Chapter Twenty-Three 6 page

“It is,” I said. “Now tell me about the next challenge.”

“Signore dei Sogni. Lord of Dreams.”

“Sognare?” I asked, remembering the Elder’s name. Sognare had never been, in my opinion, one of the crueler Elders. In fact, in the past two hundred years I couldn’t remember him bothering me at all.

“Sì,” he said.

“Lord of Dreams?”

Vasco nodded. “His power has to do with dreams, inspiring them, controlling them.”

I tilted my head. “But that’s impossible. We don’t dream.”

“If Sognare wants you to dream, you will.”

That was interesting. I’d never heard much about Sognare. Actually, come to think of it, I hadn’t heard much about the Elders and their specific powers. I’d seen Sognare several times. And if you ask me, he reminded me an awful lot of the way humans portrayed their fictional wizards. However, that was probably because he was the oldest vampire that I’d ever seen. His gray beard was long enough to sweep the floor.

“That doesn’t sound very physical,” I said.

“Mental.” He shrugged. “Physical. It is both.”

I picked the fox blade up. Call it a hunch, but I had a feeling Cuinn wasn’t going to let me leave him behind.

Vasco eyed the sword. “It is true?”

“This?” I lifted the blade.

“The volpe spirito,” he said.

“Renata told you?”

“Sì,” he said. “She explained some. I have been assured that you have not gone deliriously mad and that your wits are still about you.”

“Well, not yet,” I said.

He offered his hand. “May I carry it? I know they are peculiar about such things, but you cannot walk into this challenge armed, as it is not a challenge of weapons.”

Not visible ones.

I waited for Cuinn to add more, but he didn’t.

Cuinn?

Aye?

Will you let Vasco carry you?

He seemed to consider it.

Then he surprised me by saying, Aye,I suppose.

I handed the sword to Vasco, hilt first.

Vasco took it. I turned toward the door when a heavy thump made me turn on my heel. The fox blade was planted firmly in the floor. I watched as Vasco struggled to retrieve it.

I heard Cuinn give a little snicker of laughter.

“Cuinn,” I said, this time aloud.

Vasco gave me a look and tugged on the sword again, bracing his booted feet several inches apart. The sword wasn’t budging. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to, either, supernatural strength or no. Vasco swore and this time I heard him say, “Volpe!”

All he needs to do is ask nicely.

“Vasco, ask nicely.”

“What?” He looked startled.

“You’re going to give yourself an aneurism; just ask him nicely!”

He blinked. “Why?”

I moved toward him and the sword Vasco and moved out of the way. I pulled the sword out of the stone in one fluid motion. “I’m not handing the sword to you until you ask nicely.”

Vasco blinked again. “Per favore?”

That’ll do.

I handed the sword to him. Vasco removed his own sword from his back sheath and laid it on the bed. He slipped the fox blade into his sheath, checking it with his hands. He seemed satisfied that it fit.

I let the surprise show. “It fits?”

“The sword and sheath were blessed by one of the Stregheria.”

“The what?”

“Stregheria,” Vasco repeated. “An Italian Witch. The sheath will fit any sword.”

“And the sword?” I asked.

“The sword will kill a vampire.”

“That’s a nice thing to be carrying on your back.”

“Right now I am carrying your volpe spirito trapped in steel, and this too is a nice thing to carry on one’s back.”

I didn’t know if he was teasing or not. “You’re saying my sword can bring true death to one of our kind?”

“Sì, or anything that you wish it to kill, for that matter.”

Cuinn, I mentally purred at him.

Aye? he said again, but this time he sounded irritated.

Is this true?

His ears swiveled back as he rested his maw on his forelegs.

It is.

You didn’t think to tell me, why?

’Cause ye’d find out eventually.

I shook my head. “Let’s go.”

Vasco bowed. The pommel of the fox blade was hidden behind the long braided tresses of his hair. I opened the door and stepped out in the hall, too busy giving in to my irritation to be particularly afraid.

Chapter Eleven

Renata turned toward the doors as I made my way before her. I caught a flash of her dress, blue velvet so dark it was almost black, before I sank gracefully to my knees and fixed my gaze on the stone below me.

“Vasco,” she said and he rose from his kneeling position, knowing her will and taking his seat among the other Elders.

