Текст книги "Six Scorched Roses"

Автор книги: Carissa Broadbent

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CHAPTER SEVEN

Vale led me back downstairs when I finished collecting the blood. As I did every time, I found myself slowing down every hall, unable to look away from each antique and piece of art. I couldn’t stop myself from craning my neck as we passed the wings again, my steps slowing without my permission.

“You like them?”

Vale sounded amused.

“They’re… remarkable.”

“More remarkable on my wall than they were on the man who bore them.”

It was a horrible thing to say. A reminder of vampire brutality. And yet… I was intrigued more than appalled.

“And who was that, exactly?”

“A Hiaj general who was said to be very talented.”

The words very talented dripped with sarcasm.

“Hiaj,” I repeated. “That’s one of the two clans of the House of Night?”

My gaze traveled to the painting beside the wings—depicting a man with feathered white wings driving a spear through the chest of another with slate-grey bat wings.

“You… know more of Obitraes than I’d expect of a human.”

“I like knowing things.”

“I can see that. Yes. Hiaj.” He tapped his finger to the bat-winged man. “And Rishan.” He tapped the feather-winged man.

Rishan. I formed the word silently, rolling my tongue over it.

“You must be Rishan, I assume. Going by your taste in decor.”

“You assume right.”

“So you have wings.”

I said it before I could stop myself. Feathered wings. What would they look like? Would they be dark, like his hair?

“You’re an especially nosy mouse today.”

I blinked to see Vale staring at me, amused.

“I’m always nosy,” I said. “You don’t know me very well yet.”

Yet. As if we would form some kind of friendship through this little bargain of mine. A ridiculous thought. Still… when he laughed a little and grinned—reluctantly, like he didn’t mean to—I could imagine it could happen.

“Maybe you’ll get to see them one day,” he said, “if you’re very fortunate.”

And I could imagine, too, that I would indeed be very fortunate if I got to see Vale’s wings.

“Who is in power now?” I said. “Back home?”

“Home?”

He said the word slowly, like it was foreign.

It didn’t occur to me that Vale might not think of the House of Night as his home. But then again, would one consider a place their home when they hadn’t been there for hundreds of years?

“The House of Night,” I said. “The Rishan and the Hiaj are always fighting, aren’t they? Struggling for power.”

“You know too much of my country’s dirty laundry.”

“I had a colleague once who studied anthropology, with a specialization in vampire culture.”

Vale laughed. “A dangerous field.”

Dangerous, indeed. He had gone to Obitraes and never came back. He was a nice man. I liked to think that perhaps someone Turned him and he was still living some life over there—even though I knew it was more likely that he just became somebody’s meal.

Vale turned and started walking back down the hall, and I’d given up on getting an answer to my question when he finally said, “The Hiaj. The Hiaj have been in power for two hundred years.”

So Vale’s people had been usurped. Judging by the style of art and what I knew of vampire conflict, that couldn’t have been pleasant.

And…

“How long have you been here?” I asked, carefully.

Vale chuckled at the question I really asked and gave me the answer I was really looking for.

“It’s not a pleasant thing to oversee the loss of a war, mouse,” he said. “You’d move halfway around the world after that, too.”

He indulged more of my curiosity on our walk back to the front door, pausing here and there to tell me a few facts about this artifact, that painting, this tapestry. Even those sparse tidbits were more than enough to confirm that I’d been right—that Vale had incredible amounts of knowledge just holed up in this castle, never mind what he must own back in the House of Night. But what struck me even more is that he offered this information to me freely, without me even having to ask, like he understood each question I had before I asked it. I would have almost thought he was a mind reader, but the House of Night did not have mind magic—that was a gift reserved for the House of Shadow.

No, he was just… observant. And for those few moments, strangely enough, I felt like I didn’t have to work so hard to bridge the gap between myself and the rest of the world. Didn’t have to work so hard adjusting my facial muscles and body language, nor at decoding his.

And maybe… maybe he felt the same way. Maybe—for all that my prodding earlier had simply been cruel words to throw at him—maybe he really was lonely.

This thought struck me all at once when he went to the door, opened it, and then stopped.

I was so bad at reading expressions. But was that… disappointment?

He stared out into the dark path ahead.

“It’s late,” he said. “How long does it take you to get back to your home from here?”

“A few hours.”

That was an understatement, actually.

“Isn’t it dangerous for a little human mouse to travel so far alone at night?”

“It won’t be night for much longer.”

My body refused to let me forget it, too. Every blink was gritty, and my muscles grumbled in irritation. I was thirty. Old enough for my body to protest a night absent of sleep in ways it hadn’t ten years ago.

But I shrugged.

“If I didn’t do dangerous things,” I added, “I would do nothing.”

“Hm.” He eyed the trail, then looked back to the stairs, seemingly unconvinced.

