Текст книги "The Serpent and the Wings of Night"

Автор книги: Carissa Broadbent

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CHAPTER FOUR

I never drank. Vampire alcohol was incredibly strong for humans, and that aside, it was dangerous for me to dull my senses. Vincent rarely did, either—probably for the same reasons as me. So I was surprised when he brought the wine to my chambers. We took tiny sips and then set it aside, leaving it untouched as we sat in silence, listening to the crackling of the fire.

Finally, he spoke. “I think you are as prepared as you possibly could be.”

He sounded like he was mostly trying to convince himself.

“The others will underestimate you,” he went on. “Use that. It’s a powerful weapon.”

He was right. I had learned long ago that the best weapon I had was my own weakness. I used it to kill almost every night in the slums. Right now, it didn’t feel like enough.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. I watched my father as he looked to the fire, red light playing over the pale, hard angles of his face. Had he been this nervous the night he offered himself to his own Kejari?

“Is that what you did?” I asked. “Let them underestimate you?”

He blinked, taken aback. I rarely asked him about his time in the Kejari. I rarely asked him about his past at all. Maybe that sip of wine, or my nearly-inevitable impending death, made me a little bold.

“Yes,” he said, after a moment. “And it was likely why I won.”

It seemed laughable now that Vincent was ever someone who could be underestimated. But two hundred years ago, he had just been a young, lesser Hiaj noble. The House of Night was under Rishan control then and seemed like it would remain that way for centuries more.

“Were you nervous?”

“No. I knew what I had to do.”

At my visible skepticism, he lifted one shoulder in an almost-shrug. “Fine,” he admitted. “I was nervous. But I knew the Kejari was my only path to a life worth remembering. Death isn’t frightening when weighed against an insignificant existence.”

An insignificant existence.

Those words hit me unexpectedly hard. Because what existence was more insignificant than this? Living in constant fear, hobbled by my own blood and my own human weakness? I could never be anything this way, fighting so hard to survive that I could never do anything. Could never be anything of worth to… to the people who had nothing but me.

My jaw clenched so hard it trembled. I grabbed my glass and took another sip of wine, mostly because I was desperate to do something with my hands. I could feel Vincent’s eyes on me. Could feel the softening of his gaze.

“You do not have to do this, my little serpent,” he said softly. “I realize only now that perhaps I never told you that.”

It would be a lie to say that I wasn’t tempted to run away—tempted to hide in the space between the dresser and the wall, just as I had when I was a small child. A part of me still always was hiding, because I was never going to be anything other than prey.

No, that was not a life of significance. It wasn’t even a life at all.

“I’m not backing out,” I said.

I looked down to my hand—to the delicate silver ring on my right little finger. A simple band with a black diamond so small it was no bigger than the band itself.

I’d had it in my pocket when Vincent found me as a child. I liked to think it belonged to my mother. Maybe it was just some worthless trinket. I would probably never know.

Absentmindedly, I rubbed it. Not even that tiny movement escaped Vincent’s attention.

“I would have found them for you, if I could,” he said. “I hope you understand that.”

A pang rang out in my chest. I didn’t like to openly acknowledge my own hopes. It made me feel… stupid. Childish. Even more so to hear Vincent reference them aloud.

“I know.”

“If I ever had an excuse, if there was ever a rebellion—”

“Vincent. I know. I know you can’t go there.” I stood and frowned at him, and his eyes fell to the fire, avoiding mine.

Fuck, it was strange, to see Vincent look something close to—to guilty.

Twenty years ago, Vincent pulled me from the wreckage in the wake of a horrible Rishan rebellion. The city I left behind, or what remained of it, was deep within Rishan territory. The only reason why Vincent had entered it at all decades ago was because the uprising had given him license to, but now? That territory was protected by Nyaxia. A Hiaj king could not breach it outside of wartime between the clans, and though it was ridiculous to call this eternal tension “peace,” my father had no reasonable excuse to invade and find my family.

If any of them had survived. Likely not. Whoever had been in that house when Vincent found me had not survived. But had there been others? Did I have anyone out there searching for me?

I knew the logical answer. Human lives were so fragile. Yet it still didn’t stop the dark corners of my mind from wandering. Wondering where they were. Wondering how they had suffered. Wondering if any of them remembered me.

