Master of restless shado.., p.19
Master of Restless Shadows Book Two, page 19
part #2 of Master of Restless Shadows Series
Though his latest defiance buoyed his spirit. It had been a small triumph, parlaying a massacre into only two murders, but it was a start.
“Hierro is growing quite impatient with your progress at the Slate House,” Clara commented. “I’ve convinced him to give you three more days, but I can’t win much more for you.”
Ariz recognized that it wasn’t Hierro alone who wanted him to penetrate the small stronghold at the naval memorial. Clara too desired the deadly treasure that the royal bishop’s son had secured. She wanted it so badly that a flush rose in her pale cheeks as she spoke of the Slate House.
“I’m not a thief,” Ariz replied.
“You think you’re above theft?” Clara demanded.
“No.” Ariz shook his head. “I mean that I don’t possess the skills of a thief. The Slate House is well made and securely protected. If I force the front door and kill the guards who opposed me, it will raise an ungodly commotion before I can possibly reach the strongroom on the second floor. I can’t walk through walls or soar up into the attic . . .” Ariz trailed off in uncertainty at Clara’s odd expression.
She looked smug, and he had no idea why. She turned the feathery ruff in her hand in a slow circle and gave an odd little laugh. Then her expression went distant, almost blank, as some faraway thought occupied her.
“Any news of the Quemanor household?” Ariz asked at last. It was as close as he dared come to inquiring after Fedeles. He’d heard whispers among the maids and grooms, but no one truly knew what had happened in the Shard of Heaven except that the king had died there and the royal bishop had been forced by Prince—no, now King Sevanyo to release Fedeles.
“You’re concerned for the Quemanors?” Clara frowned at him.
“My sister and her children are still in their service,” Ariz replied, and he wasn’t lying. He feared as much for his family as he did for Fedeles.
“Ah, your sister.” Clara smiled, but her gaze was distant. “Sometimes I forget how deeply you people from simple families care for each other. I envy you, even if you live as mere playthings to men like my brother and father.”
Ariz bowed his head again. Given the opportunity, Clara would have bent him to her will just as readily as Hierro did. But she liked to believe otherwise.
“Do not trouble yourself,” Clara went on. “The household is safe just now. Your sister’s children and Sparanzo Quemanor have been shielded from my brother’s latest threat . . . as you well know.” Her expression turned almost teasing and Ariz realized that she knew what he’d done to Hierro’s sailor turned assassin.
Her larks must have seen it all.
“I’ve already taken steps to ensure that Hierro doesn’t discover Xavan’s fate,” Clara added. “That was his name. The man you cut down under the willow. Xavan. When you pray, you should remember him to paradise.”
Ariz nodded. He wished he’d not learned the man’s name, or anything about him.
“Will he send more?” Ariz asked. “To kill the children?”
“He may, but I will keep them safe.” Clara glanced down at the paper in her hand. “And if we contrive to keep Hierro distracted with the coronation and eliminating his supposed rivals, then he won’t have time to fret over Sparanzo. Though that means that he will want to make even more use of you, I’m afraid.”
Again, Ariz averted his gaze from the script on the page. Instead he studied the feathery ruff in Clara’s other hand. It reminded him a little of one of the bright cloaks that Yuanese ambassadors wore in court—not that any of them were likely to make an appearance these days. The royal bishop had seen to that. The brown feathers were speckled with flecks of gold and tipped in inky black.
“Is he sending me to a costume party this time?” Ariz asked. He’d need more than a little ruff of feathers if that was the case.
“This isn’t from him.” Clara lowered her soft voice to a whisper so faint that Ariz had to lean close to hear her clearly. She smelled of funerary incense from the chapel, and a new bruise lay beneath the face powder dusting her cheek. No doubt it had cost her some pain to shield him from Hierro.
“This is my gift, to ensure that Hierro doesn’t ruin you with all these petty assassinations of his,” Clara said. “You need rest, but we both know he won’t see reason on that count.”