To me, she asked, “Is it your will to proceed?”

I dipped my head lower. “It is, my lady.”

“Lucrezia,” she said, “summon Sognare.”

I sensed more than saw Lucrezia get to her feet. She moved past me, and as she passed, the bulk of her heavy skirts brushed the side of my body.

A spark of anger flared through me and I fought to conceal it. The double doors clanged closed and the room was suddenly filled with eerie silence. It was a silence that belonged to an empty room, but it was not. It was only a room full of vampires that had no real reason to make any noise. Or so I thought.

A rustle of material sounded. Someone whispered, “Little rabbit.”

I looked up then, turning my face toward the sound of Gaspare’s sour voice. He sat beside Baldavino, who reclined at ease, rolling his eyes at Gaspare’s comment. The hair brushing his shoulders was as gold as a lion’s mane. Both of the Elders wore deerskin breeches, but where Gaspare’s velvet jacket was black, Baldavino’s was the solid color of pine needles.

I met Gaspare’s eyes and the look of taunting malice in them.

Cuinn’s androgynous voice crooned through my head, Your mother was an ogre and your father the dribble from a goblin’s arse.

I gave a short and unexpected laugh.

On the dais, Gaspare’s hands clenched into fists. “You dare to laugh at me?”

Aye! Cuinn’s voice was a deadly hiss in the confines of my skull.

“Perhaps,” I said, “or perhaps it occurs to me that you would dare loathe the rabbit when you yourself are a terrible huntsman, Gaspare.”

I heard the sound of his chair clatter to the floor a moment before his fist balled in my hair. He jerked my head back and drew his other hand back as if to strike me.

Renata’s voice cracked like a whip, full of heat and command. “Gaspare!”

I narrowed my eyes in defiance.

He used the grip he had to pull me up high on my knees. “Wretched little bitch!”

I heard the hiss of steel sliding from a sheath.

“Let her go.” Vasco’s voice dripped with cold fire as he pointed the fox blade at Gaspare.

Gaspare snarled and spat, “You would protect her?”

Vasco’s eyes brightened with power, rocking waves of an azure ocean. His voice dripped with unrelenting challenge. “Sì.”

I took the opportunity the distraction presented, catching Gaspare’s hand between my fingers. I am a vampire and we are all supernaturally strong. Though I have been an Underling for two-hundred years, I used my strength against him, digging my fingers into his skin between his thumb and index finger like a vice. Gaspare reacted by loosening his hold. I caught his hand, pushing it back toward his wrist until I felt the bones grinding. Something in his wrist popped and he screamed.

Such a small noise for such a loud scream.

I moved as I had seen Vasco move, too quick for the eyes to follow. A strike of lightning that never strikes twice. The throne room was a blur around me. I was motion. I was liquid. I caught Gaspare’s shoulders and he tried to move, tried to see it coming, but he was too slow. I threw my body into it, ramming my knee high up between his legs as hard as I could. I used the grip on his shoulders to pull his body into the collision, and then I turned, as if dancing the steps of a dance that my body knew and had performed a thousand times before. I used his weight against him, used the momentum of the impact to push him facedown on the stone floor.

I shoved my knee hard into the back of his spine. He tried to reach for me, and I caught his wrists, jerking his arm up high behind his back until I heard the ball and socket joints of his shoulders dislocate in a sickeningly thick sound.

Gaspare screamed for me again. On the edges of his scream I heard Baldavino’s laughter, heard him say, “Looks like someone’s been teaching the little Underling how to wrestle.”

Baldavino didn’t speak often. On the rare occasion that he opened his mouth, I could not remember a time when anything good came of it. He was a prick, in much the same way that Gaspare had always been, and yet not. I had always been fairly certain that Baldavino simply hated everyone with an equal passion. Gaspare, on the other hand, relished belittling and demeaning those he deemed beneath him. It was two different types of arrogance, but still, it was arrogance nonetheless.

Gaspare tried to get up and Vasco was there, placing a booted foot hard against the back of his head.

“Signore, I would not advise struggling any further,” he said.

Gaspare went incredibly still beneath me.

“Epiphany?” Vasco made my name a question.

“Yes, Vasco?” I asked sounding polite and calm and not like I was holding a man captive.

