The Midnight Kingdom, page 23
“Sure.” Saya bounced up, clearly relieved to have avoided volcanic exploration. “I don’t think it’s far.”
Dante kept an eye out as they followed Saya through the cobblestone streets. His hood was up and Nox was hidden in its ring, but he feared someone recognizing him despite only having come to Seniza once or twice in his life when he was younger.
Brailee had been too young to remember much, so she now made sure to take everything in, from the coffee vendors on street corners to the decorative palm motifs along buildings. While she and Saya exclaimed over interesting sights, Dante listened to snippets of conversations they passed. The southern accent shortened vowels and made the words clipped, precise.
“—ran straight in, like rats.”
“Where are they now?”
“No idea, but they better not cause trouble.”
“What in Thana’s grave were the guards doing?”
“Scratching their asses, probably.”
Dante didn’t regret letting in the refugees, but after a night of restless tossing and turning, he’d decided Brailee was right: He had to be more careful. If his actions ended up causing more harm than good, it would be his fault and no one else’s.
That’s no fun, murmured the demon. The pinpricks of his fingernails scraped through Dante’s hair, making him jerk. What’s the use of having my power if you don’t use it?
“I’ll use it when I need to.”
Brailee looked over her shoulder at the sound of his voice. He shook his head, conveying he was fine, but sensed a weary concern that had become common in their interactions.
“Did you see Risha in your dreams last night?” Saya asked suddenly.
Brailee’s attention turned back to her friend. “No, I’m sorry. I tried looking for her and Taesia, and Ri…” Her voice faltered. “It’s been difficult. Like they’re being shrouded.”
Dante frowned. Brailee had told him about her dreams of Rian Cyr. From what he understood, Rian had been bitten by ash flies at the base of Deia’s Heart, leading to the fever that had put him in a coma and then, eventually, taken his life. Or so they had thought. How had this led to Phos getting a hold of him? And more troublingly: How had Brailee gotten mixed in with him?
The wrought iron gates of Seniza’s necropolis had been left open, and the three of them traded uneasy looks before venturing inside. It wasn’t as large as the one in Nexus, but it was somewhat similar in design. On either side of the gravel road were crumbling ruins of navetas, chamber tombs made of limestone. Among these were newer, showier tombs of marble and dark granite, some with statues of either the gods or of the deceased person’s likeness, and one—Dante’s personal favorite—with statues of the departed’s various pets.
Saya gasped. Dante and Brailee followed her gaze to a tomb that had been smashed up, its doors fallen to rubble. Claw marks gouged the ground around it, as if something had wanted to get in. Or get out.
The farther in they walked, the more they heard voices raised in agitation, until they came upon a crowd amassed in front of a mausoleum. Its four columns were topped with a low dome, underneath which sat a sealed door carved with motifs ranging from moon phases to symbols of the elements.
But it was the design in the pediment that Dante focused on. A Conjuration circle filled with familiar glyphs and sigils, a five-pointed star in its center.
Marcos Ricci’s tomb.
“How long can we be expected to live with this?”
“Soon enough we’ll end up like Nexus—”
Guards in burgundy uniforms barred the yelling crowd from the building. Their frustration created bright sparks of red behind Dante’s eyes. He drifted as close as he dared while Saya stuck close to Brailee, the girls holding hands.
“I don’t like this,” Saya whispered behind him. “The feeling of this place…”
The noise of the crowd swelled as a figure walked toward the mausoleum. It was a man of average height, glossy black hair slicked back with pomade, his clothes stylish and embellished with gold. Even his boots had been polished to a high shine, gleaming in the morning light. He ascended the three small steps and turned to face the crowd with a benevolent smile.
“Friends, I understand your concerns,” the man said, his words slow and carefully enunciated. “Believe me, I share in them.”
“Is that the baron?” Brailee whispered to Dante.
