Текст книги "Cruel Beauty"
Автор книги: Rosamund Hodge
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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15
I spent most of the day in my room, trying to nap. I planned to be up exploring the whole night, and I wanted to be as alert as possible, so I could avoid any more disasters.
But sleep did not come easily. One thought snaked around and around my head: I kissed him. Not against my will, not for the sake of my mission, but simply because I desired it, I had kissed the monster who governed our world.
He took wives on the orders of his masters. They wanted him to know that he could never be free. They had burnt the holes in the sky, and they let the demons—Children of Typhon—ravage people against his will.
If he was telling the truth. I wanted to believe him, but every story I’d ever heard agreed he was a deceiver. And even if Ignifex was less evil than I’d thought—even if he was, in some mad fashion, as innocent as Shade—that still did not excuse me.
Last night I had kissed Shade. Last night he had as good as said that he loved me, and I had thought I loved him in return. When I thought of him—his rare smiles, his gentle kindness, the peace in his touch—I still wanted him.
I rolled over and buried my face in the pillow. The sunlight’s warmth had faded from my hair, but I could still remember it burning across my back. I could almost feel the heat of Ignifex’s body beneath mine. I wanted him too.
What kind of woman was I?
Eventually I fell asleep. I woke, heavy-eyed, with hair smashed into my face, and went to dinner on my own so that Shade wouldn’t summon me. I didn’t think I could bear to see him yet. Ignifex did not arrive at the dinner table, which was odd, but I ate in silence and decided that the more he ignored me, the better. Then I went back to my room to wait for nightfall.
“Aren’t you going to wear a nightgown?”
I whirled and saw Ignifex leaning against the doorframe. Once again, he wore the dark silk pajamas.
“I was hoping for lace,” he went on, “but surely you could manage something sheer at least. I put plenty in your wardrobe.”
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, gripping one of the caryatid bedposts. It didn’t matter how much I had reproached myself earlier that day; I wanted to close the distance between us.
“Spending the night.” He strode inside. “Look on the bright side, you might manage to strangle me in my sleep.”
Behind him Shade flowed in—still a simple shadow—dragging a bundle of candles, and I stiffened. Did he know about the kiss? Had Ignifex boasted to him?
“Why?” I managed to ask.
“Because you have a nice lap.” He rested a hand on the face of a caryatid and leaned toward me. “And because I had a strange little feeling that you were planning to get into trouble tonight.”
“I’m always planning trouble,” I said. I could feel every contour of the space between us, and I wondered if this weakness was visible, if it glimmered off my body like an oily film on water.
“It’s this or I lock you up,” he said cheerfully. “There are twenty minutes left until dark; you know I can do it.”
Shade was already lighting candles around the edges of the room. I could see his quick movements from the corner of my eye, but I didn’t dare look at him because I also couldn’t let Ignifex know how much I cared for his captive.
I had to remember that both Shade and I were captives. I lifted my chin and met Ignifex’s gaze.
“Don’t you think I might leave you again?”
His teeth flashed in a smile. “I don’t know, will you?”
The last candle flickered to life. Shade slid out the doorway, and a bit of the tension left me. At least now he couldn’t watch.
“Only if I think it will kill you,” I said.
And that was how I ended up with the Gentle Lord in my bed, his head resting in my lap. He looked even younger when he slept—and since his eyes were closed, he looked human. I stroked his hair lightly; it was soft and silky as the fur of our old cat Penelope, and I wondered if he ever purred.
They called him—among other things—the silver-tongued deceiver, because he could trick men into believing any falsehood without ever saying a lie. I could not trust his words, much less his kisses. But he had saved me from the shadows, he had clung to me for comfort in the night, and he had brought me to the field of flowers . . . perhaps not entirely for the sake of getting the key back.
That’s what makes you my favorite, he had said. I knew it was pathetic—more than that, obscene—but those simple words, which might easily be a lie, made me want to care for him.
But what I wanted didn’t matter, and neither did what he might or might not feel for me. I had thought about this during my solitary dinner. It didn’t even matter whether he willingly made bargains or not, nor whether the demons attacked people at his command or against his will. What mattered was saving Arcadia, and making sure that no one else would die like my mother or Damocles, that the Children of Typhon would not ravage anyone else like Elspeth’s brother. And I was sure that Ignifex had not lied when he said that he had masters, who set laws for his existence and ordered him to take wives. He could not possibly hold Arcadia against their will.
If I wanted to undo the Sundering, I would have to defeat not just Ignifex but his masters as well.
