The Skylighter (The Keepers' Chronicles Book 2) (24 page)

“Rafi,” she murmured, tipping her head back to look into his face. “I . . . I . . .” The touch of palms sliding down her shoulders, reaching around her waist, made her ache to be closer. She wanted this moment, to believe his words, to accept the sweet gestures, to feel his lips on hers, but she couldn’t let it happen. It would hurt so much more when she went back to Performers’ Camp and he to Santiago. “I can’t.”

“Why?” It was a breath of a question.

“There is no place where we can be together.”

“So we’ll make one. I heard what Jacaré said in the forest, and he was
wrong
. I can come to you, and I’m sure that once in a while—”

“No.” She shook her head. “No. We want different things, Rafi. You want to change Santarem—and that is a beautiful, worthy goal—but I can’t help you.” The sizzle where their bodies touched turned cold. “How many people have died trying to protect me? How many more would die to put me on the throne?”

She slid out from between Rafi and the rock, steeling herself against the chill in the air and the ice in her heart. “Jacaré’s right in this one thing: It will be safer for everyone if I disappear after the barrier is fixed.”

“Johanna, please.” His voice quavered and something inside her splintered.

“Being with me puts your people in danger,” she said as she backed toward camp, leaving him standing in the ring of stones. “Don’t allow them to suffer for my sake.”

The first drop of rain fell from the storm clouds above, but Johanna didn’t notice. Her face was already wet with tears.

The bedroom door opened, but this time Dom didn’t move. He was too tired, too exhausted, too angry, confused, intrigued, disappointed, frustrated . . . there weren’t enough words to describe how he felt toward Maribelle and all her secrets.

“Go away,” he mumbled into his pillow. “I know you’re there. Go away.”

“Lord Dom,” Michael said, his voice hesitant. “Your mother sent me. She wants you to come to her room right away.”

Dom had been in bed for only an hour, but his mother and her minions certainly knew that. Still he didn’t move.

A small, warm hand fell on Dom’s shoulder. “She said it’s important that I make you come now.”

“Fine.” He pushed himself upright, but his attention snagged on the black streaks that marred his white sheets, just as his handprints had marked Maribelle’s arms.

Killing her might have been easier, cleaner, safer, but her explanation had almost made sense. She’d become an integral part of a movement to pull her father down. At first it had been simple things—organizing a disturbance among the mine workers, encouraging riots in the marketplaces. Leaking information about where her father would be, in hopes that one of his many enemies from inside the state would take the opportunity to kill him.

Inimigo had survived too many attacks with Vibora at his side—the woman was his bodyguard as much as his steward—but despite the civil discord, the duke had made no changes. The poor died in the street, while his favored underlords and merchants reaped the benefits and closed their eyes to the truth.

Then the leaders of the rebellion began disappearing. Some bodies turned up, disgustingly mutilated, holes chewed in their flesh. Others became servants in Inimigo’s household, wearing collars like those Dom had seen.

“My father is an evil, repulsive man,” she’d said, wiping the charcoal from her skin. “But Vibora and Sapo and Barrata—”

“
What
are they?”

“I don’t know. They’ve served my father for as long as I can remember, always taking care of the things my father didn’t want on his hands.” She choked up then, turning away for a few moments, before she gained control of herself. “There is something about them that is completely unnatural. They’re too smart and too strong, and they can make strange things happen. Your limbs feel frozen and your lungs impossible to fill. I watched Sapo tell a boy to stop breathing, and he did. He suffocated, clawing at his own throat, turning purple, lying on the floor in my father’s throne room and dying while everyone else laughed.

“Some of my father’s underlords call them Keeper-blessed, as if this power is something given to them by Mother Lua.” She shivered, and hugged her arms tight around her body. “It’s wrong. It’s an abomination, but they have followers. Their cult grows every day, and these followers obey every command. They spy. Kill indiscriminately. And they were watching me.

“It was almost impossible to get anything done while under my father’s thumb. I hoped coming to Santiago would allow me to cause problems from a distance.”

“You’ve caused problems here, too.”

She shrugged. “I know it looks that way, but I swear on Mother Lua’s holy name that we’re on the same side.”