He nodded. Baron Martín Alma, inheritor of his family’s monarch-appointed legacy as governors of southern Vaega. Martín Alma was only in his forties, but he had proven himself by winning the people’s loyalty through various displays of charm. Dante had to admit there was something vaguely pleasant about the man as he studied him in detail, from the streak of gray in his hair to the laugh lines bracketing his mouth.
“What happened to Nexus was ghastly, no doubt a backfire of magic produced during Godsnight. I have sent inquisitors to investigate the incident, and I’m sure they will report back that it was some working of the Houses.”
Dante sneered. Beside him, Brailee and Saya stiffened. However, most of the crowd noticeably settled down, the man’s words some sort of balm to their agitation.
One of the unaffected aggressors shouted, “That doesn’t explain why the dead’ve been walking!”
“You’re very right, it does not. But that, too, is a phenomenon in Nexus, one that House Vakara tends to most diligently. Once the chaos up north has settled, I will call on one of their family to assist us.”
Saya let out a tiny squeak.
“Is it because the gods are angry?” someone else cried. “They’ve left us for good, I’m telling you—”
“It’s ’cause that abomination is still here!” A woman nudged a couple people out of her way to point at the mausoleum. “Wasn’t he the fool who brought demons to our world? What if this is the work of demons, and not the gods?”
An uncomfortable murmur ran through the crowd. Azideh laughed softly in Dante’s head.
Martín Alma gave her a patient smile. “I’m not certain that it’s possible for a man to summon demons from beyond the grave. However, the concerns of the public have been heard, and I am here to address them. In a few days’ time, we will officially exhume the body of Marcos Ricci and cremate whatever remains of him. His tomb will be dismantled and replaced with a memorial to honor those who lost their lives on Godsnight.”
This was met with more agreeable mutters, and the crowd’s remaining aggression fizzled. Dante clenched his teeth, sensing the clock looming overhead. They only had a few days to steal Marcos Ricci’s remains and have Saya reanimate him. To get long-awaited answers.
“But even though this will assuage many, it will not be a proper solution to the new trials we face,” the baron went on. “Even now, we—”
The doors to one of the nearby tombs banged open. The crowd screamed and scurried back as another set of stone doors smashed apart, then another. From the empty mouths of the doorways came shuffling, lumbering corpses, their skin pressed tight as leather against their bones, their eye sockets hollow above mouths in rictus grins.
The crowd scattered. Martín Alma gaped at the newly risen dead, all confidence wiped from his features. The guards stepped forward, weapons drawn.
Then the doors behind the baron exploded outward. He fell under a rain of stone dust before a guard helped him up and away. Through the mausoleum’s opening Dante spotted a shadowed figure, which slowly floated out into the light.
Marcos Ricci was shrouded in too-loose garments of black. Although he had lived centuries ago, most of his features were still intact due to a special embalming procedure of the Vakaras. His brown skin had paled to gray, his dark hair brittle and falling to his shoulders.
Saya frantically searched through her pockets until she found a ball of string. She cut off a segment with her teeth and wrapped it around her fingers, staring at one of the crawling corpses as she wove a spell and then—snap. The body kept moving.
“They’re not being controlled by spirits!” she said over the din. “It’s like—like something else is making them move!”
Dante watched the corpse of Marcos Ricci float down the mausoleum stairs. The baron ordered his guards to stop it, but their arrows and blades only met with a barrier around the body that flashed red whenever it was hit.
Four people rushed forward. Their heads were covered in hoods, their faces hidden under masks in the likeness of skulls.
Conjurers. The group Dante had been accused of leading, earning him a spot in the Gravespire.
They wrapped the body up in sheets while the guards were knocked back by some unseen force. One of the Conjurers threw the body over their shoulder.
“Where did they come from?”
“Help—!”
Brailee pulled on the back of Dante’s jacket. “We need to get out of here before someone sees you with them! Use the crowd as cover!”
Reluctantly he turned toward the southern gates along with a handful of spooked petitioners. Others—including the Conjurers—were running in the opposite direction, toward the western gates. Dante made sure to keep Brailee and Saya from getting trampled.