I didn’t remember them. Maybe that was why I missed them so much. A dream could be whatever you needed it to be, and maybe the twelve-year-old version of myself needed saving them to be the missing piece that would finally make me feel whole.

“Soon,” Vincent murmured. “Soon you’ll be strong enough to go.”

Soon.

No, Vincent couldn’t act, but I could—if I was something stronger than human. I would need to be stronger, even, than most vampires.

I could do it if I was as strong as Vincent himself.

This would be my wish from Nyaxia, if I won the Kejari: to become Vincent’s Coriatae. His heart-bound. A Coriatis bond was a powerful thing—verging on legendary—only granted a handful of times in history, and only forged by Nyaxia herself. It would strip away my humanity, making me a vampire without the risks of Turning, which ended in death more than half of the time. And it would bind my soul to Vincent’s, his power becoming mine, and mine becoming his. Not that I had much to offer him, of course. It was a testament to his love for me that he was willing to offer me such a gift at all.

As his Coriatae, I would be powerful enough to save the family that had birthed me and to become a true daughter to the man that raised me. I would be one of the most powerful people in the House of Night. One of the most powerful people in the world.

And no one would ever underestimate me, ever again.

“Soon,” I agreed.

He gave me a faint smile, then rose. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” But the word was ash in my mouth.

I had attempted to pray to Nyaxia many times over the years. I never felt much of anything—maybe because, as a human, I wasn’t truly one of her children. But as Vincent brought the bowl and the jeweled dagger, as he slit my hand and let my weak, human blood roll into the hammered gold, the hair prickled at the back of my neck. Vincent whispered prayers in the ancient tongue of the gods, his thumb pressed to my wound to squeeze drop after drop into the offering.

His eyes flicked up to meet mine.

“Nyaxia, Mother of Ravenous Dark, Womb of Night, of Shadow, of Blood. I give you Oraya of the Nightborn. She is the daughter my heart gave me, just as my heart made me your son. Her presence in the Kejari is the greatest gift I will ever offer you.” Perhaps I imagined that his voice had thickened, ever-so-slightly. “Save, perhaps, for her victory.”

Fuck. I was not expecting that this would be so difficult.

No, I wasn’t much of a devotee. But now I felt the Goddess here, taking the offering of my blood and promising me only more blood in return. I wondered if she might just keep taking, and taking, and taking, until my poor mortal veins had nothing left to give.

The words that would bind my fate hung thick as smoke in the air.

“I offer myself to you, Nyaxia. I offer you my blood, my blade, my flesh. I will compete in the Kejari. I will give you my victory, or I will give you my death.”

And then the final, sealing words:

“Aja saraeta.”

Take my truth.

“Aja saraeta,” Vincent echoed, his gaze never leaving mine.

Drip, drip, drip, as my blood slowly drained away.

It was probably only the work of those tiny sips of wine that I was able to sleep at all. Eventually, dawn loomed, and Vincent retired. I lay in bed, staring at the stars painted on my ceiling. The wound on my hand throbbed. It would likely be another few days before the Kejari began, but my offering made it feel suddenly real in a way it never had before.

It was nearly sundown again by the time sheer exhaustion forced my eyes to close, my blades tucked beside me. Just in case.

When sleep took me, restless and anxious, I dreamed of safety.

I barely remembered my old life. But dreams were so good at filling in memories moth-eaten by time. It was a smear of sensations, like paints too-watered-down. A little clay house with cracked floors. An embrace in strong arms, a scraggly cheek, and the scent of dirt and sweat. Bloodless food—sickeningly sweet, absent of the iron tang—crumbling over my tongue.

I dreamed of a tired voice reading me a story and taking for granted that there would be a happy ending because I did not know of any other kind.

I hated these dreams. It was easier not to remember these things, and the fact that they always ended the same.

The moonlight streamed through windows locked tight. When the vampires came, wings upon wings upon wings blotted out those streaks of silver.

The two other little bodies scrambled out of bed to look at the sky. I was too afraid. I pulled the blankets over my head.

Put out the fire, quick, the woman hissed. Before—

Crack. Crack. CRACK.