In the last three weeks Hierro had sent him out almost every night to stalk and then assassinate a horrifyingly unprepared assortment of people. Many of them the sad fools who believed themselves to be Hierro’s allies.
“We can’t allow him to destroy you, Master Ariz,” Clara said.
“How did you convince him to agree?” Ariz asked.
“I told him the truth—or some of it,” Clara replied. “It would be wisest if you aren’t recognized coming and going on his errands. You need a disguise that will turn suspicion toward our enemies in Labara. And by chance this gift will do that. It offers you some respite, as well.”
Ariz didn’t trust Clara any more than her brother, but he longed so intensely for any reprieve from Hierro’s murderous commands that he reached out. His fingers only brushed over the feathers and they rose, fluttering against his palm like living things—like soft, grasping fingers.
Ariz jerked his hand back at once.
“What will it do to me?” Ariz asked.
“It will bestow the wings of a saint upon the talons of an assassin,” Clara replied.
Ariz scowled at the cluster of feathers. He’d heard stories of bewitched animal skins that transformed men into beasts. He possessed little enough of his humanity that perhaps Clara imagined he would welcome respite from even the few shreds of conscience and kindness he still retained. But another thing he recalled from the tales of transformed men: those who bewitched them also controlled their actions. He already bore Hierro’s Brand of Obedience over his heart; he wouldn’t sacrifice the last shreds of his self-determination to Clara.
“I won’t be your beast, my lady,” Ariz told her.
“Mine? I assure you, I have no desire to make you mine.” Clara cocked her head, and Ariz thought she was attempting to offer him a genuine smile. “What little placidity you might have once possessed, my brother’s thrall has defiled. Your soul is not a thing I would wish to take possession of, much less hold in the cradle of my own spirit. You are too much his creation now.”
“And yet you would have me submit to this.” Ariz eyed the fluttering collar.
“This is a holy relic, Ariz, not the work of heathen witchcraft. It’s a blessing.” Clara leaned slightly closer to Ariz. “Are you among the devout who remember the story of Sainted Trueno?”
“He served Our Savior as a herald and a personal guard. But he was captured, enthralled and ordered to slay Our Savior.” Ariz paused a moment to recall the rest of the saint’s history. A sculpture of the saint had adorned his family chapel. He’d liked studying the figure during tedious sermons. One night on a dare from his sister he’d even climbed up to the sculpture and left a crown of violets at its feet. “He was enthralled inside the body of an immense eagle, but he refused to strike Our Savior down.”
“Yes! His spirit was stronger than those of his captors. He shattered their thralls over him—though his flesh remained transformed. He soared into the sky, and instead of harming Our Savior, he shielded his master from the hundred arrows of the demon hordes with his own body. He died gloriously.”
Ariz remembered running his hands over the cold marble where the stone arrow shafts seamlessly pierced the breast and torn wing of the statue. As a child, he’d felt awed by the artistry of the carving but also heartsick that he could not free the majestic eagle from those arrows. They were carved all from one stone, Trueno’s suffering becoming as much a part of him as his long, beautiful wings or his wide, pale eyes.
“His is the rise of courage to the heights of bravery,” Clara quoted, then she lifted the scrap of leather and feathers into a beam of lamplight. “This is his relic—the blessing of his flesh and spirit. It was long believed lost, and it has taken me years of searching, but I finally found it. I don’t offer it to you lightly.”
“You want to turn me into one of your birds,” Ariz stated.
“I’m offering you the opportunity to become more than the animal that Hierro has made you into,” Clara snapped, though even enraged, all she could do was look slightly disappointed. Ariz wondered what little of his own anger showed.
With her simpering expressions and bruised body, Clara was hardly one to call him Hierro’s animal. She was no better than he was. Ariz sighed as he recognized the pitiable truth of both their lives.
“I’m touched that you could believe a creature like me merits Trueno’s relic,” Ariz replied. “Surely if its blessing is so wondrous, it would suit you far better than me.”
