Текст книги "Heartless hunter"
Автор книги: Kristen Ciccarelli
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
He saw it every night in his nightmares. Found it carved into his chest every time he looked in the mirror.
A thorny rose enclosed by a crescent moon.
The sight of it made him nauseous.
“A witch was hidden among the guests tonight.”
The brand on his chest flared suddenly. Gideon rubbed at it, but the pain faded quickly, leaving him to wonder if it was just in his head.
Laila joined him beneath the table, sitting cross-legged on the other side of the signature. With her head bowed beneath the wood overhead, her gaze flicked between him and the floating mark. “Who does it belong to?”
The past rose up to bite Gideon, trying to drag him backward in its teeth.
He wished he could deny what was right in front of his eyes. That there was some other explanation. But he knew this signature like he knew his own name.
“It belongs to a witch who should be dead.”
His eyes met Laila’s.
“Cressida Roseblood.”
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FORTY RUNE
“QUITE THE PERFORMANCE,” SAID Verity as Rune’s carriage left the palace, bumping along the cobblestone streets. “With acting skills like those, you could audition for the Royal Theater.”
Beside her, Rune sighed. Verity was upset. She’d been worried sick about Rune, who she’d watched get engulfed by spellfire, and when she finally found her alive, Rune was flirting with an equally dangerous force: Gideon Sharpe.
“Truly. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe you were smitten with a Blood Guard captain who hunts down your own kind.”
Rune looked away, unable to escape the guilt flooding in. “I’m not smitten,” she said, watching the city center roll by through the window. “And I’m perfectly aware that he hates my kind. That’s why I’m letting him court me, remember? To steal his intel.”
“And how much intel have you stolen, exactly?”
Rune opened her mouth to answer, except the only information Gideon had given her was bad information.
Is she right?
Was courting Gideon nothing more than a dangerous waste of her time?
“I need to wear down his defenses more,” she said. “Once he trusts me completely, he’ll be at my disposal.”
Verity turned to the window. “Whatever you say.”
Knowing that Verity wasn’t really angry at Rune, but at the people trying to hurt her, she changed the subject. “Is Seraphine all right?”
Verity nodded, visibly relaxing. “They removed her back to her cell.”
With the tension defused, they sat in silence until the carriage pulled up to Thornwood Hall.
Alex’s home was nestled inside a forest. The old trees towered over them as they exited the carriage and started toward the stone house.
More of a small castle, thought Rune, staring up at it. A turret graced each of its four corners, and candles burned in most of the windows, giving Rune the impression of eyes. Like Cressida’s former home was watching her approach.
She hurried to catch up with Verity, following her inside.
Now that Verity had obtained information regarding the prison, they needed a cogent plan for breaking Seraphine out of that prison—as soon as possible.
Upon entering Alex’s home, she was greeted by piano music floating through the halls. It soothed her a little. While Verity stalked toward the kitchens in search of refreshments for their meeting, Rune followed the song to the other end of the house, drawn to it like a distressed ship to a beacon.
With the smell of smoke lingering in her hair, Rune drew her shawl tighter around herself. She’d spent two years being hunted by the Blood Guard. She was used to people wanting her dead. But it had never occurred to her that a witch might want her dead, too. The realization rattled her.
The conservatory door hung open. Sighting the pianist, Rune paused to watch him play.
Alex’s lean shoulders hunched as his hands moved like spiders over the keys. The sight of him was like coming home. Like wrapping herself in a warm blanket on a chilly day.
Alex was constant and safe. Gentle and kind.
Rune leaned against the lintel and let herself wonder, just for a moment, what it would be like to accept his offer. To leave everything behind and go to Caelis, where she could live a life without fear and finally be herself.
No. She had a purpose here in the New Republic. A duty.
Witches were still being hauled to prison and purged. Rune couldn’t abandon them. They were innocent people, and she owed it to her grandmother. Saving girls from being murdered by the Republic was the only way to make Nan’s death mean something.
It was the choice she’d made.
And no matter how she might dream of a different life, this was the one she belonged in.
Alex’s right hand stumbled, hitting the wrong key, and the song halted.
“Rune.” He brushed his golden hair out of his eyes to look at her. “You startled me.”
“Sorry.” She stepped out of the door frame and into the room, moving toward him. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
He rose from the bench, his gaze sweeping over her. “What happened?”
Rune looked down at herself. Ashy soot streaked the beautiful gown Gideon had made her. It probably streaked her face, too. “I … it’s a long story. I’ll tell it once Verity gets back from the kitchen.”
Alex made room for her on the bench, looking worried. Rune sat down, letting her shawl fall to the floor behind them.
She nodded toward the keys. “Don’t stop on my account.”
With his eyes still on her, Alex placed his fingers on the piano and resumed the song.