I squeezed my eyes shut as the screams started, far away, rising closer and closer.

As the clay around me began to tremble and shake—as the floors split and the walls collapsed and the woman screamed, and screamed, and screamed—

CRACK.

CRACK.

The screaming followed me as I woke—so much of it that my ears couldn’t separate the voices, couldn’t make sense of where my dream ended and reality began.

My eyes opened, and met only an impenetrable wall of black. Complete, utter darkness, so thick it choked me. My hands flew out, grasping at nothing.

My first disoriented thought was, Why did my lanterns go out? I never let my lanterns go out.

And then, too slowly, I realized I was not in my room. The scent of must and blood burned my nostrils. My palms pressed to the ground. Hard, dusty tile.

The painful reminder of the fresh wound of my offering cut through my addled mind. Dread rose as I pieced it together.

No. It was too early. I should have had a few more days, I should have had—

The memory of Vincent’s voice unfurled in my mind:

It could happen at any moment. She likes to do something unexpected.

I pushed myself upright. Panic spiked, but I forced it into submission. No, I could not afford to panic. Because this was it.

This was it.

The Kejari had begun.

INTERLUDE

The little girl did not speak for days. The King of the House of Night gave her a room right next to his, on the most secluded, well-protected floor of his castle. Everything about this place overwhelmed her. Her bedroom at home had been shared with a brother and a sister, her bed just a tiny cot stored beneath the stacked frames of her siblings’. Here, the floors were not made of warm, rough clay but hard mosaic tile that froze her toes. Everything was so big. The bed alone was nearly the size of her entire room back home.

And, of course, there were monsters everywhere.

She tucked herself into the corner, wedging her tiny body between the dresser and the wall, and refused to move.

The King of the House of Night sat in the armchair at the opposite side of the chamber, reading. He rarely left, and never acknowledged her. The little girl would only leave her hiding spot in the rare moments he was gone—to relieve herself or scarf down a few bites of the food left for her. As soon as she heard his footsteps down the hall, she would return to her corner.

A week passed.

And another.

And another.

And at last, when the moon was full in the sky again, the child, fighting hunger pangs, crept from her spot towards the plate of bread on the table. Her silver-coin stare never left him, even as her little fingers closed around the bread and she nibbled it in slow, tentative bites, backing away.

Not a muscle moved save for his eyes, which flicked to her and remained there. Even that was enough to make her back farther into the shadows.

He laughed softly.

“Do you feel unsafe here, little serpent?”

The girl stopped chewing and said nothing.

The king set his book down gently.

“Good. You are not safe. Not in this castle. Not in this room. You are prey in a world of predators.”

He leaned closer.

“I will never hurt you,” he said softly. “But I am the only one who will make that promise, and keep it. I will never give you false safety or kind lies. But I will teach you how to wield those teeth of yours.” He smiled, revealing for the first time the full length of his sharp canines—the death blow, surely, of hundreds.

The girl should have found this sight terrifying. And yet, for the first time in a month, she felt… safe.

“Perhaps they are not as sharp as mine,” he went on, “but they can still kill, with the right bite.”

Even so young, the girl understood what he was offering her. Living in a world like this, one had to learn such things early.

“Will you do me the honor of offering me your name?”

At last, the child spoke.

“Oraya.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Oraya.” He rose, and this time, she didn’t back away. He reached out his hand. “I’m Vincent.”

CHAPTER FIVE

I forced myself to steady my breaths. Panic quickened the heart. A quickening heartbeat meant rushing blood. Rushing blood meant I became even more of a target than I already was.

Nyaxia’s magic was powerful and inexplicable. She could spirit us away wherever she pleased. My head was still fuzzy, every sensation hazy. I struggled to get my bearings. It felt like I had been drugged.

Take stock of your senses, Oraya.

The voice in my head was Vincent’s.

Smell—blood and must. If the tournament had begun, then I had to be in the Moon Palace. I pressed my hands to the floor. A fine layer of dirt and dust stuck to my palms. The Moon Palace existed solely for this competition. It wouldn’t have been touched for a hundred years.