I cleared my throat and adjusted my bag over my shoulder. “Well—”

“You could stay,” he said. “If you would prefer to wait until morning to leave.”

He looked as surprised to have said it as I was to have heard it.

I arched an eyebrow. “Well, Vale, you already had one houseguest this—”

“Not like that,” he huffed. “The houseguest is gone. I offer you your own bed. Though”—and here his voice lowered, slightly—“if you wanted to share mine instead, I wouldn’t object to that, either.”

I stilled. Words evaded me. I searched his face for any one of the many signs I’d memorized that someone was making fun of me, telling me something that wasn’t true, and I found none of them in Vale’s expression.

That surprised me almost as much as it surprised me that I was considering it.

That I found myself, far too vividly, imagining what it might have been like to be in that woman’s place—to feel his hands over my body, pinning me. To feel the size of him inside me, feel what it would be like to be taken that roughly, that hard. I’d been fooling myself if I thought I had put him out of my mind. If there was any part of me that wasn’t thinking, just a little bit, about the sheen of sweat over his bare muscles with every movement he made tonight.

I cocked my head and stared at him.

“Vampires have a good sense of smell, don’t you?” I said.

He had moved a little closer. “Yes.”

“Do you smell me?”

My voice was low, rough.

“Yes,” he said. “Acutely.”

“Is it… difficult for you?”

“What does that mean?”

I didn’t answer, and the corner of his mouth lifted. “Are you asking if I’m tempted by you?”

He leaned closer still. My back pressed to the doorframe. I remained very, very still, even as he stepped closer, our bodies almost—but not quite—touching. He lowered his head, so his lips nearly came to my throat.

I didn’t move.

My breath had gotten shallow, my heartbeat faster. Some primal thing within me reached for the surface of my flesh—reached for the surface of his.

His mouth did not touch me. But I still felt the vibration of his voice, deep and low, over the fragile skin of my throat.

“I smell you,” he murmured. “I smell your blood.”

“What does it smell like?”

It sounded like someone else’s voice.

“It smells like honey. Like… nightshade. Sweet. Perhaps with a bitter bite.”

I heard his voice dip a little at that last part. Amusement.

“And?” I said.

“And I smell the beat of your blood through your veins.”

My pulse quickened a little, as if stirring beneath his awareness. His hands braced against the doorframe now, so his body enveloped mine—though, still, without touching.

“And you know what else I smell?” His face ducked a little closer, voice lowering to a whisper. “I smell that you want this.”

I let out a rough breath.

I did. My curiosity extended beyond artifacts on a wall. It reached for Vale’s body and my own, and what it would feel like to bring them together.

I wouldn’t even try to deny that to myself.

But I wasn’t about to let him take me to bed in sheets still mussed from someone else’s body.

“Wanting something doesn’t count for anything,” I said, and put my hand firmly on his chest, pushing him back. He stepped away without protest, eyes narrowed—maybe with curiosity just as potent as mine.

“Goodnight, Vale,” I said. “Thank you for the blood. I’ll see you in a month.”

And I didn’t look back once as I set off down the trail.

I knew he watched me until I was gone, though.

When I got home, the house was still dark and quiet, though the birds were stirring by then. I called for Mina and heard no answer.

Maybe she left early, I thought, not believing myself.

I found her in her bedroom, perched at the edge of the bed, her eyes glassy and glazed over, her joints locked and muscles tight. She didn’t see me even when I stood right in front of her—not until I shook her, hard, and she blinked and finally looked up at me.

“Oh. You’re home!”

She hid her fear beneath her smile and a dismissive wave, and even though a knot formed in my throat that made it hard to speak, I didn’t question her.

But I still saw her trembling. Still saw the way she paused in the mirror when she rose, shakily, from the bed, looking at herself the way I had the first day I was old enough to feel death following me.

So much of her skin covered the floor that it took me half an hour to sweep it all away.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Three weeks of relentless work passed.

I threw everything that I had into it. I stopped sleeping, save for brief naps taken out of sheer exhaustion, and only when my body threatened to betray me. I stopped eating, save for hurried bites of whatever was easiest to shove into my mouth over my books. I stopped leaving the study, save to go cultivate my roses, making sure they remained perfect enough to pass Vale’s exacting standards.

“Why are you working so hard?” Mina would ask me sadly, with lips tinted black from the answer to her own question.

I couldn’t waste time. Time was precious.

My own condition deteriorated, too, old symptoms that I’d grown used to now creeping up on me with renewed verve. But those were nothing compared to those that nibbled away at my sister’s life, bit by bit.

When I closed my eyes, I saw Vale’s blood. I stared at it twelve, fifteen, eighteen hours a day, always in small bursts to avoid rejection from the magic of my instruments. It happened anyway, eventually, the glass cracking with bursts of acrid smoke. I had to run into the city to buy another lens for far too much money that I did not have. Not that I cared—who could care about money in times like this?