And like that, he was gone again. Soaring away from her.
“You play better than your brother, that’s for sure,” she said when he finished, remembering Gideon plunking piano keys in her library.
“Oh? Has he been serenading you?” The playfulness of the question couldn’t hide the edge in his voice. Before she could answer, he closed the fallboard, and the keys disappeared. “I have something to show you.”
He rose from the bench and walked to the far wall, where his writing desk stood between two windows. He picked up a large sheet of paper, then brought it back and handed it to her.
“It’s the deed to the house in Caelis.”
Rune stared at the deed. A strange numbness flooded her. “You bought it?” The realization gave her a stomachache. “So soon?”
“I’m putting Thornwood Hall up for sale tomorrow. Please don’t look so unhappy.”
“Of course I’m happy for you.” Rune handed it back to him. “This is what you want.”
It just wasn’t what she wanted.
Alex was her safe place. She could be herself with him. Alex, along with Verity, had filled the gaping hole in her life after Nan died. He and Verity were always there—after every dangerous night of saving witches, after every ridiculous after-party where Rune’s head ached from gossiping and flirting and pretending to be someone she wasn’t, in the quiet moments and the loud ones.
And unlike Verity, who was a fire constantly spurring her on, Alex was a cool spring, giving her a place to rest and recover, reminding her that she was a girl with needs and weaknesses, not some invincible savior.
What will I do without you?
Maybe that was the problem. Rune needed Alex more than he needed her. He’d given her so much, and she’d given so little in return.
She was doing it now. Being selfish. The selfless thing to do was let him go.
Rune swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth and tried to be a better friend.
“I want you to finish your studies.” She smiled, hoping it didn’t look forced. “And then I want you to become a world-famous composer whose name I can flaunt at parties, telling everyone I knew you when you didn’t know the difference between adagio and allegro.”
He studied her for a long time, deliberating something.
“Will you come back to visit me?” she asked.
“If … you want me to.”
It wasn’t the answer Rune needed. She wanted him to want to come back. To need her the way she needed him.
Sinking back down to the piano bench, his eyes locked with hers. Alex had the most beautiful eyes. Bright gold with flecks of brown.
“But it’s easier for you to make a clean break,” she said, putting voice to the thing he wouldn’t. “To put this island behind you.” More quietly, she said, “To put me behind you.”
“No.” His voice was soft but firm. His hands lifted to gently cup her face. “Rune, never. I want …”
Before he could finish, Verity flew into the room with a tray of tea and cookies. “Is anyone else starving?”
Alex’s hands dropped and he turned sharply away from Rune. As she watched him slide off the bench and stand before the fireplace, quietly stoking the flames, she remembered Gideon’s words from the garden.
When I saw Alex at your side, I knew exactly who you were … a girl who was entirely off-limits, because my little brother found her first.
Rune had thought he was talking about ruining her and Alex’s friendship. Now she wondered if he’d meant something else.
“So? How did the dinner go?” Alex asked as Verity set down the tray and poured out three cups of tea.
Verity relayed everything she’d told to Rune already—about witches being kept beyond the seventh gate, and the access coin they needed to move through the prison—before telling him about the spellfire Seraphine used to nearly kill Rune.
Alex spat his tea back into his cup. “Seraphine did what?”
Rune, still on the piano bench, crossed the room and lowered herself into the love seat. “We don’t know for sure that it was her. It shouldn’t have been possible, with her hands in restraints.”
“Who else would it be?”
Silence answered him.
With the fire roaring in the hearth, Alex set down the poker and joined Rune on the love seat.
“If they’d intended to purge her tonight,” said Verity, “Seraphine’s days are numbered. We have to break her out of that prison as soon as possible.”
“If Seraphine is being kept in the prison’s seventh circle,” said Rune. “In order to get her out, I’ll need a Blood Guard uniform and an access coin for Fortitude Gate.”
The question was: How would they obtain them?
Verity withdrew her pad of paper and pen from her gold clutch.
“If I used my Ghost Walker spell to sneak into Blood Guard headquarters, I could steal a uniform and someone’s access coin there. The problem is, I only have one blood vial left. I’d like to save it, if I can. In case something goes wrong inside the prison.”
Verity tapped her pen against her chin, thinking. “I might be able to get you a uniform. There’s a girl in my dormitory who’s an intern at the Ministry of Public Safety. She wouldn’t have an access coin, but they gave her a uniform as part of her training.”
Verity looked Rune up and down. “You’re about the same size. All I’d have to do is get into her room, which is easy enough. And the access coin—”
Alex cut in. “I can get the coin.”
Rune and Verity glanced at him. “How?”
“You said every Blood Guard of high rank carries one.” Alex spun the slender silver ring on the smallest finger of his left hand. “My brother is a Blood Guard captain, and he has only one weakness that I know of. If you give me a few days, I’ll get you his coin.”