No one was allowed within these walls outside of a Kejari, but I had studied it many times from the outside. I needed to go up. The tallest spire was covered in windows. No vampire would be caught there once dawn broke. The light would be extremely uncomfortable, if not deadly.

Sound. My ears strained. Screams of pain echoed from all directions—screams that didn’t sound like they belonged to vampires. My stomach turned. Had humans been dropped into the Palace, too? As… prey? Distraction? I didn’t know whether to be horrified or secretly grateful that they would draw the vampires’ bloodlust. And I could hear that happening, too. The snarls. The distant, graceful beat of footsteps against the floor.

The others were awake. Maybe my humanness had meant I was the last to rise from whatever magic had been cast over us. It may have lowered inhibitions—the vampires sounded abnormally animalistic, even by the standards of a bloodlust frenzy.

I was very, very lucky I was alive right now.

I blinked into the darkness. Unlike vampires, I had no night sight. I couldn’t see anything. Just a wall of black. I tried to call light to my fingertips and failed miserably, releasing only a single spark that quickly dissipated into smoke.

I bit back a silent curse for my useless magic and groped around for my blades, praying they had made the journey with me. If I had been dumped in here unarmed, I was dead.

Searing pain sliced across my hand.

FUCK.

I clamped my lips down on the cry.

I’d found my blade. By the sharp end. Fucking idiot.

Warm blood filled my palm. The dull drip, drip, drip of it hitting the tile floor was deafening, even over the distant screams.

Bleeding was bad. Very bad.

I had to move fast to find safety before someone scented me. I grabbed one dagger—by the hilt this time—and found the other not far from it. Then I rose and carefully stepped back until my shoulder met stone. I followed the wall, keeping my arm against it, blades poised and ready in each hand. My steps were silent and deliberate. When my toe hit a cold, hard block, my heart leapt.

A step. A way up. I had to pray this staircase would take me where I needed to go. I had no other option—not this blinded.

I started climbing, clinging to a dusty metal rail sideways, so my back wasn’t left unguarded.

I’d heard stories that the Moon Palace was a magical, mysterious place, blessed—or cursed—by Nyaxia herself. Even Vincent believed it. He told me that hallways moved and rooms shifted. That it had a way of putting you exactly where you did or didn’t want to be, depending on your luck that day.

I promise that if you let me survive this, Nyaxia, I will make this Kejari the most interesting and glorious performance for you in a millennium, I told the Goddess, silently. You are going to be so fucking impressed. I swear it.

The screams faded slowly into the distance, to my relief. I was moving away from them. Good. I continued climbing—one flight, two, three.

But the Moon Palace wasn’t about to let me go that easily.

At first, I thought I was imagining it. My ears strained so much; it became easy to doubt my own senses. But as my steps continued, the ball of dread in my stomach swelled. No. I was right: the screams were getting closer again. Even though minutes ago they had been fading far behind me. Like I’d been climbing a never-ending spiral staircase that went nowhere.

I nearly stumbled as my feet met flat tile where I expected another step. The sounds of carnage echoed directly above me. I couldn’t keep ascending. I was trapped.

I pressed to the wall. My eyes still uselessly stared into a vat of pitch black. What now? What could I—

One voice in that distant cacophony cut through all the others.

I no longer had to regulate my heartbeat, because it simply stopped.

The scream was cut short, buried beneath so many other distant voices. But I recognized it, even in that split second. I recognized it as the voice that affectionately called me a little brat, punctuated by a husky cough from years of incessant cigar smoking.

My mind emptied except for one name:

Ilana.

You never know—not truly—what it takes to make you discard caution until it’s happening. And Ilana was enough. I left a lifetime of vigilance piled on the ground like a forgotten coat.

Ilana. Ilana was in this Palace. Ilana was in that frenzy.

Another scream, this time louder, closer, right down the hall, as if the fucking place was taunting me with it. And I didn’t think, couldn’t think, I just ran—

–Until a powerful force stopped me. A strong grip folded around my shoulders, pulling me back against a firm wall of a body.

“They’re dead.”

The man’s whisper was low and gravelly, so close that his exhale tickled my skin. Stubble scratched my ear, a brush of hair grazing the dip where my neck met my shoulder. Every instinct revolted at this person’s proximity, at their nearness to my throat—a place that no one but Vincent was allowed to go.