I began distilling Vale’s blood into potions. My early attempts were clumsy, one even erupting into eerie white flames. But after countless trials, my concoctions were no longer smoking or giving off rancid, rotting smells. Eventually, they started to resemble something like actual medicine.

One day, I produced something that responded well to all my tests. It didn’t combust, or smoke, or burn. It didn’t harm plants or skin. It had all the markers of a potential candidate—and it didn’t even resemble blood anymore.

Finally, after much internal debate, I gave it to one of my ailing test rats.

Animals didn’t respond to the plague the same way humans did, which made it difficult to test medicine on them. This rat was ill—it had days left, if not less—but it wouldn’t wither to dust the same way humans affected by the plague did.

Still… information was information.

I watched that poor rat day and night. Hours passed, then two days. I half expected the creature to die a slow, miserable death.

It didn’t happen.

In fact, the rat didn’t die at all. Not even when the illness should have stolen its final breaths.

No, it was still lethargic and slow, still obviously unwell, but it did not die.

It was such a tiny, tiny victory—not even a true positive outcome, but the absence of a negative one. Still, that was enough to have me grinning giddily all day. I felt, deep in my bones, that I was getting closer.

I gave up on even trying to sleep that night. It was midnight and very stormy, violent drafts through my office window blowing my candles out every few minutes. But I had work to do.

After only an hour, though, I reached into my pack to find that, in my exhaustion, I’d miscounted—I was out of blood.

I cursed.

I stared at the empty vials over my desk. Then at my dozens of failed experiments and the single—almost—successful one.

I looked to the window, and the ferocious night beyond the glass.

It wasn’t even a decision, really.

I rose, gathered my things, and walked down the hall. I peered into Mina’s room on my way out. Her sleep was restless, and she left dusty marks on the bedspread.

The sight was far more frightening than that of the storm outside.

Vale wasn’t expecting me yet. It hadn’t yet been a month. Maybe he’d turn me away. But I couldn’t afford to wait.

I tucked a rose into my pack and went out into the night.

It was dangerous to travel in this weather. Rationally, I knew this, but it didn’t feel like much of a danger until I was actually stumbling through the soaked, pitch-black forest paths. I spent so much time thinking about death at the hands of my illness that it had become easy to forget that there were countless other ways it could take me, and a night like this was full of them.

It took me twice as long that night to make it half as far. I had to focus absolutely on the road in front of me, trying not to slip on soaked rocks or sink too deep in the muddy dirt. The rain let up a little bit, eventually, but I was so exhausted by then that I wasn’t alert.

I didn’t see the men surrounding me until it was too late.

One minute, I was dragging myself along the road, and the next, pain burst through my back as a force slammed me against a tree.

Crack! The back of my head smacked wood.

Everything went dull and fuzzy for a moment—even though I refused to acknowledge it, I had already been on the precipice of losing consciousness from sheer exhaustion. That one hit was nearly enough to push me over the edge of it.

I clawed back to awareness, blinking through the haze at the men around me. A young man held me to the tree, hands to my shoulders. Behind him, several others circled like prowling wolves.

One look at them and I knew they were starving. So many people were, these days.

The boy holding me was tall and broad, but he was barely more than a child. It was hard to read his age because of the gaunt angles of his face. Sixteen, eighteen at most.

His expression changed a little when I met his eyes, quickly averting them. Behind him, one of the men approached. Older, bearded. A hard, angry face.

Five of them. One of me. I’d never thrown a punch or wielded a weapon in my life.

I didn’t need to be a renowned mathematician to solve that equation. I didn’t try to fight back.

“I don’t have anything of value,” I said.

“Bullshit,” the older man scoffed. Then, to the others, “Take her bag.”

My heart dropped.

I’d been in such a rush to leave that I hadn’t been picky about what I took with me. I had just thrown everything into my pack. My instruments. Useless to these men—they wouldn’t even know where to sell them—but everything to me.

“There’s nothing you can eat or sell in there,” I said.

But they snatched the bag away anyway, rummaging through it. I cringed at the sound of carelessly clinking glass, punctuated by a few cracking shatters.

My heartbeat throbbed in my ears.

“Please,” I said. “Please. It’s worthless to you. I’ll give you—”

Gods, what could I offer them? I had nothing of value to give them in exchange. I had no money on me. Little at home, either. I didn’t even think to pack food, not that I thought these men would be satisfied with a single woman’s scraps of bread.

The boy, the one who held the knife to my throat, winced again. Guilt? Was that guilt? I so wished I was better at reading people.

“Keep that knife to her fucking throat, Filip,” the man snapped, then smiled at me—a horrible expression, like a snarling wolf. “What? What will you give us instead?”

