Chapter 4
Two weeks after the unexpected first meeting that vastly improved his situation, Gunnar‘s counsel returned. When chains slid through the door slot, he found himself a bit excited. If nothing else, he’d get to leave this room. An idea as appealing as it was shocking.
Also dangerous, when all . . . whatever the hells this was evaporated, and he ended up back to a cursed solitary existence, worse now for having had a bed and proper food. It would be much, much harder to sink down and forget he existed.
Before he put the chains on, he slipped the mask Esquire Doe gave him from under his pillow and tucked in his pocket.
Once secured, the door opened, and he got a proper measure of his guards for the first time. Giant kin, both men ugly and near eight feet tall. The larger, with a mop of gray hair covering his facial features and almost furry skin, might have had minotaur blood, the wet musk about him pervasive. The other smelled like a duster, maybe a giant and human union a generation or so removed, nothing impressive save the height and musculature. Each had a blessed blade on one hip—he smelled the holy water—and an electric baton on the other. Neither spoke.
They guided him up the bright white hall, into the elevator, and to what he guessed was the same room he’d been shuttled to the last time. The light didn’t hurt now. He’d mostly acclimated, but the sheer white of everything compared to the dark gray paint in his new cell made his corneas ache. His escorts chained him to the table, then left.
The room was what he’d expected, a ten-by-ten square with two-way glass on one wall, a single entrance, and no windows. Gunner’s table was bolted to the floor, another desk out of his reach with two seats. He wondered if Warden Kushiel would make an appearance. The angel probably had better things to do than watch a vileblood swing for a parole that would never happen.
Color him surprised when the locks disengaged and the scent of brimstone, feathers, and disgust wafted into the room, the air temperature warming to Eden. The angel didn’t waste any time, striding in like he owned the place—he did—and didn’t sit. Gunnar craned his neck to look his jailer in the eyes since he hadn’t been able to open them last time.
A glance was enough to make him feel inadequate, but that was by design. Kushiel was angelic in every sense of the tales and religions he’d manifested from. Near seven feet tall with ivory feathered wings, his skin polished alabaster and hair curled, spun gold. Most angels, so he’d been told, bore faces reminiscent of the statue of David. Michelangelo’s famous art piece was one of many treasures lost when the Storm Belt Calamity ravished central Europe.
Warden Kushiel regarded him down his perfectly shaped nose, clear eyes like piercing glaciers. He folded his hands behind his back, white robes of pre-Aperien legend exchanged for a well-tailored suit.
A decade ago, when he’d been tossed downstairs and forgotten, Gunnar had baited this very Aperien into a raw rage. Gunnar’d been furious at himself for letting a moment of weakness result in an imprisonment he’d never escape. Pissing off the warden had been a thrashing death knell. He’d never expected to see sunlight again, let alone another breathing creature. Kushiel had all but reassured him of that even before Gunnar picked one last fight.
Now, Gunnar had no snide remarks, no prodding or poking. He didn’t quite believe he was sitting here at all, with fancy new imprisonment standards and a possible parole.
Looked like the warden couldn’t believe it either.
“I will observe every single second of this farce,” the angel said, his voice level and soft despite his scowl. “Any misstep, any inevitable opportunity to bury you back where you belong, I will revel in.” A scoff and he shook his head, curls shimmering in the caustic overhead lights. “Applying humanity to the spawn of monsters and devils. Where does it end?”
Gunnar didn’t speak, savoring the minuscule flinch in Kushiel’s jaw muscle when their gazes locked. It was the most he could risk. The warden was furious, the anger in his scent a living, breathing thing to Gunnar’s recovered senses.
Maybe this shit about a parole wasn’t all smoke and mirrors.
The warden departed, leaving him chained alone, the warmth leeching from the air with his exit.
Gunnar wasn’t sure how long he waited, didn’t much care, and he dozed a bit. The exhaustion from being active after so long running on torpor and sustain potions clung to him.
When the doors unlocked again, he snapped to attention and inhaled to measure the newcomers.
The archivist’s scent was ten times stronger than the woman. Aside from the scent of parchment, ink, and blood, the man carried an air of frustration, unease and smelled a bit like dragon. Wearing authentic silk, he entered Gunnar’s field of view tall, lean, and dark-skinned, his head shorn clean. He had kind, neutral features, save where the faint impression of scales swept along his neck and disappeared under the handsewn robes.
Gunnar kept his attention fixed on the archivist, even though he heard Esquire Doe coming up close behind. The lazy, under-used beast in his blood needed to establish what he was dealing with, because this wasn’t a duster, no human blood here despite the convincing, humble form in front of him. This man was a hybrid, a union of two Aperiens. Given the crisp undercurrents to his scent and a flavor that smelled inexplicably like clean sand, Gunnar put bets on him being a demigod of sorts.