“They’re dead, little human,” the voice said again. “And if you go after them, so are you.”

He’s right, the Moon Palace seemed to hum, the darkness shivering in delight.

And I knew it. I knew it, even as another ragged shout of agony rang out, closer than ever.

I knew it and didn’t give a fuck.

I didn’t bother fighting against the grasp that held me. It wouldn’t work. He was too strong.

So I stabbed the bastard.

Apparently he wasn’t expecting that, because he hissed, “Ix’s fucking tits!” and staggered away from me. I had buried my knife deep enough in his thigh that I had to yank hard to pull it out, and then I was sprinting down the hall, fingertips to the wall to guide myself.

Another scream. Louder. More desperate. Mother, it was awful, how vampires sounded when they were well and truly in a bloodlust. You could hear them ripping apart the flesh. It wasn’t quiet, it wasn’t elegant, it wasn’t graceful. It was loud and messy and horrible.

I wanted to call out to her, wanted to tell her I was coming for her, but I couldn’t—it would only attract attention to my position. I settled instead for quickened steps. As fast as I could move.

Ilana's wails did not grow farther away. But they did not grow closer, either. They just remained forever beyond me, just outside the reach of my blade, as I ran down hallway after hallway after hallway.

The truth dawned on me with every footstep. Her proximity was an illusion. I would never reach her. Her voice was growing weaker, her cries fewer and farther between.

Still, I pushed one more step, one more step.

One more step, as the shrieks rose to a crescendo.

One more step, as they lowered to a wet gargle.

As the gargle became a weak moan.

As that familiar voice disappeared beneath the sounds of feeding vampires, looking for something new to occupy them.

Eventually, I stopped, my ribs aching and eyes straining. I pressed myself against the wall. Squeezed my eyes shut, darkness falling deeper into darkness. My heartbeat, my precious blood, rushed deafeningly in my ears.

They’re dead, the voice had whispered. And if you go, so are you.

He was right. And I had never hated anything so much. I lived a life of ugly truths, had gotten used to them—but this one—Mother, this one, it just—

The hairs rose on the back of my neck as I felt a presence behind me. The footsteps were nearly silent. I turned just in time.

“What do we have here?” a low, smooth female voice whispered.

I didn’t wait this time. I struck—hard, and in the exact direction of the voice. I wouldn’t win in a fight. I didn’t wait for her to retaliate. I sprinted, fingertips touching the wall just enough to keep me from running into it. Some skirmish broke out behind me—I wasn’t about to stop and think about what it could be, or, Goddess forbid, join it. The more they fought with each other, the less they would come after me.

At first, I thought I was imagining the faint silver outline before me. Maybe my straining eyes were just inventing what I so desperately wanted to see.

But no, it was no illusion. A wall of humid air hit me as I stumbled through a threshold. My hand bled so heavily that I struggled to grip the hilt of my blade. My muscles screamed at me. I could barely, barely make out the faint outline of—of—

Leaves.

I lifted my eyes to see stars. It was an overcast night, black-gray clouds covering most of the sky. But as the wind shifted, slivers of light peered through. The moon, nearly full, stood in mournful watch. Wrought-iron whorls cradled glass walls, rising into a dome that culminated in a silver crescent.

The earthy scent of damp soil washed over me.

A greenhouse. This was a greenhouse.

I pushed my way through the dense foliage until I hit the farthest wall. I could see a little, now, with the help of the moonlight. Sivrinaj’s skyline towered in the distance to my right, and to my left, dunes rolled in elegant swells and dips. And there, where the sand kissed the horizon line, was a faint streak of purple.

Dawn.

I would need to survive here for another hour, yes, but the moment it arrived, this greenhouse became the safest place I could possibly be. No one could hide from the sun in here for long.

I gripped my weapons tight as I sank into the shadows between the leaves. I would be able to hear the movement of whoever came in, even if I couldn’t see them. The sounds of feeding had quieted, as if the Palace had decided that it had tired of my horror. Or perhaps the vampires had simply tired of gorging themselves.

I barely blinked, staring at the single door into the greenhouse, as the sun—my savior—rose to meet me.