“No. We’re not,” Dom said, pushing through the stall’s door. He wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted her to follow him home or head out into the dark night and disappear forever. “I don’t know what side you’re on, but it’s not mine.”

Maribelle stayed close, even jogging a few steps to keep up with Dom’s pace, but she didn’t speak another word. It gave Dom time to consider his next steps. Should he tell his mother? Should he have Maribelle sent home? What if she was telling the truth? The questions had plagued him throughout the short night, but he hadn’t uncovered any clear-cut answers.

“Lord Dom?” The little boy prodded him in the side, pulling him out of the memory.

“I’m coming, Michael.”

“You might want to put a shirt on. Lady Maribelle is in there with her.”

“Fantastic.”

•  •  •

Maribelle looked as fresh and lovely as a spring flower, no hint of their long night except a smudge of darkness under her eyes. Her gown was low cut but had long sleeves, and Dom wondered with a pang of guilt if he was responsible for new bruises on her skin.

“Drink this,” his mother said, offering Dom a cup of potent- smelling tea. “You’re going to need it.”

She was angry, her actions quick and clipped as she pushed the cup into his hands.

If you’re upset over a rumor about me and Maribelle, it’s your own fault,
he thought as he dropped into a chair, stretching his bare feet out in front of him. He’d dressed, but he hadn’t bothered to wet his hair or put on his boots.

“Raul is dead.”

Tea spluttered out of Dom’s mouth, streaking his formerly white shirt.

“Raul is dead and someone has soaked our cannon powder with salt water.” Lady DeSilva bumped the teapot with her elbow, uncharacteristically shaken. “Raul’s death appears unrelated to his position, and there’s a chance the powder will dry.”

Dom exploded from his seat, covering the distance to Maribelle’s chair. “You did this.”

“No. You know where I was last night.” She shot a sidewards glance at his mother and managed a blush. “Raul was stabbed when a fight broke out among gamblers.”

Lady DeSilva agreed. “Everyone at the pub agreed it was an argument that turned violent.”

“I don’t believe it. You’re involved in this somehow.”

“I swear I’m not,” Maribelle said, her voice certain. “But there are bigger concerns. Belem is marching. His troops will approach Santiago from the west. They’ll be here in three days.”

A voice commanded Pira to move and take the knife with her. It slid out of Leão’s body with a wet hiss. Blood followed, pouring down his torso.

What have I done?

“She wasn’t supposed to kill him, Vibora!”

The voice rang in Pira’s ears, but the words meant nothing.

“I tried to stop her, but she’s faster than I anticipated.”

A hand pushed Pira to the side, and she fell over limply, lying in the alley with her knees curled to her middle. Her shins rested against Leão’s outstretched forearm. She imagined his flesh going cold and stiff at the point where their bodies touched.

For that moment, with her captor’s attention diverted, Pira’s body was under her control. She wanted to find the knife, to drive it hilt-deep into her own heart, and let her blood mingle with Leão’s. They’d never be together in life. At least they’d have death.

Her fingers swept along the ground in a half arc. Instead of the knife, the back of her hand brushed the side of Leão’s face, slipping down his cheek. A hint of stubble, the sharp corner of his jaw, a weak pulse at his neck.

It grew stronger under her fingers. Pira raised her head but couldn’t seem to manage its weight, and the dizziness pulled her back down to the ground.

Sapo knelt over Leão, hands pressed against the young Keeper’s chest. Vibora stood over them all, mouth twisted in a grimace.

“You’re healing him,” Pira said aloud, forcing through the wave of light-headedness to sit up. She pressed her back against the building’s wall, watching the wound shrink.

Sapo glanced up for one instant before resuming his task.

Leão’s chest rose and fell, air wheezing out of his freshly repaired lung.

Pira raised her bloodstained hand to cover her mouth. Sapo—their enemy—had brought Leão back from the cusp of death. “Why?” she breathed. “Why did you help him?”

“Help him?” Sapo’s grin was self-satisfied as he held an open hand out to Vibora. She placed a collar onto his palm. “I helped myself. I couldn’t possibly let power like his go to waste. He’ll be the most powerful weapon in my arsenal. Stronger than you and Vibora and Barrata put together.” He studied the smooth lines of the collar before looking at Pira. “I’ll never have to beg Inimigo for his hidden stash of beryllium again.”

