Almost without thinking, Stefanos’ gaze slid over to the pale, blank wall. There it was that he had intended to hang his trophy as a warning.
His eyes grew silver, and noting their color, Vellen’s followed, becoming an opaque and uneven mirror. Neither moved.
Once before, standing in front of exactly this map, Vellen had entered Stefanos’ chamber. It had been a chamber less grand and less lasting than the one he stood in now—but no less threatening. He had never come before in the full garb of the Karnari.
Stefanos smiled, if the movement of lip over teeth could be called that. His teeth were pointed and sharp, his lips almost gray. It was fitting; they both wore their guises of power. But Lord Vellen’s could be removed easily; a claw to shred silk, and all that would remain was a frail, mortal body.
Fire split the air; no human fire, but no red-fire either. And fire answered, circling Vellen like a wall.
It would be easy to kill him; none of God’s power was required. Just will and a way to Sargoth’s magical gate—he had both.
The fire grew at Vellen’s feet, licking the hem of his robe without quite consuming it.
“It was the Dark Heart’s will,” the high priest said; they were the first words that he had spoken, and their utterance ceded some small victory to the First of the Sundered.
That was not enough. The fire grew taller and brighter; Stefanos could almost hear its hissing voice. He let it go a little, and it folded inward, to stop an inch from Vellen’s face. The high priest didn’t even flinch. He faced the fire squarely, his eyes still silver.
Stefanos felt the shifting of the fire and let a little more spill out of the gate. He began to tighten the circle around the high priest.
And felt another presence enter the fray as the fire halted dramatically.
“Sargoth.”
There was no answer, but the fire was reply enough.
Stefanos.
Lord.
He called back his power; he closed the gate. Darkness burned through his Servant’s body. By effort of will he did not clench his hands or jaw; no visible sign of the Dark Heart’s words could be read by an observer.
The fires died. At a gesture, the torches in the walls flared up, and the First of the Sundered returned to the throne he had built. If his hands gripped the gold inlaid armrests too tightly, the shadows hid it from Vellen’s eyes.
“You have lost Illan,” he said softly.
Vellen nodded. There was a faint tremor to his jaw, and his eyes were still filmed the silver-gray of Sargoth’s magic. But he felt only a touch of fear. Stefanos could barely hear its music.
“Report.”
“Lord.” Vellen bowed deeply. It was an unusual exercise for him, but he performed it well. “Our reports indicate that the Lesser Cabal that ruled that province was ambushed; I do not believe any survived.”
“Ambushed?”
“Lord.”
“By who?” There was more of a threat in those two words than even the fires had held.
“By Renar of Marantine.” Vellen took a deep breath. “And his companions.”
“Renar?”
The soft voice was always the worst. “The youngest son of the former king.”
“He was to be assassinated, along with the rest of that line.”
“Lord.”
“Kill him.”
“Lord.” The high priest didn’t even bother to say that Renar was now on the throne in Dagothrin; he knew how little that would buy him. Instead, he repeated his bow and then began his retreat; he knew a dismissal when he heard it. But his eyes were still silver as he reached the door, and only when it closed behind him did he acknowledge any sense of relief.
“Sargoth,” Stefanos said to the shadows. “How long do you intend to protect a half blood?”
There was no answer.
“How long do you intend to interfere with my affairs?”
Oh yes, the soft voice was always the worst.
“For as long as the Dark Heart commands.” The sibilant voice was cautious and neutral. “Do you think I would choose to remain in this gray and uninteresting place? It has little mystery for me.”
The anger and frustration in those last words were all that stayed the hand of the Lord of the Empire. For a moment these two were kin again, under the command of the darkness. Both stood tall, and both were unbent by the anger and frustration that ate at them even now.
But now they fought across the fields, aiming at different targets.
“Play then,” Stefanos said softly, still softly. “I have my own game to attend to.”
“Sara.”
Wind passed him by; the air around the spires was restless. Clouds, like gray velvet, lined the face of the shadowed moon. His fingers touched brass and steel as he bent to survey the entirety of the city that lay sleeping beneath him. Here and there a light flickered, or a fire; there was some movement in the streets. Not much of it.
He smiled grimly. There would be less in months to come. What passed for winter in these parts was vanishing quickly. He straightened himself and took a step onto the railing; it was strong, although it took only a part of his weight.
Let God keep one mortal for the moment. It would not be for long.
He rose until he hovered an inch above the rails and then began his descent. But he paused before a foot of the tower had passed his eyes. There was still something undone, unfinished—words that must be said just once and then buried.
He took a breath, although breath was not necessary. Cold air pierced him cleanly enough that he almost felt a shiver. He spread his limbs like wings of shadow, hovering a moment.
Memory. But he was no mortal, to be sapped by it; it was his to call up in infinite detail; his to hold in abeyance should he so choose.
“Sara.” There, her name again. Two syllables, the merest movement of air over lip and teeth and tongue. Still he swallowed, as if that single word were solid enough to choke on. For a moment his throat remembered the water that she had blessed when she had made her promise—it burned him even now.
