Shadow's Son (34 page)

"I never wanted this for you." She came up beside him. "Neither did
your mother."

"Don't, Kit."

Her ethereal fingers brushed his face. "I was happy in my world,
Caim, but I had to come when I heard your mother's call. She understood
it would be hard for you in this place, born of two peoples, belonging to neither. And I knew the first time I saw you that I would love you forever.
That's the curse of my people. We never forget and we never die. We love
forever, even after the ones we love die and pass into the great dark."

"Kit ..." Troubled feelings rumbled in the depths of his soul. They
chipped away at his resolve and made him feel weak and pathetic.

"Don't you think I mourned for your loss, Caim? Don't you think I
cried myself sick after what happened to your parents? But you were a
stone. You never cried."

"What good would it have done them?" But tears, hot and bitter,
sprang to his eyes now as her words dredged up his past.

Kit rested her head on his arm. "We don't cry for them, Caim. We cry
for ourselves. Kas understood that."

"And now he's dead, too."

"He died doing what he knew was right."

Caim thought of the bloody spear. Kas had died a hero. Would the
same be said of him when his time came? The gloom inside the cabin
beckoned to him.

"It's funny," he said. "For years after they were gone, I thought losing
my parents had made me a stronger person. Tougher. Now I wonder if I
didn't lose the best part of myself that night. The man with the black
blades. He's like me, isn't he? A monster."

An electric tingle ran along his jaw as she touched his chin. "You are
not
a monster."

"There's darkness inside me, Kit. I've always known it was there, just
below the surface, and you've seen what happens when I lose control."

She turned away.

"He sent that shadow-snake after me, didn't he? Now he's working
with Ral, and Josey is gone. So who the fuck is he, Kit?"

For a moment, he thought she wouldn't answer. Then, "He serves the
Lords of the Shadow."

Caim swallowed past the knot in his throat. The taste of tears lingered
in the back of his mouth. A thousand questions jostled in his throat, but
only one was important.

"How do I kill him?"

"He is flesh and blood, just like you. Cut him and he will bleed."

"I tried that." The admission was torn from his throat in an angry growl. "I tried, Kit. He has powers I don't understand, magic I can't
match."

Her slender finger touched the space over his heart. "The blood calls
to its own, Caim. You are your mother's son. You already possess everything you need."

He laughed, a cruel sound even to his own ears. "Then I'm damned
and so is Josey."

"They took her alive, so she must have some value to them. They
won't kill her out of hand. There's still time to help her."

"Now you want to help her? You couldn't stand the sight of her
before."

Kit folded her arms across her slender chest. "I'm glad you have a
mud-woman in your life. I know I can't love you the way I've always
dreamed, the way I wanted to."

"Kit, I-"

She smiled and shook away another bout of tears. "But I'll always be
here for you, as your friend."

"You're my best friend, Kit. You always have been. That won't ever
change."

She punched at his arm. "It better not!" Then, in a more somber tone,
"We'll find her, Caim."

He watched the light play upon the shards of broken glass on the
cabin floor.

"I already know where she is," he said. "Ral told me himself once. He
said we were the most feared men in the empire, that we should be
lording it up in the palace."

"You mean the
palace
palace? Like the big muckety-muck's digs?"

Caim walked into the cabin. A storm lantern hung from a hook on the
wall. He took it down and lit the wick from the hearth embers. Light
filled the cabin as the lantern sprang to life. He hurled it into the back
room. Flames shot to the ceiling as he strode out the door. The growing
fire threw harsh shadows across the grass and against the trunks of the surrounding trees as he went around to the back of the cabin. Thoughts of
Josey swirled around in his head. He would go after her, and the gods help
anyone or anything that got in his way.

Across the yard, the boulder hunched in the earth like the egg of a giant bird. While Kit floated over him, he squatted down beside it. He
fit his hands underneath the stone and heaved. The boulder was sunk deep
in its loamy home, but he would not be denied. He pulled for the memories of his father and mother, for Kas who'd become the father he wanted
and needed even if he hadn't realized it until too late, for Josey who
needed him now. He pulled until his tendons strained and his legs shook.
The wound in his side ached, but he didn't let up until, inch by inch, the
stone came free of its bed. With a groan he heaved it away.

Pale worms wriggled in the damp earth where the stone had lain. Kit
crouched beside him as he pulled a moldy leather sack from the soil. He
cracked it open to pull out the items inside, and set them on the ground
with reverence. The first was a square of sturdy broadcloth. It unfolded
into a dirty gray tabard. A great sablewood tree was stitched onto the
breast in black thread, the sign of his father's house. The second item was
wrapped in oilcloth. Caim pulled away the covering to reveal a portrait in
a plain wooden frame. Calm's father was tall and imposing in the picture.
His mother looked tiny beside her husband, like a dark-leafed sapling
growing in the shade of a mighty rowan. Her hair was long and lustrous
black, her eyes mysterious pools of obsidian.

While Kit mooned over the picture,
Caim took out the third item.
The sword's leather scabbard was in bad repair. He wiped away years of
grit from the whorls carved into the pommel. This had been his father's
blade. Though the hilt was cool to the touch, holding it produced a
burning heat in the pit of his stomach. He had pulled this weapon from
his father's corpse. Now, he would use it to sever the chains of death that
had bound up his life for so long, or he would die. In either case, the
matter would finally be resolved.

Caim set the sword aside and pushed the other items back into the
hollow. Getting behind the boulder, he heaved it back into place.

Kit watched him with an intent expression. "You can't keep running
from your past. It's part of who you are."

He snatched up the sword. "I'm not denying it. I'm finally accepting
my true inheritance and everything that goes along with it."

