The Fragile Threads of Power, page 5
These particular shadows belonged to the palace. The res in cal, they were called. The crown’s crows.
Alucard rolled his eyes, and wiggled his fingers in a wave, and the shadows reluctantly slunk back, folding deeper into the night, no doubt carrying word of his exploits back to the palace.
He walked on, slowing only when he reached a crossing he knew all too well. To his left, the palace bridge, and at its center, the soner rast, as the palace was called, the beating heart, rising above the Isle.
To his right, the road that led up to the abandoned Emery estate.
It should have been easy enough, to turn away. But it wasn’t. There was a tug behind his ribs, like an anchor at the end of a rope. The saying came to him, then, the one he’d tried to summon in Ciara’s room.
Och ans, is farr, ins ol’ach, regh narr.
There was no easy way to translate Veskan. It was the kind of language where every word could mean a dozen things, depending on their order and their context. It’s why he’d never managed more than a frail grasp on a handful of phrases. But this one he’d held on to. This one Alucard understood.
A head gets lost, but a heart knows home.
If he turned up that road, Alucard knew what he’d find.
He closed his eyes, imagined walking through the open gate, climbing the steps, and pushing open the door, imagined Anisa throwing her arms around his neck, imagined his father, not a shadow in the doorway but a proud hand on his shoulder, his brother Berras standing by the fire, holding out a glass, saying it was about time he found his way back. Alucard stood there, imagining a life that was not, and had never been, and would never be.
The house had been a ruin in the wake of his battle with Berras, his brother poisoned by Osaron’s power. The whole thing should have been torn down—that’s what he thought every time his feet carried him there, to the open gate, every time he saw the cracked façade, the sagging walls. It should have been erased. It was another scar, only this one he didn’t need to live with. Alucard knew that all he had to do was ask, and Rhy would see it razed.
But he couldn’t bring himself to give the order. It had not just been his brother’s home, his father’s. It had been his mother’s once, his sister’s, his own. And on some level, he wanted to believe it could be his again. He must have said as much to Rhy one night, after too many drinks, because the next time he’d made the weary trek to the Emery estate, he’d found it standing proud, the house repaired in loving detail, every stone and pillar and pane of glass in its place.
Alucard knew, as soon as he saw it, that he’d made a terrible mistake. He hated it. Hated the way the house sat, stately but sleeping, the doors locked and the windows dark.
It was a monument. It was a crypt.
There was nothing waiting for him but the dead.
Alucard blew out a breath, and turned left, toward the bridge.
And the palace.
And home.
IV
The White Rose stood at the window, watching Emery go.
Then she took up the length of silk that had been her dress and began the careful work of winding it back around her limbs, her chest, her waist, moving with expert fingers as she tied the one and only knot in a bow at her wrist, despite the fact she had no intention of being unwrapped again that night.
If she had, Ciara would have gone down the stairs, returning to the salon and the bar, and the waiting patrons below. Instead, she went up, past the various chambers, most already in use, and stopped only when she reached the door at the last level. Behind it lay the private quarters that served as her office, the place where the famed White Rose shed the role of host, and stepped back into that of businesswoman. She was, after all, the brothel’s owner.
The door was locked—or at least, it should have been. But as Ciara reached the landing, she was surprised to find the door ajar. If she had touched the handle, she would have found it cold—frozen, even—to the touch.
Instead, she reached into her hair and drew out one of the thin silver pins, letting it hang from her fingers as she stepped inside.
The room was just as she’d left it, with one noticeable exception. A man now sat behind the pale wood desk—her desk—as if it were his own. She flicked her fingers, and several candles sprang to life, casting the room and the intruder in a soft yellow glow. His face brightened, or rather, the mask he wore did, reflecting the light. It was an ornate thing, the surface like poured gold, the top curling upward like the spokes of a sun.
Ciara’s shoulders loosened in recognition. She painted on a smile, but didn’t let go of the pin.
“The Master of the Veil,” she said. “What brings you here?”
The Veil was another pleasure garden, one of dozens in the city. But unlike the others, it didn’t stay in one place, and only opened at the whims of its master. That was the gimmick, an invitation-only club that descended like a cloud-shadow, sweeping over a building for a single night.
The man behind the desk spread his hands and said in Veskan, “I was waiting for you.”
She stiffened a little, answered in Arnesian. “There are far more comfortable rooms in which to wait.”
“I’m sure,” he said, lifting a glass orb from the desk. Inside, a white rose hung suspended, preserved in perpetual bloom. A gift from one of her patrons. “But none are quite so private.”
Ciara lifted her chin. “You should know, more than most, the discretion of my hosts.”
He began to roll the orb across the table, from one hand to another. “Indeed. They have certainly been … accommodating.”
As the glass ball whispered on the table, Ciara studied the Master of the Veil.