No doubt Ignifex could not directly defy them, any more than Shade could speak his secrets. But Shade had helped me still, and surely Ignifex would be even more willing to bend rules.
I realized I had been stroking his hair for some time now. I stopped, but I couldn’t resist sliding my fingertips down his cheek. Without waking, he leaned into the touch.
Against all reason, he seemed to trust me. I had an idea now, for how I could use that trust against him. If I was any daughter to the Resurgandi, any sister to Astraia, I surely would.
“Shade,” I whispered. “Shade!”
I called for several minutes before he appeared, condensing into being right beside me. I had prepared myself for this moment, but when he looked at us, I still went hot and cold at once with shame. His face was blank, but when his gaze flickered to Ignifex, I thought I saw pain in the set of his mouth.
“Why are you kind to him?” he asked, and I flinched. He didn’t know the half of it.
It didn’t matter if Shade hated me. I had told myself this over and over, but I still had to choke down explanations and excuses.
“It’s useful,” I said stiffly. “I’m still going to defeat him, you know.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized they sounded both defensive and condescending—but it didn’t matter. I plunged on, “I know you can’t tell me much, but listen and nod yes or no if you can. When the darkness was burning him, you tried to leave him, so clearly you don’t lack the will to hurt him. But you haven’t killed him yet, though in nine hundred years you must have learnt how.”
Shade watched me, his face a pale mask.
“You aren’t just bound to obey him, are you? You’re bound to do him no harm, and probably to protect him as well from any permanent damage, because if there were such an easy loophole you would have used it against him. Am I right?”
After a moment, Shade nodded, and now there was clear anger on his face.
“Good.” I could feel my heartbeat speeding up with each breath. “I want you to bring me the knife that he took away from me, or I swear by the river Styx that I will claw out first his eyes and then my own.”
He made an abortive half movement, then stared at me.
“I will not harm him with the knife,” I said. “But if you don’t bring it, I will fulfill my oath, and it will be your fault for making me.”
“. . . I don’t believe you,” he whispered.
I shrugged. “Or maybe I won’t. Then I’ll be forsworn, and you know how the gods treat oath breakers.”
He stared at me another moment, then vanished abruptly. I looked down at Ignifex. My heart ran as fast and cold as a snowmelt river. If I had misjudged Shade—or Ignifex—
But a few moments later, Shade returned with the knife clenched in his hand.
“Thank you,” I said, holding out a hand. “I have a plan. I promise.”
Shade stayed just out of reach, watching me with his bright blue eyes, set in his colorless reflection of Ignifex’s face—but again, as in the Heart of Water, he looked like the original, the one that mattered. The only one I should love. I wished the darkness could devour me so I would be hidden from his gaze.
“I think,” I said desperately, “it’s the only way to save us all.”
Shade nodded slowly, as if accepting an inevitable doom. “Everything you give him, he will use against you,” he said. “Do what you must. But don’t trust him.”
I swallowed. “I don’t.”
“Don’t pity him.”
My heart thumped painfully; I was acutely aware of his warm weight on my lap.
“I won’t,” I said, because I had always been able to hate everyone.
He held out the knife; as I took it, he leaned forward and kissed me, quickly but fiercely. “Don’t let him hurt you,” he said, and vanished.
The kiss burned on my lips. Even after I had saved his captor and made him help, Shade still worried about my safety. Still loved me. And I still loved him too, if I could dare to call this selfish feeling love.
But kissing him with Ignifex’s head resting in my lap, his eyes closed in trust—or madness, which seemed just as likely—made guilt crawl under my skin like worms.
My hand clenched on the knife. Only one thing mattered. I had to remember that at all costs.
When Ignifex’s eyes opened the next morning, I had the knife at his throat.
“Good morning, husband,” I said pleasantly, though my whole body hummed with the cold, droning song of fear. “Would you like to learn your name?”
I felt his body tense, but his face remained impressively calm.
“Yes,” I added. “It’s the virgin knife and you’ve neglected to do anything about my virgin hands, so I could kill you right now.”
But my virgin hands were shaking. I didn’t know I could kill him; I had only guessed, because of how quickly he always took the knife away from me. In a moment I might know that I was right, that against all odds, the lie my family had told to Astraia was absolute truth.
Or in a moment he might laugh, take the knife away, and explain how I was just as helpless and deluded as on my wedding day.
He didn’t smile. “I knew I was forgetting something.”
I let out my breath very slowly. Relief didn’t feel like anything: the pent-up fear and waiting were still right there, burning through my veins, trembling in my hands.