Which meant Gunnar, a duster of diluted vileblood with at least three generations of human in the mix, was vastly outclassed. His blood might have come from a fallen angel and the mother of monsters—a goddess in her own right—but his great-great-great-whatever grandparents were memories. This archivist weighed heavy in the room, implying whichever parent was pure god blood, they still walked the waking world.
The archivist studied him right back, bold in his assessment of Gunnar’s improved condition. That’s right, he’d likely need to make some fancy report about the new prison standards following the Accord’s revision.
Then another scent hit him, unremarkable by comparison, and shocked him so hard he jerked in his chains.
Esquire Audrey Doe, the human woman, went stock-still at his sudden attention. An overstuffed, frayed satchel hung over her shoulder, a stack of folders and papers hugged to her chest. His nostrils flared as he stared at her, blinking a few times, and then he puffed out a low laugh.
Yeah, it was her.
He’d been running for his life, sneaking through the Eastern Seaboard Conjunct’s poverty and rot when Gunnar caught this scent.
She’d been stabbed between the ribs, bleeding out, some lowlife thug trying to rape her. He’d acted without thinking. His instincts had overridden his sense of survival for the first time in his life, the idea of leaving her to suffer and die impossible.
And then all she’d asked of him, while looking up at him like her own personal savior, was that he didn’t let her die alone.
Gunnar shook his head, snapping back to the present as he inhaled her clean, untainted scent. No magic, no mixed blood, just a human girl—no, a young woman now. She smelled like nothing more complicated than warmth and sunlight that stirred the deepest part of him. None of the pain, blood, or fear from their first meeting. Or the righteous anger when he’d gotten arrested for taking her to the hospital so she wouldn’t have to die after all.
For the first time since they’d pulled Gunnar from solitary, he felt the rest of himself wake up. The beast that made his blood black, the source of the sins of his existence.
If he could curl up at her feet in that peaceful quiet she radiated, he might just do that.
Gunnar inhaled deeper, trying to ground himself, his mind spinning a bit. Did she smell this . . . good was a poor word to describe her scent, but was it this good just because she was human?
He’d encountered human women now and again over the years, although they’d rightly steered clear of him, and he’d done the same. But Gunnar’d been close enough to scent them, and every time he’d wondered what all the fuss was about. He’d never gone into some frenzied rut, never had the overwhelming urge to fuck and impregnate because of his vileblood.
And he didn’t feel that way now, either. This woman’s scent calmed him in a way he couldn’t explain, the same damn thing that’d happened when he saved her life that night in the slums; he’d been drawn to the scent first, then overcome by the urge to protect, not rape or kill.
The woman in question blinked a few times back at him, her inhale sharp and almost choked. Hazel eyes widened; eyebrows shot up. Her mouth hung open, unabashed, as she stared right back at him, cataloging him from head to toe, then back around again before settling on his face. She couldn’t have been an inch over five feet, with freckles in nonsensical patterns all over her visible skin. Her fine hair, a shade between blond and brown, was pulled back in a tight bun, but a few little curls escaped here and there.
No glamours to make her seem like something she wasn’t, no attempts to hide herself. She stood there in scuffed flats, her clothes barely suitable for a lawyer representing their own case. Hand-me-downs with worn seams, but clean and pressed, in a taupe pantsuit that didn’t do her any favors.
“Oh,” she whisper-exhaled, and then a smile burst free. Gunnar’s breath caught as her scent washed bright with joy. In a soft voice filled with wonder, she said, “It’s you.”
He’d cleaned up a bit since she first saw him, hadn’t he? Gunnar couldn’t help a smirk. A bit of his former self clawed to the surface under such a blatant assessment. “Like what you see then?”
Her smile faltered, and she bloomed. She went so flushed, stumbling to form any words, and embarrassment saturated her scent, sweet on his tongue. Been years since he’d seen or smelled a woman, and he couldn’t help but appreciate the one in front of him.
The archivist stepped between them, scowling not unlike the warden. “You will be respectful. This may be Esquire Doe’s case, but I have kept the right to end her counsel at any point in this process.”
“Theodore, stop.” Her scent spiked with concern, watery and sour. Gunnar found he didn’t like that scent much at all. “I was being rude. It’s fine.”
He liked her making excuses for him even less.
“No disrespect intended,” Gunnar offered, showing his open hands as much as he could given the chains. “Been awhile since I’ve talked to anyone, out of practice being civilized.”
“You should bring yourself up to practice post-haste.” To Esquire Doe, he said, “Come.”
When he took her elbow, she shrugged him off. “I can walk without help. Thank you.”
Esquire Doe blushed as she sat, glancing nervously at Gunnar. He wondered where that steel spine she’d used to put Warden Kushiel in his place had wandered off to. She shuffled through her papers as she composed herself, pushing back her escaped hair a few times after tucking it behind her ear. The apples of her cheeks stayed pink, but when she regarded him again, Esquire Doe seemed back in control. As tempted as he was to ruffle her more, an impulse as strong as the desire to see that smile of hers again, he behaved.