“Claiming the relic requires physical strength. Bone and muscle to feed the spells. It will not accept my frail, earthly body.” Clara shook her head. “Don’t think that I haven’t attempted it. If it were a matter of willpower alone, then I would be soaring through the sky now.”
Ariz believed her.
Not only did Clara seem absorbed by birds and the freedom of their flights, but Ariz had realized that Clara rarely lied. When she practiced deception, it was through silence and omission. Which begged the question: What wasn’t she telling him about this blessing? What was her true motive in offering it to him?
“Accept the blessing, Ariz,” Clara said. “Trueno’s speed and strength can aid you in fulfilling Hierro’s errands, and it will ease your injuries. You look as though you are wasting away. Your body is covered in bruises, and I know that you have hardly slept. Hardly eaten. You need respite.”
“I am his assassin. A murderer of women and children. I deserve to suffer for what I’ve done.” Ariz glowered down at the dark scabs that dotted his battered hands. He could still see Xavan’s terrified expression . . . feel his fingers trembling against his hand.
Clara sighed but said nothing.
They were both silent for a few moments; the noise of the busy household drifted through the room. A gardener sang to himself out on the grounds. Geese honked in reply to the reprimands of a goose girl. And as always, the bright calls of songbirds filled the air. Clara raised larks, finches and nightingales from tiny chicks and then set many of them free. Some served her, Ariz knew that, but not all of them. Some she released to genuine freedom.
He wondered if he should take heart from that.
Or perhaps he misunderstood the meaning of her actions. Did she offer the fledglings freedom, or was she depriving herself the company of the creatures that she loved the most? Was their absence a penance? Or was she inuring herself to the feeling of loss so that when the time came, she could make far greater sacrifices?
Or did she simply wish to save her favorites from being strangled to death by Hierro?
“Hierro’s brand has made monsters of us both,” Clara said at last. “I have no doubt that when our souls reach the gates of paradise, we will be consigned to walk the three hells to cleanse Hierro’s corruption from us. You and I will suffer enough then, Master Ariz.”
Again Ariz thought she was speaking honestly to him. As disparaging as she was of others, she also recognized many of her own failings. She was strangely fair-minded in that way.
Ariz wondered what sort of person she might have become if she’d not grown up under her brother’s control. Had she once been as naïve and romantic as Ariz had been before Hierro enslaved him? Had she aspired to kindness? Sometimes Ariz thought that she must have. Certainly, some part of her still longed to love and be loved in return. That showed in her tenderness toward her handmaids and her precious songbirds. Even in the face of Hierro’s violence, she never failed to take a stand to protect Sparanzo, and that alone bespoke courage that Ariz couldn’t ignore.
Clara straightened her shoulders and held the feathered collar out to him.
“While we are both still alive, neither of us can afford to indulge in self-pity. When the true battle comes, innocent souls will need your strength to shelter them. Just as they will need my courage. We cannot give ourselves up to despair. We must continue to live and to fight for the sakes of those who will have no one else to shield them from Hierro.”
“You mean Sparanzo?” Ariz asked.
“Yes, but not him alone. Even in this degenerate city there are hundreds of other innocents.” Clara lowered her gaze to the floor. “I admire your sister, and what I’ve heard about her children makes me like their courage and cleverness. I have thought long and hard on her and those two pretty bastards she bore my brother.”
Ariz scowled and Clara lifted her gaze to meet his. He wished could read past her bittersweet expression and gentle voice. She was a treacherous zealot, but she could show great tenderness toward children. And for her own reasons she had gone out of her way to protect Ariz from Hierro’s wrath on several occasions now.
“I believe that there is a way to save them,” Clara said. “But it would require all of your strength and determination. You must not be worn down or weak when the moment comes.”
“If that’s true, then just tell me—”
“No. You can’t be trusted to keep what I say from Hierro,” Clara replied. “Just knowing that you are betraying him will cause you agony—”
“I could say the same for you.”