Enough. It was gone. It was past, like so much mortal history. This evening he meant to be free of it as she had always been meant to be. She had gone the way of her mortal kin because she hadn’t the strength to stand at the last by his side. She had been very weak, and the time for weakness had passed.
Ah, the shadows hid their lies. But his eyes, with their reddened glow, could pierce them easily. Had she a grave, he might wander there to speak to what remained of his chosen empress. Weak? No, not Sara. Not the Sarillorn.
“Sara, you have weakened me.”
There. It was said, it had been acknowledged. He began his descent again.
“You have no grave, Lady.” The wind took his feral whisper and shattered it against the stones above and below. “I will make one for you.” He drew his arms in, and his feet brushed the ground.
He would never be weak again. He felt the lives in the sleeping city in anticipation. Centuries had passed since he had taken mortal blood to replenish power spent. Never again.
Closing his eyes, he let loose the hunger.
None of the slaves heard the screaming.
House Damion, as all houses, kept the slaves’ quarters in the lower level beneath the ground. In darkness, surrounded by earth and stone, they had slept away the day’s exhaustion.
Lord Damion and Lord Vellen had both done likewise, each in his wing of the manor. Their rooms were large and solid— spacious, elegant tributes to their titles and their powers. Velvet curtains drawn shut beneath heavy canopies had kept stray hints of breeze from open windows at bay.
Even their guards heard nothing amiss in the hours of early morning.
Not so the guards of Lady Cynthia. To them, her voice had carried like a word of doom. They had paused, perhaps to look at each other in askance, before throwing the doors open to enlarge the incoherent cries.
At least so the rumors went.
Two of the lady’s pe
rsonal slaves, on their usual early-morning errands, had found the guards missing and the doors to her sitting chambers thrown open. The sitting room was prim and perfect, each piece of furniture neatly and exactly placed. But the door from that room to her boudoir was also open. They had walked through that and stopped at the double doors to the bedchamber.
These were open. One was off its hinges.
And beyond that . . .
A sword lay across the threshold, attached to an arm that was no longer attached to anyone. Lady Cynthia had always favored pale colors, and the powdered blue of her carpet heightened the blood that had been spilled. Nearest the bed, a headless body, with one leg missing and the other at an impossible angle, matted the carpet. The other guard, his uniform dark and wet, hung from the brass wall fixtures that had once held a lamp. His feet dangled above the floor, casting a shadow in the streaming sunlight. His face, smooth and unwounded, was twisted inward in frozen pain.
On the bed itself lay what remained of Lady Cynthia of Damion.
The youngest girl froze. In her pale pink shift, with its pale blue belt and hem, she looked a part of the deathly tableau; the tips of her shoes were nestled in the blood on the carpet.
The other slave screamed.
Only this time, in the hours of daylight, the house itself was alive with the buzz of busy slaves. Those who heard came at a run, leaving buckets, mops, and dusters aside.
“Peg?”
The older girl shook her head. “S-Stev?”
“What’s the—” She could almost hear him snap to a stop. “Lady of Mercy.”
Others came crowding in.
“Briana—get the house mistress. Now. Take a care with your words and who you address—the lord’ll be about soon.”
He walked over to Peggy and Marla, putting an arm about either’s shoulders. “Come on, we can wait in the outer rooms.”
Peggy allowed herself to be led. Marla was still too frozen, and Stev eventually had near to lift her off her feet to move her. It wasn’t hard; she was small and young. Her hands were clenched tightly in the pale, pink skirts of the uniform that Lady Cynthia had chosen.
“Easy,” Stev said softly in her ear. “This wasn’t your fault.”
She nodded almost convulsively, but couldn’t tear her eyes away from the corpse of her mistress. Stev snapped it by wheeling her around.
The house mistress came and went without speaking a word. Her face was gray, however, the lines of it more pronounced than they had ever been. Those slaves that had come to see what the screaming meant returned to their tasks, melting into anonymity and silence.
Stev waited nervously for her return. Neither Peggy nor Marla spoke at all, nor would they meet each other’s eyes. They were as demure and pale as new slaves.
When the house mistress returned, she did so at the back of a unit of guards, all clad in the grim crispness of the black and the blue, with only the glint of steel to alleviate their darkness. They were armed for trouble; each of the eight bore a naked sword.
At their head strode Lord Damion. A robe of green and gold fell from his shoulders to the floor, catching the shadows as it swirled around his slippered feet. A black sash cut across his left shoulder and around his waist, the only sign that he’d been attended to at all.
He dominated the halls, and although the peaked roof towered above him, it in no way diminished his presence. He was lord of one of the most powerful houses in the Empire, and even unprepared, he showed it.
Stev drew Marla and Peg to the side of the hall and allowed the lord to pass. The house mistress took up her position beside them; it was a grim vigil they each had no choice but to perform. They were furnishings, maybe less, and accorded that much attention by their lord as he swept past them.
Lady of Mercy be blessed.