“I’m not sure how much you knew about the previous version of the Vilestars Accord?”
“Besides locked up for life?” Gunnar smirked despite his good intentions toward respect. “Details didn’t really seem to matter.”
She winced. “Of course not, sorry.” She cleared her throat, and it was almost like a blanket settled over her. “The previous version of the Vilestars Accord dictated anyone with vileblood be imprisoned, regardless of any other lineages. Our work overturned this, opening up the revised Accord to allow children to be monitored but not caged. From now on, vilebloods will be cataloged by the Citadel but not punished for existing.
“Any vileblood currently imprisoned are entitled to a review. Those without criminal records will be released and given reparations. Those who have a criminal history will also be reviewed, and if applicable, released on a conditional parole, with reparations controlled by a designated trustee until the parole period is complete. Any parole violations will cause imprisonment under a sentence appropriate to the crime. Those who have committed crimes assigned as irredeemable will remain imprisoned for life, under regulated, humane conditions, verified annually.”
Esquire Doe let out a long exhale after she finished her memorized speech, cheeks still a pleasant pink. This woman radiated optimism while the archivist remained politely neutral, although it was pretty damn clear he didn’t want to be here.
“You got me a nicer room. Thanks for that,” he drawled. “What I don’t get is why’re you still here, aside from making sure Kushiel didn’t toss me back in a hole as soon as you left.”
Her brow knit. “To get you paroled.”
This time, he chuckled. “Seems you know your shit, which means you already know what I’ve done. You really think that angel with a hard-on about my ancestors is going to let me walk out of here?”
“Respectful,” the archivist chided.
“He won’t have a choice if an Archival Tribunal rules in your favor,” she said, and for all the tiny thing she was, she spoke with firm confidence. “And yes, I know what you’ve done and what you haven’t.” Her chin tipped up. “You were taken as a child, thrown into a prison ill-equipped to separate children from adults, and had to fight for your survival. Killing, like anyone may have in your situation.
“You escaped when you could—still a child—and did your best to stay free and alive, your only kills outside prison walls the mercenaries who tried to capture you.” She scoffed. “You stole food. And you were still a child when they threw you into Madagascar Penitentiary, also known as the best example of a hell on Earth—which says a lot, given how many iterations of hell spawned during the Aperien Event. The Madagascar guards died during a riot, which makes it impossible to blame you specifically for their deaths, and yet they did anyway.”
Gunnar wondered how she’d picked out those details about the Madagascar guards. He’d never argued when the blame fell his way, hadn’t seen the point.
She kept right on going. “Again, you escaped. Again, you stole to live. Again, you killed only to remain free—only in self-defense. And the charges for solicitation are absurd, applied because you . . .” She cleared her throat, red to the ears now. “Because you were underage at the time, making the transaction illegal. But those specific regulations are defunct now anyway because that Independent holding no longer exists.
“Nothing about your actions shows an out-of-control monster bent on exterminating humankind through serial rape and murder, like all vilebloods are ‘destined’ to be.”
Esquire Doe rolled her eyes at the last part. The way she said it made him grin. She made herself sound all stuffy and prim, likely quoting someone she’d argued with before. She talked with her hands now, becoming more and more engrossed as she lectured him about his past.
He would’ve kicked up his feet and crossed his arms, waved her on if he could’ve.
“This is a fundamental problem with chasing after people—Aperiens, humans, dusters, anyone—based on their blood. Humanity has a terrible history with this kind of thing before the Aperien Event, and we clearly passed our flaws right on to all the things we imagined. We’ve debated nature versus nurture for centuries. It littered mythos and folklore even before it all manifested.
“Was Lucifer himself—your great sire—not a perfect example? If there was anything good imagined, was it not angels? And yet we, humanity, already imagined the fall. But if anyone can fall, it stands to argue that anyone can rise.”
The archivist’s features softened as he watched Esquire Doe, this human woman, debating the fundamentals of good and evil. He seemed amused but also proud.
“Maybe you would’ve become a killer regardless,” she went on. “But instead of having the chance to rise or fall on your own choices, they decided your path for you. And yet you were strong enough to survive.” She cleared her throat again, staring down at her hands. “All of which would be challenging to prove.”
The archivist chuckled and patted her hand. “Most worthy ambitions are challenging.” He arched a brow in Gunnar’s direction. “Which is why, if this man were anyone else, I would have pushed you to start with an . . . easier case. Perhaps one who didn’t show a certain enthusiasm for his kills.”
Gunnar grinned, toothy and wide, then shrugged. “You heard her. I did what I had to do.”