She’d never seen his face, but then, she didn’t need to. She’d dealt with enough patrons to read the kinds of truth only a body tells. She noticed the way he draped himself across the chair—her chair. The way he took up space, even in a private office, as if entitled to it. Ostra, she thought. Maybe even vestra. It was there, in his posture, and in the languidness of his Arnesian, and the formality of his Veskan, which spoke more to education than experience. It was there, in the shape of his hands, and the crescents of his nails. It was there, in the taunt that tugged at the corner of his voice, as if they too were seated at a Rasch board. Though she guessed he didn’t play games, not unless he already knew that he would win.
The man pushed the glass ball again, but this time, as his left hand flung the orb away, his right made no motion to catch it. It rolled, briskly, across the desk, and straight over the edge.
Ciara lunged forward, caught the sphere just before it shattered on the floor. She sighed, and straightened, and when she did, the Master of the Veil was right there, no longer behind the desk but in front of it, in front of her, so close that she could almost see the eyes behind the mask.
A single lock of dark hair curled around the corner of the golden mask. She reached up, as if to tuck it behind his ear, her fingers ready to pull the mask aside, but his hand closed around her wrist, his fingers burning cold. She flinched, but his grip tightened, seeming to enjoy her discomfort. She’d handled enough patrons to recognize the ones who took pleasure in another’s pain. She fought the urge to drive the silver pin into his side, and smiled through the biting cold.
“There are other rooms for that,” she said evenly. “And other hosts.”
“Speaking of hosts—” He let go, returned to his seat—her seat—at the table. “I’ve come to hire three, for my next opening. It will be a larger crowd.”
“Perhaps you should hire more of your own, instead of borrowing mine.”
“The beauty of the Veil is that it’s always changing. Never the same garden—”
“Never the same flowers.”
“Precisely,” he said.
Ciara looked down at her wrist, the skin there red from the lingering cold. “It will cost double. Because of the risk.”
“Risk?” She couldn’t see him arch a brow, but she could hear it in his voice.
“Businesses like ours cater to a diverse clientele, but my consorts have noticed that many of your patrons share the same mark.” She looked down at the glass ball in her hand. “Now, they are of course discreet. But I think you will agree, in this case, that discretion is worth the extra cost.”
As she spoke, she saw the frost spread across the window, felt the air go cold around her, cold enough that if she exhaled, she might see her breath. It left an awful, eerie feeling, like his fingers sliding over her skin. Ciara flexed, and the warmth returned. She would not be made to shiver in her own house.
The Master of the Veil leaned back in the chair. “Perhaps what you say is true,” he mused, “perhaps not. We are paid to overlook the details of our patrons.”
“Discretion isn’t the same as ignorance,” she countered. “Nothing happens in my brothel without my knowing. And I’m willing to bet nothing happens in the Veil without yours.”
She studied the golden mask, and the man behind it.
“I was just with the king’s consort.”
The Master of the Veil inclined his head. “Here? Has the royal bed gone cold?”
“He came searching for information. The palace is worried. He suspects I’ve heard something. He would have paid me handsomely. Yet I gave him nothing.”
“And instead, you tip your hand to me.”
Ciara shrugged. “It’s not tipping if you mean to show it. I want you to know exactly where I stand.”
“You support the cause, then?” Surprise rang through his voice, and for the first time, she wondered if the Master of the Veil did more than simply host the Hand at his establishment.
Ciara considered. “I have nothing against the crown. And no love for your cause. But business is business, and our business is better in times of … upheaval.” She returned the glass orb with its rose to the cradle on the desk—her desk. “Still, my consorts’ discretion may be free. But mine will cost you.”
He rose to his feet, one hand slipping into his pocket.
“Three hosts should be sufficient,” he said, setting a stack of silver lish on the edge of the desk. To these, he added a single cheap red lin. “For your time,” he said, and despite the mask, she could hear the corner of his mouth twitch up in amusement before he slipped past her, and out the office door, leaving a chill breeze in his wake.
Ciara watched him descend the stairs, but she didn’t move, not until she was certain the Master of the Veil was gone.
V
SOMEWHERE AT SEA
A few hours after they set sail, the first two men explained the plan.
They were going to rob the Ferase Stras.
The third man listened, his excitement dissolving into horror.
He’d heard tales about the floating market, back when he was still just the merchant’s son, and not a hero in the making.
Not much was known about the legendary ship, which dealt in the empire’s most dangerous goods. Despite its name, the vessel wasn’t a market so much as a vault, a place to store forbidden magic. Few things aboard were actually for sale, and those went only to the right buyers, chosen by the captain, Maris Patrol.
Some said she was a phantom, bound to the boards of her ship for all time. Others claimed she was just an old woman—though she’d been an old woman as long as there had been the Ferase Stras.
It was impossible to find the market without a map, and the only maps that led there seemed to lead nowhere at all—unless you knew how to read them. And if you did manage to find your way by water, the ship could not be taken, since no guest could set foot on deck without an invitation. And even then, it could not be robbed, since the wards laid upon it were as thick as lacquer, and not only stifled any magic, but would turn a thief’s body to ash before it reached the rail.
It was a doomed endeavor, an impossible quest, and yet, two days later, here they were, huddled on the platform outside the Ferase Stras, waiting to be invited in.