A shiver stole across his shoulders and the demon growled.
She is here.
Dante turned his head, guided by Azideh’s instinct. Time seemed to slow as he took in the fleeing crowd, the terror on their faces, their wide eyes, their open mouths.
One of them was not afraid. She turned and met his gaze, eyes of brilliant, bright blue flashing in recognition and surprise.
A flicker of red, and he was pushed off the path by an invisible hand. He went stumbling against the nearest grave, the stone digging into his side. He hissed in pain while Azideh writhed in his black cloud.
“Dante!” Brailee helped him up. “What happened?”
He looked around in vain; she’d disappeared. The demon rumbled his displeasure.
“Those corpses weren’t raised by necromancy,” he said. “Or Conjuration. They were being manipulated by a demon.”
His sister’s fingers tightened around his arm. “Then that means…”
“Aunt Camilla is here, and she’s leading the Conjurers.”
And she had gotten to Marcos Ricci’s corpse first.
X
Angelica walked as quickly as she could back to her rooms without outright running. Her legs were weak, her heart palpitating so hard she was at risk of going under any second.
In the end, she didn’t make it in time. Close to her rooms, she hurtled herself off the exterior walkway and into the nearest bushes before throwing up everything in her system.
She was one enormous, contained scream, her lungs filled with the agony of salt rubbed into wounds, of bone that broke badly and never reset. She was on her knees in the way she prayed to her god, the way she had learned to plead, to beg, with nothing to show for it other than teeth cracked on pride.
She keened and pressed her feverish forehead to the cold ground, about to burst into a flame that even she would be forced to feel with its full might. Her ashes gathered and swept into a cedar box, then paraded to the mountains.
“—elica!”
She jerked when something hard pinched her outer thigh. Panting, she pushed herself up and stared at the figure beside her, thrown into the palace’s shadow.
Kazue’s face had lost all pleasantness. It now sat in sharp lines as she hauled Angelica to her feet, forced her to turn in the direction of her rooms. Angelica barely had the presence of mind to clumsily toe off her shoes before Kazue all but pushed her inside.
Cosima was reclining on the floor, an open book before her. At the sight of Angelica, she leapt to her feet.
“Fuck, what happened?”
The details were both sharp and blurred. Standing in the Camellia Chamber with the warlords and the empress, niceties and formalities, introductions, bows, and a stumbling, disjointed speech from her own mouth about the importance of trade, truce, and thrones.
All while Deia stared at her from the body of an Azunese pit viper.
“What’s happening?” Kazue demanded. Angelica wasn’t sure what she meant until there was the sound of running footsteps, a screen sliding open, and then something cool and hard was being thrust into her hands.
Her hands, which were crawling with sputtering flames. Cosima yanked her own hands away, the glass vial beggining to warp. Angelica fumbled to pop it open and downed it all.
“Elemental addiction,” Kazue murmured when Angelica dropped the vial and folded to the floor. “That’s what you have, isn’t it? Sometimes Gojarin are afflicted with it.”
Angelica swallowed and hung her head. The ornaments in her hair were so damn heavy.
“Maybe you should leave?” Cosima suggested to Kazue.
Kazue scoffed. “Make yourself useful and get some water,” she said, moving to kneel beside Angelica. Cosima shifted on her feet, hands curled into fists, before she reluctantly turned to the ewer in the corner. “And as for you, calm down and look at me.”
Angelica wanted to bare her teeth against the words calm down, against the urge to curse the older woman out. She looked up and feared to see a single, unblinking blue eye staring down at her, but Kazue’s irises remained brown.
“Something upset you in the Camellia Chamber,” Kazue said. “Was it Nanbu Daiji?”
As the flames receded she turned cold, her teeth chattering. Cosima returned with a cup of water, but when Angelica tried to take it, it slipped from her grasp and spilled across the floor. “Shit.”
“S’all right, I got it.” Cosima poured another cup and held it to Angelica’s lips. Humiliation ran rampant through her, especially with Kazue watching her so closely.