He started back toward the trail. "You coming?"

She fell in beside him, but said nothing. He was glad for the silence.
He had planning to do. The trees swayed over their heads as they followed the rutted path back to Othir. The tang of wet copper stung the back of
his throat. A storm was coming.
Good. Let the heavens pour out their tears.
I'll give them a slaughter worthy of their misery.

Over the plain, flickers of lightning danced through the shroud of
purple-black clouds and echoed with the growls of thunder.

osey's hands, clenched in the folds of her skirt, trembled as she stood
before the painting. A regal man astride a fierce charger gazed down at
her. His wavy black hair was cut at shoulder length in the masculine style of
the previous generation. Thick brows met over a prominent, aquiline nose.
And the eyes-she knew them with intimate familiarity. They were her own.

Is this really my father?

A brass plaque below the portrait read:

Leonel II of the House Corrinada
Emperor of Nimea

She whispered the name, adding her own. Josephine Corrinada. The
jumble of thoughts warmed her body like a hot bath. Then she thought
of Earl Frenig's kindly face and the languor evaporated in a cool shiver. So
many secrets, so many lies, all to preserve her identity. How am I supposed
to feel? She didn't know, and that was the scary part. And on top of that,
what had happened to her at the cabin ...

She bit back tears as a wave of images crashed over her. The rough
grasp of strange hands. Markus's face in the dim firelight, sweat dripping
from his nose as he took her. Josey folded her hands over her stomach. She
wanted to curl up into a ball and die.

No.

She pulled her hands away and stood up straight. With a sniff, she
drew back the tears. To hell with them all. She wouldn't succumb to the
terror. Father hadn't yielded when they took his post away. He was an old
man, far past his prime, but he'd continued to fight unto his last breath,
and so would she.

Angry voices interrupted her thoughts. Josey turned toward the
center of the chamber. The Grand Hall of the Luccian Palace, named after
the famous architect and composer Luccio Fernari, who had spent the last
years of his remarkable life involved in its construction, was a masterpiece
of traditional Mitric architecture. Once, vibrant frescos depicting significant events and persons of the empire's history had covered the domed
ceiling, but they had been replaced by scenes of inferior quality showcasing the Church's rise to power. She recognized them from her catechism: the Hanging and Decapitation of Phebus, Conquest of the
Nimites, and, finally, Revolution Day. Each picture was bordered in
ornate molding of curling vines and leaves chased with gold. Enormous,
hand-woven tapestries hung on the walls, separated by brass lanterns with
frosted glass panes that bathed the chamber in stark, ghostly light.

On the floor, a dais of marble steps dominated the eastern wall. A
semicircle of massive thrones, fashioned of deep-stained redwood and
upholstered in purple silk, crowded the highest tier. The seats of the
prelate and Elector Council, they represented the highest powers in both
the spiritual and temporal worlds. On the wall above the dais, a giant sunburst was emblazoned in a mosaic of tiny white-and-gold tiles. Once, that
august symbol of the Church's authority would have instilled a sense of
awe within her. Now, knowing what she did about the Council and their
murderous deeds, she felt only a touch of melancholy, as if for a treasured
thing lost beyond recovery.

Thirteen wooden boxes rested on the bottom step of the dais. She had
no idea what they were meant for, but it could be for nothing good. She
harbored no illusions about why she was here. The Sacred Brotherhood
had taken control of the palace, apparently under the command of the
man who stood at the foot of the dais, and she was his captive as surely as
if she wasted away in some dark dungeon cell. She shook her head at the
uncomfortable image. There would be rats and lice, all manner of
crawling things ...

Caim will come for me.

That hope huddled close to her heart, and yet reminders of her dire
predicament were all around. She had cried as they dragged her, naked as
a babe, from Kas's cabin and tied her over a saddle. Then, she began to
hate. Jarred and battered, she fantasized about Caim killing the men who had abused her, cutting them into pieces for the carrion birds to devour.
Hatred sustained her on the long ride back to Othir. By the time they
reached the city she was a teary, sodden mess, bruised from thigh to collarbone. More soldiers met them at the gates and provided an escort to
Celestial Hill. She had been appalled to see the state of her beloved city.
People rioted in the streets, destroying property, burning and looting.
Bodies lay in the gutters, both commoners and soldiers alike. She wished
she could put a stop to it somehow, but trussed over her steed like a sack
of parsnips, all she could do was watch the carnage.

Up the Processional they rode, each clop of the horse's hooves on the
hard cobblestones driving the saddle horn deeper into her ribs, until they
reached the palace. There she was taken down from her humiliating position and hustled through a number of gates to a small chamber where an
old silent woman in a black shawl washed her with stubborn disregard for
her comfort and shoved her into new clothes.

Josey looked down at the garment she had been forced to wear. Layers
of white silk brocade trailed on the floor. Rows of tiny seed pearls were
sewn to the low-cut bodice and down the puffy sleeves that encased her
arms, but left the shoulders bare. She felt scandalous in the gown. It
reminded her of a wedding dress for a virgin bride, something she would
never be. That part of her had been stripped away. Just thinking about it
made her feel sick.

The only other people in the hall were Markus and Ral, who was also
an assassin, according to Caim. A dangerous man, supposedly, but he
hardly looked the part. He wore a fine suit of black with starched white
cuffs and collar. A slender blade with a silver guard hung at his side. Josey
couldn't imagine Caim wearing such an extravagant weapon. Then, she
spotted the assortment of blades hidden about the man's person, tucked
into the tops of his boots and under his sleeves, and reconsidered her
opinion of him. Maybe he wasn't such a dandy.