The hindmost house guards took up positions at either side of Lady Cynthia’s door. They were younger, their faces cold and pale as they watched the four slaves huddled in the hall. Those slaves didn’t need even that much warning; they didn’t move.
But Stev sent silent thanks to the Lady, all the same, for this one small mercy: None of them were present to witness Lord Damion’s initial reaction. Few indeed were the slaves privy to any expression of his weakness—and fewer were those who survived it.
Still, he listened. He could hear the tread of heavy boots against hardwood and carpet; he could tell the exact moment that they stopped. The guards were intelligent—not one of them made any sound of exclamation or surprise. Even for the free, life was not guaranteed.
Stev averted his eyes as Lord Damion came once again through the white of the open doors.
“Who discovered this?”
Marla and Peggy both tensed.
“The lady’s personal slaves, Lord,” the house mistress answered. “They were—”
“Enough!” He stepped forward and caught pale, pink shoulders in either hand. “Let them speak, house mistress.”
“Lord.” She curtsied, acknowledging the command. Even a noble would have; it was that strong.
“You were there first?”
“Y-yes, Lord.”
“Did you touch anything?”
“N-no, Lord.”
“You, girl?”
Marla was shaking. Stev wanted to speak, but not more than he wanted to live. He tried very hard not to notice his lord, although their faces were mere inches apart.
“Answer me!”
“N-no—no I couldn’t—I didn’t—I—” Tears slid down her cheeks, punctuating the quick, sharp intake of breath.
For just a moment, Stev’s heart fell. Lord Damion’s face was the mottled gray of a lord who wants a death.
Marla. He didn’t move.
The lord released Peggy’s shoulder. He raised his free hand as his grip on Marla tightened. His lips were almost white; anger chased the lines of his face into grim, cold definition.
And then it was gone.
Lady, Lady, thank you.
Miraculously, it was gone.
“House mistress. Assign these two elsewhere.”
“Lord.”
“And you,” he added, deigning to notice Stev for the first time, “back to your duties.”
“Lord.”
Lord Damion turned away. If he had been almost anyone else, Stev would have been moved to pity at the bend of his shoulders and the lines of his face. “Haleth.”
“Sir?” The captain of the guards was at his lord’s elbow, as if speed or attention could somehow erase the failure of his unit.
“Send for my son.”
“Sir.”
Stev waited until the guards had left the hall before unlocking his knees. He nodded shakily at the house mistress and made his way back to his duties—cleaning the gallery’s many frames and railings. Sunlight, pouring through windows that were two stories tall, warmed his back as he bent into his task.
Ah, it was warm here; the sky was clear and blue where it passed through clear glass instead of colored window; Marla and Peggy had been spared their lord’s wrath.
But Lady Cynthia returned to him, her lifeless body framed by the matted wreckage of her bed. He scrubbed at near-spotless brass and finely oiled wood as if the motion could clear the bloodstains from his mind.
Hours later, the sun at high noon, he allowed himself to ask the question, but in silence, only in silence.
What did this?
The chill was all around him. Even the strength of the Lady’s song held no comfort.
Lord Damion, now dressed in the sober colors of his office, had only to see the tired visage of his heir to know the answer to his question. He was not, by nature, a kind man. He asked it anyway.
Lord Vellen, all dressed for the hour in the finery of his Church position, met his father’s eyes across the desk and the distance that divided them—all of the distances.
The lord of House Damion and the lord of the Greater Cabal had, between them, much of the power of the Empire of Veriloth.
Of the
Empire as it had been.
“The First.” His voice was a whisper, as if his power were already dead, and only a ghost lingered.
“What does he intend?”
“I don’t know.” After a moment, he added, “I didn’t foresee this.” It cost him, to put that in words.
Sharply, his father said, “This is not a matter of the Church.”
Old anger flared to life—red glints that were never far below the surface of the eyes. But even that anger died. It was a house death, a house loss.
“No, Father.”
Again, uneven silence descended upon them. What course of action was open? No counterassassination, no political penalty, no shift in alliance. The First of the Sundered stood alone.
“Vellen, was this in response to an action of yours?” Lord Damion seldom used such a tone. Nonetheless, Vellen knew it well and knew what it presaged.
He began to grope for an answer when the knocking, frantic and loud, began at the study door.
“Enter,” his father barked, the lines of his brow darkening.
A slave nearly fell across the threshold. By his clothing, he was a door slave.
“Lord Vellen,” he gasped, “your presence is urgently requested at the temple.” He reached out one trembling hand, and Vellen took the piece of curled parchment that shook there.
He read it quickly; it lost none of its import.
“It seems,” he said, meeting his father’s eyes, “that this is a matter for the Church after all.” With some relief he rose and left the room at the heels of the slave.
Lord Damion sat alone in impenetrable silence as the doors swung shut. His aged hands curled slowly inward—the fists of a powerful man. He did not raise them to strike; he was old and wise enough not to need to make a futile gesture.
His memory had always been good. He had used it to great advantage to increase the power and standing of his house. But now . . .