“I—”

My mind wouldn’t work. The gears were sticky and slow with exhaustion. He reached for the bag again, and I said, “No. Please. I’ll give you double what it’s worth once I’m home.”

“Once you’re home?” the man scoffed. “Oh, I trust you.”

The other men laughed. Filip looked pained. My gaze flicked to his, though he avoided looking at me.

Mina would try to connect with him. She’d know what to say to make him let me go.

“Filip?”

His eyes reluctantly lifted to mine.

I should have had some moving plea, some emotional words for him. But emotions and sentimentality had never been my strong suit. Instead, I told him the truth.

“I’m not lying to you,” I said. “I will double what that bag is worth. I promise you.”

And I did, I really did, mean it.

But the older man’s smile curdled to a sneer. “Do you think we’re stupid, girl?”

I bit back a surge of frustration.

Why were humans so illogical? I was offering them a good deal. A good trade. More money. And yet, I couldn’t make them believe me.

“We’ll take your dress instead,” the man said.

Filip’s grip on the knife loosened again. His head whipped to the man, like he was going to say something and then stopped himself.

I was confused. I looked down at myself. My dress might have been worth something a decade ago. Now it was old and stained, the hem tattered from my journey.

“The dress is worth nothing,” I said, annoyed. “I’m offering you a better deal.”

“I’ll take something I can have now over your empty promises.”

“But it’s—”

The man snatched the knife away from Filip, thrusting it against my throat. A shock of pain that seemed distant slithered over my skin. Something warm and wet ran down my throat. “I don’t need your fucking arguments,” the man hissed. “Take it off or I cut it off you.”

I was grateful for my irritation, because it dimmed my fear.

“I can’t take it off if you don’t give me room,” I said, attempting to move my hands to my buttons to demonstrate—he was in the way.

The man stepped back reluctantly, pulling Filip along with him.

I looked at the newly opened space between us, a pang of desperate longing in my chest. There it was. Four feet of space between me and my assailants, and endless possibility I couldn’t seize.

I had always been quite comfortable with who I was. I was never the athlete, the warrior, the runner, the magic wielder. I had plenty of other skills. But now, I longed to be someone else. Someone who could take advantage of this moment, cut these men down, and free myself.

Instead, I was helpless, just as I had been helpless against the illness that took bite after bite of everything I loved.

I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t run.

So I started unbuttoning my dress.

I made it three buttons down when I heard a strange sound behind me, like a great unnatural rustling of air. A shadow fell over the streak of moonlight that illuminated Filip’s face.

His eyes went wide.

I started to turn around, but before I could, a blur of movement swept from behind me. Something warm spattered over my face.

Before me, a sword impaled Filip’s chest. I took in the image of him standing there—eyes wide, like he hadn’t yet realized what had happened to him—for only a split second, before chaos erupted.

I stumbled backwards. I couldn’t see anything—in the darkness, I just saw limbs and movement and chaos. I tried to seize the chance to get away, but the bearded man grabbed me.

“Back off!” he called out, into the night. “I’ll kill her!”

His voice shook.

The figure, who until now had been a smear of shadow, turned.

Vale.

At first, I thought I was hallucinating—from exhaustion, or the blow to my head, or both.

But no. Unmistakable. It was him.

And gods, he was a monster. I now understood why people whispered of him the way they did. This was what I had been expecting to see that first time I met him—a shepherd of death itself. He looked like he had come very quickly, his clothing thrown on hurriedly, his hair messy and unbound and now whipping about his face.

And his wings… they were incredible.

They were fair, which I hadn’t been expecting—silvery-white, ghostlike in the night. Even in this moment, I wished I could examine them, appreciate them for the marvel of engineering that they were.

Vale took in my captor, face cold.

My eyes fell to Filip’s body, bleeding out on the ground. His hand twitched, reaching up—reaching for his friend.

I felt ill.

Vale lunged.

Pain erupted through my shoulder. I hit the ground so hard I heard something crunch.

I couldn’t move. I tried to push myself up and couldn’t.

A heavy weight fell to the ground beside me. My attacker’s bloody, vacant face stared into mine. Behind him, I could make out only blurry shapes—the white of Vale’s wings, the red of blood, and the shadowy silhouettes of body after body hitting the ground.

Wait, I tried to say. Stop.

But I couldn’t speak.

I couldn’t move.

The screams of pain faded into a distant din.

I fought hard for my consciousness, fought just as hard as I had been fighting for answers my entire life, but it slipped away from me anyway.

The last thing I felt were strong arms around me, and the strange, weightless sensation of being lifted up… and gods, I must have been hallucinating after all, because I could have sworn I even turned my head once to see the trees so far below me they looked like stalks of broccoli.

What a strange dream, I thought to myself, as it all faded away.