“Tell me the truth,” I said. At least my voice was steady. “You want to be free, don’t you?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Why do I suspect you’re about to offer me a bargain?”
“It’s a pretty good one. I’ll give you the knife, and we’ll look for your name together.”
“We’re still enemies,” he said.
“Of course we are. And I’ll keep trying to defeat you, and you’ll keep trying to stop me. But in the meantime, we’ll look for your name.”
I waited. I knew what he would say next: Let me do something about those virgin hands, and we’ll have a deal. It was only logical, for obviously I could get the knife whenever I liked, and as long as I remained a virgin, I could still use it to fulfill the Rhyme.
No matter how much I desired his kisses, the thought of letting him possess me entirely was still terrifying. But I’d come here prepared to offer up that much. I couldn’t back out now.
“Deal,” he said.
I blinked. He reached up and tapped my wrist.
“All right!” I jerked the knife away. He caught my wrist, took the knife, and threw it across the room.
“You’re worried about the knife but not my hands?” I demanded.
“Well, I’m the mighty demon lord and I have your knife. It seems only fair to leave you some advantages.”
“But—” I realized with a wave of embarrassment that despite my relief, I was also disappointed. My face heated.
He grinned as if he knew and kissed my palm.
I slapped him across the face. “Don’t waste my time,” I said stiffly, and got out of bed.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
16
“But you must remember something,” I said.
Ignifex leaned over my shoulder. “I remember fire and blood. I suppose that was the Sundering. Then my masters explained to me the terms of my existence. And then I was here in my lovely castle, and I think you know the rest.”
We were back in the library. Whatever mood had gripped it yesterday was gone; daylight shone through the windows across dry floors and nothing grew across the shelves but a faint layer of dust. The warm air smelled again of old paper.
This room was long and narrow; a round table sat at one end, with just barely enough room around it for walking. I sat at the table with books stacked all about me while Ignifex alternately paced and hovered. It had been my idea to start here: I thought there might be something to learn from what was censored in the books. So far, all we could discover was that we weren’t supposed to know much about the old line of kings.
And I had discovered that no matter how often I got annoyed with Ignifex, it did nothing to stop the humming awareness of how close he was, how I could touch him if I only reached—
“Who are your masters?” I asked, at the same time reaching back to snag a key from one of his belts, because outwitting him was a much better idea than kissing him.
Just in time, as he turned away to pace again. “If you knew them at all, it would be as the Kindly Ones.”
“The Kindly Ones?” I echoed, sliding the key up my sleeve.
“Of course you don’t know them.”
“Of course I do, because I spent my whole life studying anything related to the Hermetic arts, demons, and you.” It really was not fair that getting annoyed at him did nothing to stop my wanting him. “But there are only a few garbled references to them in some very old tales. Everyone thinks they’re a myth—maybe another name for the hedge-gods—”
“It’s been nine hundred years since they were seen in this land.” He turned back to me.
“Since we were sealed away.”
“Since they acquired a broker.” He dropped his hands to the table on either side of me and spoke into my ear. “Where do you think I get the power for my bargains?”
I looked up to answer him, but the movement nestled my head against his chest. The warmth of that contact dazed me for a moment, and in that space he slipped his fingers up my sleeve and pulled the key out.
“Better luck next time.” He kissed my cheek.
The condescension felt like needles under my skin. I wasn’t pretending at all when I slammed a fist sideways into his chest; I used the movement to pull another key off his belt.
“Tell me about the Kindly Ones,” I said immediately, and the distraction seemed to work, for he set off pacing again while I dropped this key down the front of my dress. “Who are they? Gods or demons?”
“Neither, I would guess. They’re the Folk of Air and Blood. The Lords of Tricks and Justice.”
I wiggled, and the key slid down to rest over my stomach. I was fairly sure he wouldn’t look that far down.
“They avenge the wronged, when it suits them. Strike bargains with the desperate, when it suits them. They love to mock. To leave answers at the edges, where anyone could see them but nobody does. To tell the truth when it is too late to save anyone. And they are always fair.”
“‘Fair’? I think demons must use that word differently than we do.”
“Let me tell you a story from before the Sundering.” He turned back to me, and I readied myself to try for another key. “Once upon a time, there was a man whose wife took ill but a month after their wedding, and in three days she was nearly dead. The man went into the woods and called upon the Kindly Ones, who offered him this bargain: his wife would live and for ten years he could enjoy her love, but after that time they would hunt him through the woods and feast their dogs upon him. Yet most kindly, they offered him this chance to escape: if at the end of ten years he could name just one of the Kindly Ones, they would allow him to live the rest of his days in peace.”