“Was it the snake?” Kazue continued in that steel-toned voice. “I could sense something was off about it.”
“It’s…” Angelica managed to hold on to the cup and took a bigger gulp, washing away the Hypericum’s herbal flavor. She heard her mother’s voice in the back of her mind.
Do not tell them anything they don’t need to know. This is Mardova business.
The same words Adela had spoken to her throughout her life. Always warning Angelica away from the other heirs, fostering contempt instead of cooperation.
Angelica stayed silent. Kazue took a breath and let it out slowly.
“It would be a shame,” Kazue said quietly, “if Eiko was not able to return home to her mother.”
Angelica stilled. The parts of her body that were free-floating reassembled, and the headache that had been building under the weight of the hair ornaments throbbed.
She had come to Azuna for power both political and magical. She’d thought she was well on her way to obtaining the first, but it seemed there were more games to play.
Kazue waited patiently, sitting on her knees with utmost poise. The eldest, like Angelica, born to be a wielder and weaver of influence.
Angelica set the cup down. “The snake Nanbu Daiji carries is not a natural animal,” she whispered. “It is a form of Deia.”
Kazue took a moment to digest the words before cursing violently in Azunese.
“So that is his plan,” the woman growled, poise forgotten as she regained her feet.
“What?”
Kazue covered her mouth with a hand, glaring at the wall. When she lowered it, her lip paint was unsmudged. She gave Cosima a pointed look.
“She stays,” Angelica said firmly.
“Very well. In this land, there are some who believe Kiyonoism is a weaker substitution of our worship of Deia. That even though we care for nature, we forget this realm and its elements were her gifts to us, and our lack of offerings and prayer offends her. Never mind that she—and all the gods—abandoned us first. I have eyes and ears stationed at Daiji’s estate that tell me he has welcomed some of these malcontents into his home.”
Kazue flicked her sleeves. “The god must have whispered in his ear. She wants revenge on us for forsaking her.”
Cosima’s mouth hung open, but at this she shook her head. “If she wanted revenge on Azuna, why not… I don’t know, make a hurricane or an earthquake or something?”
“You think we haven’t been struck by natural disasters?” Kazue snapped. “We know full well Vaega has felt them, too. Just look at what has befallen Nexus.”
“That’s because the entire realm is dying,” Angelica said. “It’s not Deia. At least, it’s not directly Deia.” Shakily she reached up to pull the ornaments out of her chignon. Cosima saw her struggling and knelt behind her to help. “But she’s manipulating Nanbu for a reason.”
Kazue thought this over. Angelica sighed in relief as the last ornament slid free, wondering how she’d once again come to have Cosima’s clever hands in her hair—and tried not to think of them in other places.
“He wants the empress’s sway over the people,” Kazue said slowly, coming to a revelation. “He and the other bushan have their laws and taxation and control of military forces, but the people find solace in the empress. It was why Kiyonoism was adopted at all. If he can prove that Deia is still here, that we were wrong to cease our worship—”
“The empress loses what little power she has left,” Angelica finished.
Kazue rolled her shoulders back and looked down at Angelica. “There is something I need to show you.”
Angelica refused to go anywhere without Cosima, so Kazue begrudgingly let her tag along. Despite Cosima not knowing how to use the sword at her hip, Angelica didn’t want to be alone if this ended up being a trap.
“She talks to me like that again, I’m sticking her hairpin somewhere uncomfortable,” Cosima muttered as they followed the woman down increasingly dim and deserted corridors. “Hey, you doing all right?”
Now that the Hypericum was making its way through her system, Angelica realized how insensible and defenseless she had become in front of Kazue. Heat bristled along her face and palms as she touched her mouth and hair, wondering how rumpled she appeared.
“You look fine,” Cosima murmured. “A little gray, but fine.”
The heat flared higher and Angelica dropped her hand. “If you say so. And you have my permission to stick her anywhere you please.”