For as long as she’d known Alex, he’d refused to choose a side. Or rather, refused to choose Rune’s side over Gideon’s.
What had changed his mind?
“Unless you think they’ll purge Seraphine before then.”
“I have a feeling they’ll wait until Liberty Day,” said Verity, eyes shadowed in the firelight.
Liberty Day marked two years since the New Dawn—the night revolutionaries overthrew the queens. There was always a citywide festival, with celebrations from dusk till dawn.
“I agree,” said Rune. “It’s a public event, and the Good Commander always wants as many eyes as he can get on a purging when it’s a legendary witch he’s slaughtering. With Liberty Day less than a week away, he won’t have to wait much longer.”
They were deprived of their entertainment tonight, and Liberty Day was the next best opportunity to make a spectacle of Seraphine.
Which meant they needed to be ready to set this plan in motion before then.
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FORTY-ONE RUNE
A CRASH OF THUNDER shook the house, cutting their meeting short.
“Perhaps it would be best if you both stayed the night,” said Alex as the rain came down harder, roaring against the roof.
Verity shook her head. “I have an exam first thing in the morning.” She rose to her feet. “I need to go.”
“Then take my carriage,” said Rune, noticing how her friend drooped with exhaustion. “It’ll keep you dry, at least.”
Lightning flashed, and the windows in the conservatory all lit up at once. Rune went to look out. Already, water was pooling on the ground. She hoped the roads weren’t too muddy. The last thing she wanted was her friend stuck on the street in the middle of a storm.
After giving instructions to her driver, Rune watched from the front doors of Thornwood Hall as the carriage drove off with Verity inside.
Alex stepped up beside her. “I’ll have the servants make up a room for you.”
RUNE HAD STAYED OVERNIGHT at Thornwood dozens of times. But that was before Gideon told her the terrible things that had happened in this house. She suspected there were things he hadn’t told her, sparing her the worst of it. Thinking about them made her skin crawl.
As Rune lay in the guest bed, staring at the ceiling she’d slept beneath so many times before, she couldn’t help wondering: Which room did Cressida lock their dying sister inside? Which bed did she coerce Gideon into, night after night?
Was it this one?
Rune sat up, her entire body prickling. This was a mistake. She should have gone with Verity. There was no way she’d be able to sleep in this house when all she could think about was Gideon and his sister here, at the mercy of a cruel witch.
Throwing back the covers, she trod barefoot to the windows and pulled back the curtain. The thunder had only grown louder in the hour since Verity left, and the rain hadn’t stopped. If the roads were muddy before, they were swampy now. It would be foolish to ride home to Wintersea.
But neither was she going to get any sleep in this house.
The chill of the floor crept up her legs as she walked into the darkened hallway. The servants had turned down the lamps and gone to bed, making the house feel abandoned. She counted doors until she came to Alex’s room, then went inside.
When the floorboards creaked beneath her weight, Rune heard him stir in the bed.
“Rune?” Alex sat up. His hair was mussed as he squinted through the dark.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, padding to the bedside. “Do you mind if …?”
Alex shifted, making room for her. Rune crawled into the warm spot where his body had been and burrowed into it. The pillow smelled like him. A warm, masculine smell.
They lay side by side for several moments, silent and still.
“Do you know what happened in this house?” she finally whispered. “To your brother, I mean.”
Alex turned toward her in the darkness.
“He never speaks to me about it, but I have my guesses.”
He stretched, pulling both hands behind his head. “It was after the funerals for Tessa and our parents that I noticed something was wrong. Gideon looked … like someone had turned out the light inside him. At first, I thought it was grief. We’d lost our mother, father, and baby sister in the span of a few days. Of course he wasn’t himself.
“But it wasn’t just grief. When I came home for the funerals, it was like Gideon couldn’t bear to look at me. He threw himself into his tailoring work for Cressida, avoiding me even though I was only home for a short while and didn’t know when I’d see him next.
“When I first moved to the Continent for school, Gideon and I wrote each other every week. After the funerals, when I returned to school, I kept writing him letters, but they now went unanswered. I asked some of our old friends to check on him, but no one had seen or talked to Gideon in months. There was something he wasn’t telling me, and I couldn’t understand why. We’d always told each other everything.
“I didn’t realize what he was doing was saving me. I didn’t know it was him who needed saving.”
Alex swallowed, rubbing a hand over his forehead. Rune kept silent, waiting for him to go on.
“Just before the start of spring term, I received a letter from a friend who’d seen my brother at a boxing match the night before. Stoned out of his mind were the words he’d written. Gonna get himself killed. That didn’t sound like my brother. So the same day, I asked for a leave of absence and boarded a ship home.