It was a narrow ledge high above the water, little more than a plank fixed to the side of the ship, too small for three men and a trunk, and so as the first man knocked, the third clung to the back edge, close enough to feel the place where the platform fell away beneath his heels. His heart was pounding, bobbing on the line between excitement and terror. He thought of Olik, the hero who walked right onto enemy ships, and made himself at home. Olik, who had put his fear in a metal box, and sunk it in the sea. The third man pictured himself bottling up everything he felt and letting it drop over the edge behind them, leaving him steady, and sure.
Still, he wished he had a mask, like Olik’s friend Jesar, the ghostly terror. The hero never wore one, but the third man knew too well how much faces gave away. Unfortunately, he also knew they’d never be allowed on board with such concealments, so there he was, trying to keep his features smooth, his brow steady, and his mouth set. Trying to make a mask of his own face.
The first man knocked again on the simple wooden door.
“Maybe they’re dead,” mused the second, when still no one came.
“Better not be,” growled the first, resting his boot on the trunk. “We don’t know if the wards are bound to the ship or the bodies aboard.”
The third man said nothing, only stared at the floating market, and wondered how many of the stories were true. If there really were talismans aboard that could split mountains, or plunge thousands into sleep. Blades that drew out secrets instead of blood, and mirrors that showed a person’s future, and metal cages that trapped and stored a person’s magic, their mind, their soul.
“Should we just go in?” asked the second.
“Be my guest,” said the first. “I told them we didn’t need three men for this mission.”
The second man rubbed his fingers, calling up a flame. It flickered to life but as he brought it to the door, the fire guttered, snuffed out by the force of the market’s wards.
The third man tugged nervously at his tunic.
He was dressed, like the others, in the rough-spun black common to pirates. It was scratchier than he thought it would be. Olik never mentioned that. Nor how the constant rocking of a boat could turn one’s stomach.
Finally, the door rattled open.
He looked up, expecting to see the infamous Maris Patrol, but found a middle-aged man instead, dressed in a crisp white cowl.
The captain’s oldest nephew, Katros. The steward of the ship.
He was broad-shouldered and dark-skinned, a sheen of sweat on his brow, as though he’d been ill. But he wasn’t ill, strictly speaking. He was drugged. That was part of the plan. Katros’s younger brother, Valick, took a skiff to shore twice a month, and came back laden with food and drink, the latest shipment of which had been laced with savarin, an odorless powder that weakened the body and clouded the mind. The bulk of the toxin had been put in the wine that Maris favored, from a vintner who now served the Hand.
She must have been in a generous mood.
It wasn’t poison, he reminded himself, as Katros swayed on his feet, his skin taking on a greyish hue. Olik wasn’t in the business of murder—went out of his way to avoid needless death, and so would he. Besides, there was too good a chance the spellwork aboard would catch it. But some people took savarin for pleasure. The danger was only in the dosage, and that was in the drinker’s hands.
Katros Patrol cleared his throat, and steadied himself.
“Tokens,” he said, holding out a hand.
The first man toed their trunk. “We’re selling, not buying.”
But the steward of the ship only shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
The third man understood. This wasn’t just a doorway. The entrance to the Ferase Stras was a threshold, and all good thresholds demanded a price. A cost to board the market, a payment for simply setting foot among its wares. And according to the tales, nothing so common as coin would do. You had to part with something special, to add to Maris’s collection.
They’d docked earlier at Sasenroche for just that purpose.
The first man held out a piece of paper, bound with ribbon. It was a page from a book that once belonged in Black London.
The second man produced a pencil, its core filled with powdered blood instead of charcoal, and spelled to write only truths.
When it was his turn, the third man reached into his pocket, fingers tracing the cool rim of the glass before drawing it out. It was a disc, roughly the size of his palm. He’d spent the last hours of the trip, from the black market to this one, staring into its surface.
It was spelled to answer only one question: Am I going to die today?
When the glass turned black, the answer was yes.
He didn’t want to part with the token—felt deeply that it was meant to be his—but told himself if that was true, it would find its way back.
Powerful objects had a way of doing that.
As he held it up one last time, he asked the question in his mind, and sighed in relief when the glass stayed clear.
Of course he wouldn’t die, he thought.
This was his story, after all.
He watched as the three tokens vanished in Katros Patrol’s white linen sleeve. And then the door to the floating market was swinging wide, ushering them into their fate.
* * *
The room was dim, and cluttered with cabinets. Items gleamed from every shelf, the only clean surface a broad wooden desk, beside which stood a large black sphere, though whether it was made of glass or stone he couldn’t tell. It sat in its stand like a globe, but its surface was as smooth and blank as the maps that led to the Ferase Stras.
The third man glimpsed a mask, a lovely piece of molten silver, on a mantle, and his fingers twitched with longing.
“Where is the captain?” asked the first man, eyeing the empty desk.
“She will come when she is needed,” said Katros, leading them through the office door, and out onto the decks. There they found Maris’s other nephew, Valick, leaning against the mast, dressed in the same unblemished white—so out of place amid the salt and grime of the sea—and either he did not drink or he had a stronger constitution, because he seemed hale and steady, untouched by the savarin.