“Are you well?”

I looked up at him and felt a dark smile tug at my lips. “Yes.”

The corner of Vasco’s mouth rose in a half-smile.

An eruption of noise battered my ears as someone clapped, hard and rapid.

Lucrezia’s voice slithered like a whispering snake throughout the throne room. “Brava, Epiphany,” she said. “Molto bene.”

I didn’t turn to look at her. The space between my shoulder blades tensed as I heard the sounds of her skirt slithering across the stones. She knelt beside me, leaving only a few feet between us. Her eyes sparkled with delight and she tilted her head to the side to look down at Gaspare.

“That was nicely done, wouldn’t you say?”

Since it seemed she was speaking to Gaspare, I didn’t say anything.

Gaspare didn’t either.

Lucrezia reached out, as if to touch me. I moved from the waist up, keeping my face out of her reach. Her eyes closed, and as if slipping on a mask, when she opened them again she smiled oh-so-sweetly at me.

I forced myself not to recoil.

“Do you still fear me?” she whispered in a small voice, like a monster pretending to be cute and cuddly, when you know full well it will slit your throat the minute you turn your back.

I met her gaze and said, “I do not like you.”

“Buono,” she said in a darkly pleased voice, “molto buono.”

I felt a touch at the back of my neck that nearly made me jump out of my flesh. “Lucrezia.” Renata’s voice dripped behind me like something even more deadly than Vasco’s and Lucrezia’s combined. The tips of her fingers rested at the base of my neck like an anchor.

Lucrezia looked up at Renata’s face.

I felt the movement travel through Renata’s body and knew when Lucrezia flicked her eyes to her empty seat on the dais that Renata was pointing at it.

Lucrezia stood and gave an elegant curtsey. “Sì, mia padrona.” The serious tone to her voice didn’t match the sparkling amusement in her expression.

Renata knelt much as Lucrezia had.

“Dante,” she said. “Dominique.” She called their names like a cool command.

Gaspare spoke then, his voice thin and frantic. “Mia padrona! No! Per favore!” he pleaded.

I tried to follow and only managed to catch, my mistress, no, please. You’d think that after two hundred years I’d have learned more Italian. Well, guess again. Considering the only time Vasco spoke it was when he was cursing at something, and the only time the others spoke it was when they were trying to be sneaky, my knowledge only went so far. Very quickly spoken Italian was too far. I’d never been adept at translating that.

Dante and Dominique came to us. Dante was naked from the waist up, wearing only a pair of red leather pants and dark boots. Dominique wore black leather, with a plain white T-shirt stretched over the bulk of his chest. For the sake of my own survival and health, I wouldn’t in a million years have started a fight with either one of them. Supernatural strength or no, they were both built like their bodies were made for throwing people around. As guards, that was pretty much what they did. They protected the Queen. If that meant throwing people around, I’d no doubt that either of them would not hesitate to do it.

Dante reached out to touch my shoulder and Dominique stopped him, shaking his head and sending his dark braid swaying down his back.

Gaspare pleaded relentlessly. Renata ignored him. Vasco still had his foot on the back of his head. I wondered if he was getting a leg cramp, but highly doubted it.

Gaspare tried to wriggle out from under me and I pulled his arms up even higher, slamming my knees down into his back. Vasco shifted his foot to the back of Gaspare’s neck, leaning his weight into it.

I dropped my gaze to the black velvet of Gaspare’s back and said through gritted teeth, “He’s going to fight you.”

Dominique responded loud enough that I could hear him over Gaspare’s slew of frantic Italian. “Let us worry about that, piccolo.”

I ignored the fact that he’d called me a nickname that meant “little.” Dominique had never been rude to me or treated me badly.

I slowly started to get up and then realized slow wasn’t going to work with the way Gaspare was struggling.

I got up in one fluid stretch and moved out of the way.

Dominique and Dante moved in unison, as if they instinctively knew what Gaspare would try to do and they’d rehearsed beforehand just how they would react. Dante grabbed Gaspare’s kicking feet while Dominique caught him by the arms.

They carried Gaspare out of the room like that, with Gaspare stretched out like a wiggling eel between them.

Only then did Vasco sheath the fox blade.

