Shadebound, page 32
part #1 of The Last King Series
She curled her lip up at him. “There’s only one true king.”
Artemio took a deep breath and let his anger pass. This was the task allotted to him, to make sense of that which made none. It was hardly fitting for him to be enraged now that he was finally drawing out some answers. He carefully took his hand away from his sword and crossed his arms. “I’ve heard that before, you know. It was a servant saying it then too. I didn’t quite make the connection to some old fairy tale back then either. ‘There is but one true king in this world, and his crown is made of bone.’ Is that the one?”
“You know nothing.” Rat-girl sneered once more. “Nothing of what the real world is like. Where you have to scrabble and claw just to live. Sitting on your thrones. Wearing your finery. You don’t know what it’s like when the Last King is the only one you’ll ever see or know. But you will…”
He cut off that ramble before it could degenerate further. Whoever had been inflicting an ideology on these peasants had done a good job embedding the rhetoric. Even this fearful little mouse seemed to have the courage of a lion now she was speaking of her Last King. “I’m sure your excuses for butchering the people in your care while they sleep are very compelling, but perhaps we might turn our attention to more pressing matters. Who is this fairy-tale specter who commands you, and where shall I find him?”
She drew herself up to her full height, which wasn’t much. And squared her shoulders, which were entirely too sloped for such a gesture of defiance. “The King is no story, he’s real, and you’ll never find him. I’ll never betray the cause.”
Artemio sighed. “Oh I do wish you hadn’t said that.”
For all of his posturing, Artemio didn’t have much stomach for torture. That was why he glanced away just before the basket hilt of Harmony’s rapier crashed into the rat-girl’s back and drove her to her knees.
Harmony didn’t have much in the way of evil in her, but the same temper that simmered away in all the Volpes was down there beneath her façade of kindness and ladylike manners. “Answer his questions, or you’ll answer to me.”
Rat-girl’s defiance didn’t crumble under the blow. If anything, it seemed to coalesce into something more solid than before. Her ratty little face tightened over her distended skull, and she looked more beast than man. “No. I won’t.”
She was a peasant born, made her living as a servant, spy, and assassin. Pain was an old friend to her. Beatings and floggings and all of the rest. They would not get her to talk by hitting her. No matter how much the wrath in Artemio’s gut at her betrayal bayed for her blood.
In one motion, the rat-girl scooped up her knife and thrust it at Harmony’s guts. They’d thought her broken and finished. They were wrong. Neither twin had time to react.
Fiore was another matter.
The dead king’s specter roared into being between his granddaughter and the jumped-up peasant that dared raise a hand against her. Ice crusted the blade and it shattered on contact with Harmony’s dress-laces.
The force of the stab still carried through and doubled Harmony over, but there was no sharp edge to cut into her now. It was little more than a pointed punch that drove her dinner up her throat and out to spatter down the rat-girl’s back. Good thing she was wearing rags already.
Artemio’s bare heel stomped down onto the maid’s tail, and he felt his own stomach lurch at the rubbery sensation of it. Her cry of pain let him know he still had her attention. Harmony took only a moment to finish spitting bile before she was on the maid, riding her down to the floorboards and beating at her with her empty hands. Slaps as often as punches. No skill or training, just anger.
The broken knife-hilt chattered across the floor, and Artemio called a halt. “Enough.”
Harmony didn’t really want to stop, judging by the way her fists were still clenched and drool was still oozing down her chin. “She tried to kill me.”
“I’ve also been on the receiving end of that particular delight, as you might recall.” Artemio helped her back to her feet. “You are not special.”
“Rude.” She gave the maid one last kick for good measure, but it wasn’t clear which of them the words were directed at.
Artemio went to the bed and crouched down to retrieve the storm-lantern from its place beneath where his head had lain but minutes before. “You’ve already shown your loyalty to the cause is less than your feelings for this rodent. Turning your back on your little co-conspirators to seek her out.”