Frustratingly, Ignifex remained a few paces away, one hand rested against a bookshelf, completely absorbed in his story. Trying to look absorbed as well, I rose quietly and stepped to his side.
“The man agreed. His wife lived, but she was bedridden ever after and drove him half-mad with complaints. She bore him a daughter, but the child was simpleminded; she said nothing but a single nonsense word all day long, no matter how he beat her. So the man lived in misery for ten years. When his time was up, he tried to bargain for his life by offering up his daughter instead.”
I plucked a pair of keys from one of his belts, my hands as light as a feather, and I tried to ignore how smug he sounded. As if the man had done wrong for the sole purpose of proving Ignifex right.
“The Kindly Ones refused, but before they set their dogs upon him, they told him that the word his daughter said was the name that could have saved his life. Had he been kinder to her, he might have guessed it and lived. Tell me, was that not justice?” He smiled and caught my clenched hands in his.
“He was a terrible man,” I agreed, tugging at my hands. His grip was like iron. “But it seems to me that if you break a thing, you can’t complain that it’s in pieces.”
Ignifex shifted his grip to try prying my hands open. In an instant I had ripped my hands free and spun around, flinging the keys across the room as Ignifex grabbed my waist from behind.
“No honest people ever bargained with the Kindly Ones.” His breath tickled my neck. “Only the foolish. The proud. The ones who believed they deserved the world at no price.”
I hoped that he couldn’t feel the key still nestled in the stomach of my dress. “Is that what you think of those who make bargains with you?”
I remembered Damocles saying, I’ll do this for her if it costs my soul. Certainly he had been a fool, perhaps in a way he’d been proud, but he had been more than willing to pay.
“Of course.” Ignifex let go of me and chuckled as I stumbled forward and caught myself against the table. “It’s what I thought of your father when he came to me begging for children.”
I remembered Father saying, I determined to save Thisbe, no matter the cost, his voice stiff and dry as if he were describing a Hermetic experiment, not explaining how he had come to sell me.
“A lifetime devoted to felling the Gentle Lord, forgotten as soon as he saw his woman’s tears, even though he knew how it would end. So eager to sin for her, he couldn’t even bother thinking through his wish enough to realize that he’d asked for his wife to have healthy children, but not for her to have a body that could bear them and survive. He deserved what he got and she did too.”
My hands clenched on the table. I remembered kneeling in the family shrine, telling Mother just the same thing. Remembered feeling it for years, even if I never let the words form.
I whirled around and slapped him across the face.
“Never speak of my mother that way again,” I said.
My hand stung from the blow, and it felt like more of a trespass than when I had tried to stab him, but I couldn’t take it back. Not yet, with the fury still writhing in my stomach.
His grin got wider. “But I’m welcome to speak of your father?”
I clenched my teeth. I wanted to deny it, but I hated my father and some part of me enjoyed hearing Ignifex blame him for everything.
“You are a fit bride for me,” he went on. “More than I expected, and I always hoped your father would pick you.”
“You watched me?”
“Now and then.” He stepped forward. “I watched all your family. Your father, punishing you because he wasn’t brave enough to punish himself. Your aunt, hating you for proving your mother would always have the whole of his heart. Your sister, pretending that smiles would make the darkness go away. And you. Leonidas’s sweet and gentle daughter, with a world of poison in your heart. You fought and fought to keep all the cruelty locked up in your head, and for what? None of them ever loved you, because none of them ever knew you.”
“Yes.” I could barely choke the word out; my whole body was taut with rage. “You’re right. They never knew me. They never loved me. And I certainly never deserved their love.” I shoved him a step back. “Does that make you happy? Do you think, if you can condemn the whole world, that will make you guiltless?” I stepped toward him. “Because if you do, you’re an idiot. My father and my aunt wronged me, but I am still a selfish, hateful girl who loves her life more than Arcadia, so I deserve to be punished.” I had him backed up against a bookshelf now. “Or do you think that your masters excuse you? Because I don’t see how you’re any different from your bargainers. The Kindly Ones furnish your castle and lend you their power, and you think you’re a prisoner? Even if you can’t fight them, you could still reject them.”
Our faces were barely a hand’s span apart. My throat ached; I realized I had been shouting into the face of the Gentle Lord. In a moment he would mock me with that perfect smile until I had no more pride left, or he would finally grow angry enough to punish me, or—
He dropped his gaze.
He looked down and to the left, no smile on his face, his jaw tight. As if he didn’t have an answer. As if he cared what I had said.
“I’m sorry I slapped you,” I muttered.