Relief and tiredness left my body in the form of a sigh. It occurred to me why I had never stood up and defended myself against the Elders. I looked out over their faces and saw that half of them held contempt while the other half held either disinterest or curiosity. Sognare’s wizened eyes met mine and I guessed that he had taken his seat for lack of anything better to do, for I had not heard Renata order him to do so. There was a certain amount of curiosity in his gaze that I did not understand.

I never stood up and defended myself against them, because some of them I would always have to defend myself against. I had thought it better to be as quiet as a mouse hiding in the long grass and hoping the predator would pass me by than a tiger whose very bold colors and stripes invoked challenge.

I turned to Vasco, who gave a slow nod, as if to let me know that he understood my thoughts and had seen the looks too.

I had just declared my very bold colors by standing up to Gaspare.

Aye,Cuinn said softly, but this is the way things are meant to be.

I hope you’re right.

I am right in that I know ye are more than ye seem, Epiphany, and these vampires have not reckoned the half of it.

Chapter Twelve

Renata waited until Dominique and Dante had returned to proceed. Vasco was sent to admit two lesser attendant vampires into the room. The girl was only a few inches taller than the boy and they both appeared to be about some twenty years of age, though I knew they were much older, not yet two hundred, but older still.

They kept their heads at an angle so that their long hair hid their youthful features. The girl’s hair was a blond so light that it was almost white. The boy’s hair was a honey blond so dark it bordered on brown. They set about preparing the dream trial area. I watched, curious, as they arranged large fur rugs on the floor.

I turned in time to catch Sognare hobbling over on his cane. His silver beard trailed the floor as he made his way to me. Thick brown robes covered him from neck to foot. Sognare’s eyes were almost as gray as the hair on his head, but not quite, for there was a dusting of blue in them.

“Come,” he said, “sit.”

I sat crossed-legged on a thick gray rug. What animal the rugs had once been, I did not know, nor did I particularly care to find out.

“You have fed, yes?”

I could still taste Renata’s blood in my mouth, something faint, but sweet and metallic. I closed my eyes trying to hide the remembrance. I inclined my head and said, “I have.”

“Good,” he said, using his crooked wooden stave of a cane to help lower his elderly body to the ground.

It took long enough that I couldn’t help but smile and say softly, “That body of yours doesn’t seem very convenient.”

Behind his long beard, I thought I saw the flash of a smile. “Ahh, the folly of the old,” he said, “I feared death, and now I find myself stuck in a perpetual state of it, bag of brittle bones.” He chuckled, crossing his legs to mirror mine.

I seriously doubted the old wizard of a vampire was that brittle of bone. One of the benefits of being a vampire, the body heals at a supernatural pace. It’d taken a great deal of strength for me to break Gaspare’s wrist, and had I been human, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it. It’d probably take as much strength to break Sognare’s wrist, despite appearances to the contrary.

Vasco began walking a circle around us; only this time he did not use his sword.

“We shall begin while Signore Vasco sees to the anello di protezione,” he said. “Close your eyes, Epiphany.”

I did as told, hoping that the area of protection would protect me as well.

Sognare, the Lord of Dreams, began humming a solemn tune that was at once haunting and melancholic. I let go of my thoughts and listened to him.

When all was quiet, I waited, flinching when I felt his gnarled fingers brush across my eyelids.

“Exoculo,” he murmured.

“Consopio.” His fingers touched my brow.

“Alucinor.” His touch stopped at my temples.

Sognare’s power reached out toward the center of my being like some great clawed hand. I found myself dizzy and sick.

*

There was nothing, nothing but complete and utter darkness. As soon as I thought it, there was cold, a cold that cut to the very bones of my body, fierce and sharp like needles. I reached out with my hands and felt nothing, nothing but air and darkness, nothing but that stabbing cold. I shivered with it, my teeth chattering and rattling my skull.

That was wrong.

As a vampire, I should not have felt the cold like a killing thing. I forced myself to focus and reached down, feeling the ground beneath me. Frozen blades of grass cut my hands and I raised them, feeling the blood trickling, but unable to see into such impenetrable darkness. I should have been able to see, at least enough to make out certain shapes.

I held my hands to my chest and got my feet under me. The darkness in my head spun like an invisible vortex. A light kissed the edge of that darkness, a light that spread its pink and orange fingers across the sky.