“And you would be right,” Clara replied, and she flashed a smile that looked more like a flinch than any kind of happiness. “Hierro’s brand burns through me every minute of my life—it has for years now. I live in hell, but I endure because this is the only way to free us all. Do you understand? I am fighting for all of us. Not just me or you or Elenna. But for all the hundreds of people—men like Xavan and women like my dear handmaids—whom Hierro has enslaved. I can withstand the pain, but it has worn me down. I can’t fight him alone. I need your strength, Ariz.”
He wanted to believe her, not just because she offered him an opportunity to save all that remained of his family but because he desperately needed to believe that his existence could amount to something more than eviscerated bodies and grieving survivors. He yearned for any relief from the knowledge of what he’d become.
“There’s has to be a price,” Ariz said. There was always a cost to any gift offered him.
“Pain,” Clara said, and a shudder passed through her slender body. “The first transformation is agony—far more than I could endure with Hierro’s brand already searing through me. But you are strong. And you said that you deserved to suffer, didn’t you?”
“I did.” Ariz took the collar from her. The way the feathers twisted and curled around his wrist alarmed him. The hard tips of the quills scratched at the red scars on his forearm.
“You have only one chance,” Clara said. “If you refuse the blessing, if you can’t withstand the pain, then Trueno’s relic returns to being nothing but a collection of feathers awaiting someone worthier of his gift. So you must be strong. Endure it now and it is yours forever.”
Ariz forced himself to relax as the collar flexed around his arm like a strange serpent. The hair all across his body rose as if a chill wind rushed over him. The quills scraped and dug at his arm. Pain pricked and grew as one after another, the feathers pierced his skin and continued digging into his flesh. His blood seeped down the shafts, staining the fletching and spattering the fencing room floor.
A deep ache flared through his joints and spread through the marrow of his bones. He noticed the hair of his arms splitting to a delicate gray down. The light and colors of the room flared in his eyes and the notes of the distant gardener’s song suddenly sounded like chapel bells, pounding through his skull.
Then waves of hot, sick pain surged through him. His shoulders rolled back with a bone-splitting crack and his lungs seemed to convulse against his ribs. He gasped.
His legs felt as if they were on fire, his spine shuddered and twisted like a worm cut in two. Ariz staggered and fell to his knees. His muscles writhed beneath his skin, ripping apart. A weird moan escaped him as he struggled for breath and choked on a mouthful of his own blood.
For the first time in perhaps years, he felt terrified for his own sake. He couldn’t die now, not when he’d come so close to finding a way free of Hierro. Ariz tried to grip his sword hilt, but his arms jerked and snapped behind him. A cascade of gray feathers seared down his chest and spilled over his hip, swallowing his sword and scabbard just as they engulfed his thighs.
Desperately he tried to think on something—anything—to give him strength. Then he remembered Fedeles taking his hand and drawing him close. The sensation of his lips had washed away Ariz’s awareness of his injuries and Hierro’s brand. Ariz concentrated on that respite, as the marrow of his bones seemed boil. He closed his eyes and drew the cool darkness of Fedeles around him.
“Calm, my beauty.” Clara sounded as affectionate as when she spoke to her treasured songbirds. “The worst is done. You’re fine now. Oh, and so lovely.”
Ariz opened his eyes to see Clara crouched low and leaning over his face. He startled up to his feet. She leaned back from him as a huge gold wing swung past her.
His wing, Ariz realized. No longer an arm but a wing extending almost to the far wall of the fencing room. Splashes of his blood colored the oak floor like spills of ink. Gouges scraped through the wood in a wild pattern.
“It’s all right, Ariz. You’ve passed Trueno’s test and proven yourself worthy of his blessing,” Clara said. “All is well now. You’re fine.”
She was right. The raging fire that had seemed to melt the marrow from his bones and char his muscles had turned to comforting warmth. Ariz cocked his head and caught sight of his faint reflection in the glass of a window.