“ . . . It’s all right.” He still wasn’t quite looking at me. “I suppose I shouldn’t have mentioned your mother.”
“And why do you keep acting like I won’t hurt you?” I whirled away from him, tears stinging at my eyes and little shivers running up and down my body. He was a fool for trusting me. I was a fool for caring if he got hurt. Why wasn’t my hatred simple anymore?
He caught me again by the waist; I tried to pull free and instead sent us toppling backward to land against the bookcase amid a small shower of books. I ended up in his lap, and in a moment his arms were locked around me.
“Well,” he said mildly, “as you may have noticed, I am not so easy to kill.”
I held myself rigid against the warmth of his arms. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
“Do you know why I love you?”
I opened my mouth but couldn’t speak.
Ignifex went on as calmly as if we were a normal husband and wife who discussed their love every day. “Everyone who ever bargains with me is convinced that he is righteous. Even the ones who come sad-eyed and guilty—they weep to the gods that they are sinners, but in their hearts they believe their need is so special that it justifies any sin, that they are heroes for losing all their righteousness and paying with their souls.”
“How could you know that?” I demanded.
“Because they always believe the price I tell them. They always think they can pay it, because they think they are only paying for the wish itself, and deep down they believe they deserve that wish by right. What they don’t understand is that they aren’t buying the wish, they’re buying the power to accomplish it. And that power—the power of the Kindly Ones—has an infinite price. So they all deserve what they get.” His arms tightened around me. “But you know what you are, and what you deserve. You lie to me but not to yourself. That’s why I love you.”
“I don’t believe you.” The words scratched and bit in my throat. “I don’t believe you, and even if I did, I would still kill you.”
“Don’t be so confident.” He leaned his face into my hair.
I wanted to hit him again. I wanted to cry. Most of all, I wanted to forget my mission and lose myself in the embrace of the one person who had ever seen my heart and claimed to love me after.
For a little while, I did lose myself. I rested in his arms and did not think. Then—as suddenly and distinctly as a clock chiming midnight—I knew that I had to move right then or lose myself forever after. I pulled free of his arms and stood.
“How did you make Shade into your shadow?” I asked. “Do you remember?”
The question broke the mood; in a moment Ignifex was back on his feet, all grace and half smiles and narrowed eyes.
“I didn’t make him. I’ve always had a shadow, like everyone else. And I hate him because he’s a fool and a coward and he tries to steal my wives.”
Those last words were so unexpected that I laughed. Then Ignifex raised an eyebrow and I realized that he was serious, at least as much as he ever was.
“What? Don’t tell me he hasn’t kissed you yet. You’re no Helen or Aphrodite, but you aren’t plain.”
I remembered last night and my face went hot. Sure he could see the truth on my face, I blurted the first thing that came into my mind.
“And you would know so much about women, locked up in your castle.”
“Locked up with eight wives. And sometimes I make house calls for my bargainers. There’s many a lovely woman desperate enough to bargain with me.”
This idea had never occurred to me before, but, “You touch another woman and I’ll cut your hands off,” I snapped.
He looked delighted. “I thought you were afraid of hurting me.”
There was nothing I could say without making it worse, so I glared at him until he laughed and said, “I’ve never struck that kind of bargain. Though it’s nice to know you’re jealous.”
I crossed my arms. The key hidden in the front of my dress dug into my skin, reminding me I was here for more than bickering.
“How is Shade a coward?” I asked.
“Now I’m jealous.”
“Don’t worry, you’re still the only one I want to kill. Why do you call him a fool and a coward if he’s never been anything but your obedient shadow?”
“He’s plenty disobedient. Do you think I tell him to go around kissing my wives?” He caught at my chin. “They say that if you want a thing done well—”
I slapped his hand away. “If he’s just your shadow, isn’t it ridiculous to compete with him? And how do you know he’s a coward?”
Ignifex’s eyes widened a fraction. “He’s a coward and a fool,” he repeated distantly, as if he had learnt the words by rote. Then his gaze snapped back to me. “Why shouldn’t I know my own shadow?”
“He got better than you at kissing somehow,” I said. “Don’t you ever wonder how?”
If Shade was really the prince—and I still thought he was—then perhaps he could stir up some of Ignifex’s memories.
Maybe I wanted him to be jealous, too.
Ignifex opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “You can meditate on that for a while. I need to go look for ways to defeat you.” I strode out the door, knowing that in a moment he would count the keys on his belts and remember the ones I had thrown across the room. If I was lucky, he wouldn’t notice that the third key wasn’t on the floor until I’d had time to explore.