“Not always,” Esquire Doe said quietly. When she lifted her head, those hazel eyes dug into him, deep down, and he felt like an exposed nerve as she went on. “You didn’t have to save me. You could have walked by—dozens of people already had.”
Her hands shook now, and the archivist frowned at her. “Audrey, you don’t—”
“No, I do.” Her focus never left Gunnar, paling as she remembered the moment that brought them together. He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable, the chains clinking. “Stopping my attacker was more than you had to do. But then you carried me to the hospital to save my life. You knew the risks. You knew you’d most likely get caught. And being inside the Eastern Seaboard Conjunct’s borders? You knew you’d end up right here, in the only prison on Earth with a zero percent escape rate.
“You saved my life, and now I believe I can save yours. I’m a living witness on your behalf, a human with nothing to gain from your release.” She shrugged. “I believe that’s enough to prove your blood does not define your nature.”
Gunnar inhaled, and sure as shit, she believed every damn word.
The locks buzzed and hissed, four in succession, and Warden Kushiel swept into the room. “Are we concluded, then?”
Esquire Doe snapped to her feet, her delicate hands in tight fists. “Counsel visitation sessions are an hour.” She glanced pointedly at her wristwatch—an analog, Gunnar noted.
Gunnar smelled the satisfaction leaking off the warden, smoky and dense. “Ah, a thousand pardons, esquire. The request must have been logged as his monthly personal visitation—an addition, you may recall, added to the revised Accord. We are still acclimating to these new demands. Personal visits are only for thirty minutes. I would accommodate you, but this room is the only approved space for our high-risk prisoners, and it is booked out for the duration of the day.”
Gunnar chuckled, the lie ripe on the air, but there was nothing to prove it.
The archivist knew as well, or at least suspected. He started gathering the paperwork. “Esquire Doe, would you be so kind as to sign us out? I’m sure Warden Kushiel can accommodate me a moment to clean up, as he quite understands the importance of proper record keeping.”
The woman in question nearly vibrated with frustration, her anger as palpable to Gunnar’s nose as the angel’s smug satisfaction. Something unspoken passed between the archivist and Esquire Doe. With a curt nod, she left him with the paperwork.
“Three minutes,” Warden Kushiel clipped, never stepping into Gunnar’s line of view, and the locks sealed on the echo of Esquire Doe’s heels.
Gunnar reclined as much as he could, which was minimal. “Theo, was it?”
“Archivist or Archivist Avialian will do.” He organized the paperwork with care, tucking it neatly back into Esquire Doe’s satchel one piece at a time, slow about it.
“Alright. Is this where you warn me, maybe put a few threats on the table like our buddy Kushiel?”
“Oh, I think the warden has that well in hand. I may have fought on the same side as him in the Vilestars War, but his losses during the conflict were much more personal. If it wasn’t obvious to you already, he will oppose our efforts at every turn.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty clear. Though I’m not sure those efforts will shake out, not like your girl wants.”
The archivist slipped another paper into the bag. “Because you do not believe the claims she makes? Or that she is wrong about her assessment of your past actions? Or perhaps you believe yourself incapable or undeserving of redemption?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think if the deck is stacked. Pretty sure they ward this prison against any kind of wishing or luck.”
His comment shaved an inch off the archivist’s stony demeanor, and the man actually chuckled. “In that, you are correct. As for the rest, all I can offer you is this: I serve the Icelandic Citadel of Knowledge. My father serves on the Citadel Pantheon. If I believed this an endeavor with no merit, I would not subject Audrey to false hope.”
Gunnar grunted. “What’s she to you then?”
“A rare heart in a battered world. She is good, Mr. Gunnar, not for the sake of it or the rewards, but because that is her true and uncomplicated nature.” He arched a brow. “And you—”
“Are the debt she needs to clear, I get it. And it’s just Gunnar.”
The archivist laughed this time, shaking his head. He slung the satchel over his wide shoulder, stopping when he reached Gunnar’s side. He hesitated, then sighed before patting his arm. Gunnar flinched, but it didn’t do any good. He couldn’t move more than an inch in these damn chains, and the archivist squeezed in response to his attempt to jerk away.
“You are the man who saved a child who’d been thrown away and gave her a second chance at life. One which she has not squandered. Remarkable, don’t you think, how a young woman—a human woman no less—with nothing to her name, climbed her way to esquire status by initiating the largest overhaul to a magical Accord in history?”
“I thought that was your show?”
He hummed. “It was, in name. Audrey sought the Citadel’s aid by filing an impressive request for reform, thorough enough to draw high-level attention. Of course, such a sweeping measure couldn’t be left to a human child—she was only seventeen at the time—and hope to be given any consideration. They assigned me to the task. She was brought on as my assistant and granted esquire status for her exemplary work when the new version of the Accord passed.
“I offered her much more, not the least of which was an archival position at the Citadel, but she has refused every boon save one: That I help her win your freedom.”