“I went to the boxing arena, looking for him. I checked every seat in the building, and when I couldn’t find him, I asked the bartender if he’d seen someone by the name of Gideon Sharpe. The man nodded to the boxing ring. The witch’s whore? He’s right there. It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. That the young man getting beaten in the ring was Gideon. His face was so bruised and bloody, I didn’t recognize him.
“The whore comes here every night, the man told me. After she’s done with him. I could see the disgust in his eyes. In all of their eyes. When Gideon got hit for the last time, when he went down and didn’t get up, I watched them throw his body into the alleyway with the rest of the trash. As if this were routine. Like he came there every night, drunk or high, and let them beat him half to death. Like he thought he deserved it.”
The words pressed down on Rune’s chest, heavy as a boulder. She closed her eyes against them.
Sensing it, Alex reached for her beneath the covers. His fingers found hers, knotting them tightly together.
“I didn’t know what to do. My older brother was a stranger as he lay unconscious in that alley. Nicolas Creed helped me shake him awake, and we managed to carry him to our parents’ old apartment. When Gideon sobered, he was not happy to see me.
“He asked why I wasn’t in school. I told him I wasn’t going back to school until he was better. Well, he didn’t want to hear that. He said I had to go back. That I belonged in Caelis, not here. Not anywhere near him. It might have hurt, if he didn’t look so terrified. I remember thinking, He’s driving me away to protect me from something.”
“From Cressida,” said Rune.
He nodded.
Letting go of her fingers, Alex looped his arm snugly around Rune’s waist. He pulled her against him so that her back was to his chest, hugging her the way a child might hug a blanket for comfort.
“I started going to the boxing ring at night, waiting for Gideon to show up. He ignored me. He hated that I was bearing witness to his misery and self-hatred. But if there was anything left in him to save, I had to try.
“Every night, Nicolas and I picked him up out of the alley and brought him home. When Gideon sobered, he and I would argue, and then he would storm out. Always going back to her. I think he was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t.”
Alex’s arms tightened around Rune.
“One night, Nicolas told me there was only one way to save my brother. He took me to a meeting in his friend’s basement. People packed the room, and as Nicolas got up to speak in front of them, I quickly realized what the meeting was: treason. There had been riots for years, but this was different. These men and women were plotting revolution. A world where no witches ruled. A society without magic. Only then would we have a world where the poorest didn’t have to go without food, or work for little pay in atrocious conditions, or sell themselves into servitude to save their families from starvation—or so they believed. The people there had heartbreaking stories, and reason to be angry. But their hatred, their lust for revenge … it scared me.
“When Gideon found out I’d attended the meeting, he was furious. Those caught plotting against the Sister Queens disappeared and never resurfaced, he told me. No one knew what happened to them. I told Gideon if he wanted to keep me safe, he’d have to come to the meetings with me. So, begrudgingly, he did.
“After a few weeks, he started drinking and fighting less. A few weeks after that, he volunteered to lead an armed resistance into the palace alongside Nicolas. I wanted to go with him, but he refused. He saw me as the little brother who needed to be spared from hard things. Not his equal. Not someone he could trust to shoulder his burdens or watch his back.
“We had a huge fight about it and parted on bad terms. As Gideon and Nicolas led the others into the palace, I went to Thornwood Hall with a loaded pistol. I knew Cressida rarely left her private residence. And this was one thing I could do for my brother. A way I could protect him, for once.”
Alex fell into silence. As if this was as much of the story as he could tell. His arms were still around Rune, her body tucked against his. She could feel his heart drumming against her shoulder blade.
After several minutes, she said: “Don’t you find it hard to sleep in this house, knowing what happened here?”
“Why do you think I’m selling it?” he said. “Gideon inherited Thornwood Hall after the fall of the Reign of Witches. He wanted nothing to do with this house, so he gave it to me. He never sets foot here, if he can help it. Not even to visit me.” Alex sighed, and his breath rustled her hair. “I’ve spent two years living here, trying to bring my brother back. But the Gideon I knew and loved … he’s gone, Rune. He’s not coming back.”
Seconds later, she felt him trembling behind her. Felt the hot splatter of a tear against her neck. Rune turned toward Alex, but it was too dark to see him.
It broke something in her, feeling him weep. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him close.
At her touch, Alex shook harder.
Rune held on, letting him cry himself to sleep in her arms. When the thunder quieted and the rain stopped, the moon came out from behind the clouds, spilling silvery light across the bed. Rune watched her sleeping friend, tempted to stay—for his sake.
But she couldn’t. Not in this house.
When she was sure Alex slept deeply and there was no danger of waking him, she carefully untangled herself from his arms. With the storm over, she quickly dressed, borrowed a cloak and a horse, and rode back to Wintersea before the sun rose.
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