He set the lantern down on the table and, with a sigh, put his finger over the slit for ventilation. “Now you will talk, and fast.”
Rat-girl tried to spring forward only to meet Harmony’s boot. Artemio watched with no small amount of distaste as Harmony wrapped an arm around the mongrel’s neck and hauled her up until her twitching nose was level with the tabletop.
Within its cage, the rodent was flinging itself against the glass, trying to get back to its bondmate. It may not have understand the fear passing to it through their connection, but it experienced it all the same. It grew ever more frantic as the air within its trap began to sour. Scrabbling at the glass it had no hope of breaking.
It was hard not to feel pity for the little beast, even if it was vermin. It had not chosen to have its very life bound to the fate of some scurrilous scullery maid. All it wanted from life was to eat and sleep and make more little rats. Artemio couldn’t help but feel a pang of envy for the simplicity of it.
Tears were pooling around the rat-girl’s bruised eyes, but her quivering snout was set in place. “I won’t.”
He dragged a seat over with his foot and then settled into it with a groan. Leaping up from sleeping like that, he felt as though he’d sprained every muscle in his body. He had spent a good year or two of his life early in feeding shades during his training. It was small wonder he was feeling the pangs of age so soon. “Then you will watch your little friend here expire.”
Rat-maid sobbed and raged. Her body shook, and she strained against Harmony’s arms hopelessly. “You’re a monster. You’re all monsters. All you blue-blooded bastards, sat on top of the heap just because your great-granddaddy killed folk quicker than they could kill him. You’re bred for evil. The whole lot of you.”
“Perhaps you are correct, but none of that matters to little Daria here. She has no sway in the matter. Her world is much smaller, and it is constructed entirely of inevitabilities.”
The minutes ticked by. The little rat’s air growing denser and denser with the poison of her own lungs. The frantic scrabbling slowed to a fumble now and then. Her attention seemed to be wavering. As for the girl, her skin showed pale between the patches of fur. She seemed to wither and shrink in Harmony’s arms.
Across the room, the door to the servants’ passages still hung open. At any moment, another of the assassins might be coming. Perhaps a tide of them so overwhelming that two young Volpes would be pressed beyond their limits.
Artemio tried to calculate the sheer number of servants in the palace and how many of them would be loyal to the crown. He had never had to consider the loyalty of servants before, it had always seemed as certain as the rising sun. By all means, they might have spied for a stipend, but escalating to violence against their betters was so unthinkable that it drew him up short. The court heaved with nobles and courtiers, yet each of them had a staff of their own. Even the meanest household held at least a butler and maid, and the more members of the family there were, the more help they required. There were at least twice the servants to nobles in the palace alone. If only a half of them were caught up in this Last King’s uprising, then Covotana would fall.
Beyond the palace walls, the scales tipped ever more in the peasantry’s favor. It did not matter that they had no swords or armor when there were a hundred of them for each fighting man. The guards and men at arms were not drawn from noble stock either, which way would their loyalty swing? Beyond the city gates, the numbers turned ever against the ruling class. If this conspiracy had root across all of Espher, then the kingdom was already lost.
His stomach lurched once more as he recalled the number of nobles murdered in their country estates, his own mother among them. This uprising was not contained, except by the will of whoever led it. The Last King.
His finger hurt where it was pressed over the ventilation slit, but he did not dare move it an inch, lest it give the rat some air and the girl some hope. He looked to the dying servant and sighed. “Who is the Last King? Where do I find him?”
She spat at him, but she was so bereft of life that it came out as little more than a trickle down her lower lip.
“This can all end. All you need do is answer my questions.”
She wheezed out a word that was never meant to be heard in polite company.
Artemio probably should have expected such coarse language from a creature like her, but he was still startled to hear that word spoken aloud by any lady. No matter how low her birth. Harmony drove a punch into the maid’s kidneys, but she was so far gone, Artemio wasn’t certain she even felt it.
This wasn’t working.