I saw the green field frozen, frozen beneath layers of crystalline ice.

I looked for the source of that pink-orange hand, and fear lodged in my chest.

Sunlight, coming to burn me alive. It was rising and when it rose…I ran, blades of iced grass cutting my feet. I slipped and fell, scrambled back up again, running with sheer terror, encouraged by centuries of instinct.

You cannot run!

I looked back to see Cuinn’s sleek form running toward me. His long body seemed to cut through the air, his paws never making a sound.

Cuinn was suddenly next to me. I buried my hands in his fiery fur, shielding my face in his scruff.

Cuinn, I thought, terrified, Cuinn, what do I do if I cannot run?

Ye break the Dream Master’s hold.

Cuinn faced the sun and his muscles rippled in anticipation beneath my hand. He gave a fierce warning yip that seemed to echo out over the land. The light seemed to hesitate, rays wavering. He took a step forward and a growl unlike any I’d ever heard from a fox slipped past his blackened lips. Again, the sun’s power hesitated, as if unsure whether or not it wanted to face the fox spirit’s power.

I opened myself and felt Cuinn’s courage. I filled myself with the fox’s courage until it felt I would burst with it. I turned to face the light. Cuinn’s tall head bumped my hand, and when I took a step forward, he followed.

With each step the sun began to sink back. I focused on the cold, on drawing it inside myself. The crescent of something darker and larger than the sun began to rise.

“Now!” Cuinn yipped with happy delight and we were running, running full out toward the sun and the moon our power had conjured.

*

I came to myself and found my attire soaked. The throne room spun wildly in my vision, and I had to close my eyes to keep from wavering on my knees.

Sognare’s voice came. “She has broken my hold,” he said and his voice was empty, but his eyes held something I couldn’t read and wasn’t sure I trusted. “She has passed my test.”

I wondered if he knew that I had passed his test with Cuinn’s aid.

Cuinn’s voice filled my mind. I remain unseen when I wish.

When I stood, a chorus of small glass shattered to the ground at my feet.

There was blood on my hands. I realized the tiny shards on the floor were not glass, but icicles. “You could have killed me.”

Sognare, leaning heavily on his cane, inclined his head. I saw Vasco retrace his steps, taking the circle of protection down.

A rock of fear dropped to the pit of my stomach. I had not known that his visions were powerful enough that he could inflict harm with them.

Yet again, it seemed Cuinn had saved my life.

Nay, he whispered, I merely give ye the tools.

Vasco touched my shoulder and I flinched, coming back to myself with a flurry of thoughts.

“The Queen is addressing you, Epiphany.”

I turned to Renata. “Yes, my lady?”

There was a look on her face that I couldn’t quite fathom. Her eyes searched my gaze, but what she said was, “You are excused, Epiphany.”

I bowed my head. “Thank you, my lady.”

Vasco gave me his arm and I took it.

We were almost to the doors when Renata’s voice stopped us in our tracks.

“I did not give you permission to leave, Vasco.”

Vasco sank gracefully to his knees, bowing his entire body forward. “Forgive me, Padrona. I sought only to escort the lady to her chamber.”

The fact that he hadn’t called me by name meant that he was as worried about being stopped as I was. Why had she stopped us? Was she reasserting her control, reinforcing her position as Queen in front of the Elders?

“Then ask if you may leave, Vasco. Do not assume when I have not granted you permission.”

He sank a little lower into his bow. “Sì, my lady. I apologize. Might I escort the Lady Epiphany to her room?”

“No.”

Vasco looked up then. I tried not to let the surprise show on my face. Would she seriously forbid Vasco to see me to my room? It was a gesture he had done for so many years.

Vasco didn’t bother with trying to keep the question from his face. He gave Renata that wide-eyed stare and told her with his eyes that he could not believe she would be so petty. Before he could open his mouth to argue, Renata’s lips parted.

“No,” she said. “Escort the lady to my private chambers.”

Vasco bowed again. I think, this time trying to hide his expression. Though he hid his expression from the Rosso Lussuria clan, I felt the emotions unfurl inside him—astonishment, shock, and then a deep-seated worry. His emotional reaction overshadowed my own until I wasn’t quite sure what I felt.

Lucrezia made a displeased noise low in her throat. “So she is indeed your little pet bitch again.”

