and pulled off his shirt. He soaked the fabric with the bottle’s contents. Janus lunged and ducked and parried, the poker thrust punching Maledicte’s sternum. When Maledicte staggered, Gilly flung the cloth over Maledicte’s head, pressing the fabric close to his face, his bared teeth.

The sword stroked back and Gilly leaned into Maledicte’s body, trying to hide in the shelter of his back. In his arms, Maledicte contorted and fought. Gilly, holding his breath, had time for the single despairing thought that this was not going to succeed, that Maledicte would step free and slash his way to the palace.

Janus took advantage of Maledicte’s cloth blindness to strike another blow, breaking the delicate elbow joint and sending the sword spinning away. In Gilly’s arms, Maledicte collapsed all at once.

Gilly fell with him, sprawled on the floor, nerves singing, shaking as with an ague. The living rooks fled. Janus kicked a few of their bodies out of their way with a fastidious foot and knelt beside Gilly and Maledicte. He lifted the cloth and wrinkled his nose.

“Ether,” Gilly said, but Janus wasn’t listening. He touched Maledicte’s slack face, the hand that had been broken, the elbow that even now mended itself.

Finally he looked up and met Gilly’s eyes. “What the devil was that?” His voice was a near whisper, as if he feared Maledicte would wake. “I hurt him. I broke his hand, I broke his ribs, his elbow, and nothing mattered.”

“She’s insane, and infinitely more powerful than we are.” Gilly dragged the cloth back over Maledicte’s face. “Fortunately, Maledicte is not, being mere bone and blood like the rest of us…no matter how powerful She is.”

“She?” Janus said, his sword in his hand, though when it had been recovered, Gilly couldn’t say. Janus’s expression was blank.

“The danger’s past, I believe. You can put that away,” Gilly said. “She, my lord Last, is Black-Winged Ani.” He shifted his weight, dragged a dead rook out from beneath his knee, and settled back again. “And She grants Her followers certain abilities. Freedom from poison, from injury, and all She asks is their bodies. The longer the vengeance takes, the stronger She grows. She has no cares beside the shedding of blood.”

“But he fell to the ether,” Janus said. “None of your nonsense, Gilly….”

“I think immunity from poison is a mistranslation,” Gilly said. “It affects him, but not for long.”

“She can heal wounds? All wounds?” Janus said, touching Maledicte’s shrouded form again.

“Some say so,” Gilly said. In his arms, Maledicte stirred, despite the ether-soaked cloth over his nose and mouth. Gilly put his hand back to the bottle and soaked the cloth again. Maledicte subsided.

“Be careful, Gilly,” Janus snapped. “He’s not very big. You’ll kill—” The wolf paleness of his eyes flickered, the shock of belief hitting home. “Will he wake maddened?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think it takes effort for Her to manifest Herself. I think it had to do with the belladonna Mal drank last night.”

“Belladonna,” Janus said, his voice low. “How much of it?”

“Enough to kill,” Gilly said. “All for you.”

Janus made a small, choked sound, his face whitening. He gathered Maledicte into his arms and put his face into Maledicte’s neck, rocking them both.

Stiffly, Gilly stood, and surveyed the wreckage. Another mess too difficult to explain to the few servants they had remaining. He picked up one dead bird by its wing, dropped it out the shattered windows.

Behind him, Janus whispered, “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

“Didn’t hurt.” The ghost of a whisper turned Gilly about. Maledicte’s eyelids flickered. “Like pain in a dream. Not real.”

Janus grunted with effort but brought both himself and Maledicte off the floor in a single movement, Maledicte cradled in his arms. “Real or not, you need to rest.”

Maledicte slipped from Janus’s arms, and picked up the sword, flexing his hand around it, parrying with a few still floating feathers. “See, not hurt.”

Janus and Gilly tensed, and Maledicte smiled at them both as acidly as he had ever smiled at his enemies. “I would have had it done, had you two not balked me.”

“You would have died,” Gilly said. Despite the guilt this relationship had sparked, it was nothing compared to the pain of imagining the loss of it.

“Would I? With Her touch on me?” Maledicte shrugged as if it were a matter of no import, and sheathed the sword. “Perhaps, but not until the babe was dead. My release from Ani is contingent upon my vengeance.”

“We want more than simple vengeance, remember,” Janus said. “We want the court, the title, the safety.”

“
I
remember,” Maledicte said. He sat down at the spinet, flicked a wing from the stained keys, and pressed a few notes, oddly muted. He reached inward, tugged another bird free from the strings, and dropped it to the floor. “Ani doesn’t care.”