The collar gleamed dimly under the night sky. Its sides were perfectly polished, its latch a neat rectangle that slid into an empty housing. Vibora had made a sample collar for Pira to use as a pattern, but this was significantly neater than her master’s work.

Pira lunged at Sapo but smashed into an invisible wall. She flailed against the obstacle, kicking and shrieking and crying, as he waved the perfect piece of evil in front of her.

“Such a violent reaction.” Sapo dragged one finger down the glasslike barricade, as if he were stroking Pira’s face. “Must be love. Don’t you think, Vibora?”

“I suppose.” Vibora fidgeted with her sleeve, ignoring her slave’s antics.

“I think Pira should do the honors.” Sapo held out the collar between two fingers. “I find it vastly poetic that you—who love him so powerfully—be the one to strip him of his power.”

She looked at Vibora, begging her for help, and saw something akin to remorse on the other woman’s face. Still, Pira’s arm rose, passing through the barrier with a pop. Blood had dripped down her arm and puddled on her palm.

Sapo pressed the collar into the gore. “You will always be the thing that made him weak.”

At dawn Jacaré led the group up the narrow, treacherous incline, drawing ever nearer to the solid gray line of Donovan’s Wall.

Behind him a few paces he felt the merest brush of Johanna’s
essência
. It wasn’t constant, like the power of a full Keeper; it flared one moment and guttered out the next. Once he realized it was there, he forced himself to pay attention to it.

Of course.
Of course she was half Keeper. A decades-old mystery finally began to unravel; dark secrets came to light. Her mother’s real name had been Veado—a girl Jacaré had heard of but never met.

When a new face had appeared in the glass, Jacaré had been selfishly relieved that King Wilhelm had taken an interest in someone. It meant Jacaré’s job would stay easy, that there’d be an heir to carry on the royal line. He never questioned the queen’s identity or its potential ramifications.

Whatever
essência
Johanna had inherited from her mother had been tied up in the barrier because of her father. Until the wall began to crumble in earnest, her power had been latent. The riot in Camaçari had likely been the first time she’d ever been able to draw on her Spirit affinity. He didn’t point that out to Rafi or Johanna. Their relationship was showing a few fractures, and while it tweaked at Jacaré’s conscience a little, it also served his purposes.

Every step was one nearer the end of this mission, but it also brought him closer to the place his power had been stored for the past three centuries. The familiarity of it, the sweet temptation to pluck one thread out of the tapestry that made up the barrier. Would anyone notice? Could he do it without tearing the whole thing apart?

Why are you even considering it?

The desire made him nervous, and made him determined to keep Elma with him. If he couldn’t trust himself, he wanted to know that someone else would keep him in check.

The boys switched positions without any spoken agreement. Didsbury slung Elma’s free arm around his neck, and Rafi steadied her. It was almost comical how well they worked together, even while exchanging dark looks over the old woman’s head.

“Stop!” Elma yelled suddenly, swinging away from Didsbury.

Jacaré expected some admonishment, some reminder that they were all on the same side, but Elma turned and faced downhill.

“We can rest when we get to the top.” Jacaré pushed forward a few steps, climbing over a slick rock face.

He turned to offer Johanna a hand up a steep incline but found her watching Elma, who was leaning heavily on her staff, struggling to catch her breath. Didsbury stood close to her, a hand centered on the old woman’s back. Rafi hovered at the other side, as if expecting her to fall.

Elma raised a palsied finger to point into the distance. “Look. There. Those are my people.”

Brightly colored cloaks and skirts fluttered as they moved forward in an uneven formation. Perhaps thirty people in all crawled over the landscape in a halting, jerking fashion, some surmounting boulders and others disappearing into ravines before resurfacing.

It wasn’t the way any person would
choose
to cross the landscape.

Collars glittered around every throat, catching the scattered bands of sunlight that broke through the clouds.

“Oh Mother Lua,” Elma said, both a prayer and a curse. “My children. My poor children.”