Renata turned on her like the raging sea. “Many of you seem to have forgotten that I am your Queen.”

“I have not forgotten, my lady,” Lucrezia said in a voice gone flat.

Renata’s voice held power like a crashing wave. “Hold your tongue, Lucrezia,” she said, splendid and frightening. “I did not ask you to speak. Be careful that the madness you do so enjoy inspiring in others is not a madness which spills from your lips and to my ears again, for the next time you speak out of turn, I will cut your tongue out myself.”

If I had thought Vasco the fastest of us, I had sorely underestimated Renata.

Lucrezia’s mouth opened and Renata never gave her the chance to speak. She sent her flying down the steps as if she weighed nothing, and I might’ve believed Lucrezia weighed nothing, if she did not fall with such a messy and heavy thud.

Renata stepped down, meeting Lucrezia’s wild-eyed look. Lucrezia didn’t move. She remained on her side, propping herself up on her hands and looking up at Renata.

The look in her eyes was venomous.

“Dominique, Dante,” Renata said and her voice still contained power like the sharp edge of a blade.

Lucrezia’s eyes were slits of challenge.

Dominique and Dante moved quietly toward Lucrezia.

“No,” she commanded coolly. Her red lips curved into a cruel smile that was directed at Lucrezia. “Fetch Gaspare. It is time to remind the Rosso Lussuria of what their Queen is capable of. Vasco,” she said, eyes never flicking from Lucrezia’s, “escort your lady.”

Vasco gave a quick bow of his head. “My Queen, if it is no trouble, I would very much like to remain at your side this night.”

“Escort Epiphany,” she said. “Then, if it is your will, return to my side.”

“It is, my lady.”

“Go.”

Vasco caught my arm. He tried to turn me toward the double doors that Dominique and Dante held open, but I dug in my heels. Renata noticed my reluctance.

Go. What I will do here tonight is not something I wish you to play witness to, her voice whispered through my mind like a breeze tickling dry leaves.

I turned with Vasco and did as I was told.

Chapter Thirteen

I paced the length of Renata’s chamber. Vasco reclined on the bed with his legs crossed at the ankles. His longs arms were tucked back behind his head. I was aware that he was watching me, aware of the flickering sense of curiosity that emitted from him. It seemed that my powers were growing, for me to be able to sense such a small thing as curiosity. As he said he would, Vasco had escorted me to Renata’s bedroom and then had left to stand at her side. An hour and half later, he returned with a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. I hadn’t understood his look of pride and satisfaction.

“Colombina,” he said.

I paused. “Hmm?”

“You are pacing like an impatient cat,” he said. “Why?”

“What is she doing, Vasco? Why order me to her chambers in front of the Elders? Why is she placing both of us, all of us, at risk? I felt your fear. I sensed your dread, your worry.”

“Did you sense anything from the others?” he asked and the tone of his voice was almost casual.

I shook my head. “No, but I wasn’t trying to sense anything from them either.”

“What about Lucrezia? You heard her words. What did you sense behind them, colombina?”

I gave a bitter laugh. “Lucrezia is filled with anger, hatred, and envy. She always has been. It’s hard to sense anything beyond that.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Why?” I blinked, giving him an uncomprehending look.

“Sì,” he said. “What motivates those feelings?”

I pursed my lips in thought. “I don’t know. Where are you going with this, Vasco?”

He smiled wide enough to flash the length of his canines. “Know thy enemy.”

I started pacing again. “Power and envy,” I said. “She craves power. I’ve watched her try to take it from others for years. She’s envious of Renata’s power, of anyone that has more power than she does.”

“Sì,” he said. “It is hard for you to have the perspective the rest of us have, as we have been together far longer.”

His words made me stop in my tracks. “By human definitions, I am not so young, Vasco, not as young as some of you treat me.”

“I know,” he said giving me a look of silent understanding. “But you were not there when Lucrezia came to the Rosso Lussuria, seeking sanctuary from her maestà. Her mind was a fragile thing. We did not think she would survive, and if it had not been for her own blossoming power she would not have.”

“What do you mean?” I sat on the edge of the bed.

“Lucrezia and her master shared a similar gift,” he said, “both carry the Kiss of Madness.”

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 688