He’d felt certain he had the measure of this girl. But then, he’d been certain he had her measure before. She might have been easy to startle, but she was resolute. She’d rather die than give up her master, and she was too far gone now to even fear that death.
With a jerk, he took his hand off the lantern and watched as life flooded back into both rat and girl in synchronization. Artemio could see the girl smirking, even through her daze. She thought this was a victory. That he would not dare to kill her. “This is taking too long. I am losing my patience.”
Inside the lantern, fresh air had brought the rat back from the brink, and it was mewling pitifully to its partner. Tears were matting the maid’s russet-furred cheeks, but as life flowed back through her, Artemio could see the spark of rebellion in her eyes reignite. She was resolute enough to watch a slow death coming. Now he had to resort to a short sharp shock.
He turned to the rat in its cage, struggling to press against the glass and get close to its beloved mistress, and he lit a fire.
The forge spirit wanted to burn hotter, it wanted to scorch every hair away from the rat in the lantern and consume the flesh and leave nothing but blackened bones behind, but Artemio held it at bay. He smelled the popped corn smell as hair began to burn, heard the squeals of distress turn to fear and agony. The maid cried out too. Desperate and struggling with all her strangulated strength against Harmony. She was too weak, too spent, and too outclassed. Even when she tried to bite into Harmony’s arm, his sister just twisted it under the maid’s chin out of reach. “Stop it! Stop! Please.”
The fire shone bright in the dim room. Blinding bright to the maid’s eyes. Her whole world had narrowed down to the rat in the lantern and Artemio’s voice. “Tell me what I need to know.”
She still couldn’t look away from the rat and the flame. “I don’t know! I don’t know who he is. Please.”
Artemio sighed. He was already exhausted from his fitful night of sleep and his midnight awakening. The drain on his spirit of keeping the forge fire in check was beginning to get him down. “I do not believe that will be sufficient.”
“I can take you to him.” The maid babbled as her hair began to smoke. “He’s under the city. I know the way. Just stop it!”
Harmony rolled her eyes. “Sounds like a trap.”
“It certainly does.” Artemio nodded.
“It isn’t! I wouldn’t! I’m begging you. Please!”
He snapped the fire off with a final push of his will. The rat was scorched and wet looking on the side that had been exposed, and Artemio could not help but to feel pity for it. But if he had to be the very monster this assassin accused him of being to survive, then he would shed no tears for dead vermin.
Rising to his feet, Artemio reached out a hand. The maid tried to take it before he leaned past her to help Harmony back to her feet. To the maid, he merely said, “You will lead us directly to your Last King, and you will explain to me how you answer to a man you do not know the identity of as we go.”
23 - First Class Citizen
Gemmazione, Regola Dei Cerva 112
The Prima was awaiting her wakening, but still Orsina struggled to pull herself up from the comfortable darkness. It did not hurt down here. She was not struggling and striving to be someone she was not in her dreams. In her dreams, she spread her wings and soared across the steppes, everything was her domain, everything was her prey. There was no fear or confusion, only hunger.
When the old woman had grown tired of waiting, she jabbed Orsina with a finger. Right in the ribs. That got her out of her stupor fast.
“Ow.”
“Nice of you to join us.”
They were in an unfamiliar room, and she was draped on an unfamiliar piece of furniture, something like the cushioned seats she’d seen in Harmony’s room but stretched out like a bed. “What happened?”
The Prima was settled on a little footrest by her side with all the dignity one could muster in such a situation. She kept her knees together and her face turned down towards the fireplace. “Well, my dear, it seems that I owe you something of an apology.”
“You don’t need to do that.” Orsina mumbled, still less than entirely aware of what was going on around her. “You’ve done so much already…”
“Hush my dear, I apologize to you because I did not believe you when first you arrived. All of your instructors to date have praised your gifts, praised the nobility that had to run in your blood. I, too, was taken in. I truly believed that you were merely ashamed of the circumstances of your birth, or unfortunate and abandoned. I thought the truth would out once the Great Shades pried your mind open.” Her shoulders slumped, and for the briefest of moments she actually looked her age. “It seems the truth has outed in a most fearsome manner. You truly do not recall any hint of aristocratic blood in your lineage, even in those parts of your mind that you cannot reach. Guscio Cavo looked within you and found you to be all you have said you are and nothing more.”
Memories were creeping back to Orsina now. Frightening memories. “He attacked me. He called me a peasant.”
The Prima sighed. “Cavo is a spirit of order as much as of war. Disciplined but inflexible. It would not tolerate your touch. It would not submit to you.”
“I noticed that too.”
A little smile quirked the side of the woman’s face, but she smoothed it back to pity in no time at all. “It was not your fault. It was simply the nature of the shade.”
Orsina could not contain her shudder as the memory crept back in. This must have been how normal people saw shades, unstoppable, colossal, terrifying. “Doesn’t help me though.”
Silence hung over them for a time as Orsina shifted from lounging to something like sitting with a fluctuating weight in her gut making her pause every time she tried to rise. When she finally gave up on further progress, the Prima was still staring at her. Orsina shifted a little more, uncomfortable at the attention. The older woman sighed, “I must admit that this possibility had never occurred to me.”
Meanwhile, Orsina’s mind had turned from the past to the immediate future. “Does everyone know now? Do they all know what I am? Do I have to go?”
“No, my dear. They most certainly do not. What we hear of a shade’s thoughts are for us alone. You knew of Cavo’s complaint because you were connected, I learned of the complaint when I mounted him to drive him off you. But the others… they have no idea. They merely think you made a catastrophic error somewhere in your negotiations.”
“They aren’t totally wrong.” Orsina tried to laugh, but it came out choked.
The Prima waved her hand. “None of this is my concern. The real worry to spring from all of this is that there are combatant shades known to the House, and as a rule, our graduating students make a short pilgrimage to claim one. Typically from the site of some ancient battle where the shade’s legend grew. However, these shades shall all be of noble birth. Invariably. And most, if not all, will share the attitude of Cavo.”
“So… I’ll just never have a combat shade?” This might all be a blessing in disguise. If she had no combat shade, they couldn’t make her fight, could they? She wouldn’t have to be a soldier for Espher if she couldn’t even swing a sword better than the average man on the street. This might be her salvation.
If the Prima saw the hint of relief in Orsina’s features, she gave it no heed. “And you shall never graduate.”
That was sufficient to blot out the glimmer of relief swiftly. “What… what would that mean?”
“First and foremost, it will mean that you are not bound to an impresario, permanently limiting your available power. In terms of prestige, it would mean your value would be greatly diminished in the eyes of those who matter. It would mean that rather than becoming such a roaring success that all are clamoring for you and willing to overlook any haziness in your past, you would face a degree of scrutiny. Typically a mother will do the work of trying to forge a marriage, or some patron might negotiate your adoption into a noble family as a ward. But you lack the both of these to make arrangements for you, so you would be forced to… let us just say it will complicate matters for you considerably.” Orsina had never seen it before, but there was something in the slant of the Prima’s shoulders that spoke to the immense burdens she bore, the many plates she kept spinning like a mummer at the summer fair, wobbling all around her. She looked tired.
So Orsina said what she thought she had to. Just as she’d been doing since she was first thrust into this strange new world. “I’ll fix this.”
“My dear, I do not know that there is anything to be fixed. You cannot change who you are, and it would seem that noble blood entered into your family line somewhere prior to the history you can recall, so it is not as though we might seek out an ancestor who might be inclined to favor you.” Where usually the Prima spoke with a flourish, like she was reciting the lines from a play, tonight it seemed all sense of theatricality had departed. Each word was chosen slowly and carefully and doled out like Mother Vinegar might have tipped her tiny wooden spoon of foxglove milk into her heart-soothing tincture. Like she knew that a slip of the hand could spoil everything. Like she knew that too heavy a dose of this truth might kill.
