Chapter 20
Do I Look like a Basic Kinda Woman? and Other Dangerous Questions, Take That, Bazzy Baz!
As if I were going to run away at the first opportunity, Baz walked beside me, leaving no more than a couple of feet between us when the rope allowed for at least three times that. Even more annoying, he was bumping into me on purpose.
I was more likely to bash his head in for being an irksome ass than I was to run. I hadn’t yet gotten the revenge I’d come after Baz for in the first place.
If Baz truly wasn’t Teo’s murderer, then someone else was. Having been gone for the last three-plus centuries, and with him having informants all over the empire, after Rafaela and Alonso he was my best bet at the information that would lead me to Teo’s real killer.
For once, Mauldrene was leading us directly to our destination.
Terencia’s entourage had taken over the largest of the castle’s sitting rooms. Being the most spacious, all the couches and chaises could be dragged to the center of the space, farthest from the shadows licking like flames along the walls.
The Bazrians, sans Lev and Moncho, and I were about to enter when Aziza knocked into me. I spun toward her so rapidly that my collar rattled like a damnable bell.
When her hands came up to show she meant no harm, I turned my glower on Baz instead. It was a perfectly good scowl; I wasn’t going to waste it.
“Take the fucking collar off,” I snarled.
“No.”
“I’m not your pet. I don’t need a scorching bell.”
“No, you’re not my pet. You are, however, the most dangerous female I’ve met in a really long time, maybe ever.”
“Hey,” Aziza said. “Ed and I take offense to that. Don’t we, Ed?”
When we all glanced at her, Ed shrugged. “Can’t say I was offended, Zi. I’ve read the stories about her. She was pretty great.”
“Is,” I corrected. “I am pretty great, you know, since I’m standing right here. Where does all this come from, anyway? Before I was … before I disappeared, the contemporary stories told of me as a perhaps somewhat extraordinary princess, but certainly nothing dangerous.”
Rafaela had levied favors and threats all over Zaraga to ensure no one knew she deployed me as her assassin.
Most courtiers hadn’t even known that when Teo and I arrived at the castle, we’d come first from the streets and later from the fighting pits.
When had that changed? Baz had also known I had a kill count in the high double digits.
“No one considers you ‘just a princess,’” Ed said. “Not if they’ve bothered to study about the world pre-empire.”
“The world pre-empire,” I repeated. “Those were good days.” Only, that was a lie, wasn’t it? There really hadn’t been many good days, just days that were better than others, making the days that were so much worse just a little more bearable.
This won’t last forever. It will end.
“Once you were pronounced dead,” Ed said, “entire books were written about you.”
Baz cracked a smile. Beneath his still-dark eyes—the blackness had begun to fade some, leaving his ocean eyes muddy like treacherous, churned waters—it was as menacing as the man himself.
“I’ve read all of them,” he said. “I found the material fascinating.” His smile faded. “Almost as if I knew we’d meet.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Someone took me, and whoever did made damn sure everyone thought I was dead.” I looked at each of them. “Don’t believe everything you read.”
“We don’t,” Baz said.
The clatter of something smashing against the other side of the door was accompanied by a yelping scream, before people began shouting at each other.
I turned and stalked toward the double doors.
“Wait,” Baz said. “Zi, why did you stop her?”
“It’s okay. She’s good to go now. Just wanted to double check her veil.”
With my hand already reaching for the door, I faced her. “Wait, a veil? You didn’t say anything about a veil.”
“We told you I was doing stuff to temporarily disguise your appearance.”
“Did you really, though? None of you will tell me a damn thing straight-up. I don’t even understand what Baz did with the phantom, and I was standing right next to him.”
“Do you actually wonder why? Because if that confuses you, you’re less intelligent than I thought.”
“Ah, well, at least you thought I was intelligent. That speaks to your own intelligence. Now, tell me about this veil. I thought you were just doing basic magic.”
“Do I look like a basic kinda woman?”
“That depends.”
“On what?” Aziza asked sharply.
“On what kind of veil you put on me.”
“You called me ‘basic,’ which anyone with working senses can tell I’m far from.” She sauntered past me, yanked open the door, and tossed back, “So you can fucking figure it out on your own.”
Ed walked in after her as Aziza’s voice rose above the din.
“Calm down, everyone. Calm down! Your prince is here to help. We’re all here to help.”
Something crashed against the wall near her and Ed.
“Fiery flames,” Ed grumbled.
“Knock it off,” yelled Aziza.
Baz and I jogged into the sitting room, with Night and Félix immediately following.
All thirteen of Terencia’s nobles, including her lady’s maids, who should probably have been attending to their empress, huddled back-to-back in the center of the room.
Some knelt on chaises, others crouched behind them.
Most of them clutched some sort of ornamental statuary or goblet; a couple wielded bottles full of blood—human, from the smell which escaped from the still-corked vessel.
The man I’d last seen in a pompous, sky-blue wig now wore a sunshine-yellow one, styled long and then pulled back from his face with scattered plaits—much like Baz wore his hair.
Only where Baz ornamented his with copper and silver rings, leather cord, and the occasional bead—currently carved from onyx—the nobleman had his woven through with sky-blue ribbons.
Was sky-blue his theme color? I shuddered to find out.
Sky-Blue alone held a dagger. Its blade gleamed as if freshly polished, and the gemstones that adorned its grip were too numerous for practicality. Nevertheless, he gripped it with familiarity and steadiness.
“By the Ethers,” Baz exclaimed. “What is going on here?”
“It’s blats,” Sky-Blue said. “They’re fast little diabscures.
You can’t see them right now. They dive down at us, then zip back up to hide in the shadows where we can’t get them.
” Pointing it at the ceiling, he waved his dagger menacingly.
Lumoonlight danced across several of its gemstones, making them sparkle violet and blue.
“They’re scared of us. They know if they come within range, I’ll lop off their wings, gut them, and then claim their ugly little heads as my trophies. ”
“What’s a blat?” I asked. “And what’s a diabscure?”
Despite the imminent threat of these blats, every noble abandoned their defense to peer at me.
I should have held on to my questions. But if something was about to attack, it was important that I knew what, especially unarmed and otherwise limited as I was.
Thanks to the mysterious veil Aziza had presumably illusioned onto me, it would already be blatantly clear I was an outlander.
“A diabscure is a terrifying, hideous monster that feeds on fear and darkness,” said a lady’s maid.
Her status as attendant to the empress was marked by a pin of the Rubor Dynasty crest attached to her corset.
The pair of dragons, rearing back-to-back, were fashioned from glittering rubies, and the flames they breathed were carved from a fire opal to look as if they actually burned.
That sole trinket would have kept my siblings and I fed for years when we’d lived on the streets of Montressón.
“Though diabscures do have remarkably fine taste in shoes,” she continued. “I won’t deny them that, especially as they might kill me for saying otherwise. If you know not what one is, consider yourself fortunate.”
I considered myself many things; fortunate had never been one of them.
“And a blat is a creature that looks and behaves somewhat like a black bat.”
“A black bat. Then why not simply call it a black bat?”
“Say ‘black bat’ ten times fast.”
I really tried very hard not to obey. But blackbat, blackbat, blackbat, blackbat began looping through my mind. Suddenly, blat made much more sense.
“Besides,” she said, “they aren’t just black. They’re made of pure darkness. Shadow. Like the abyss.”
“I see.”
She stared. Her fellow aristos all stared.
“Uh … thank you for explaining?”
“Who are you?” Sky-Blue asked.
“A special envoy from Orania,” Baz said. “She’s here to discuss matters of the empire.”
Could the man not have chosen a place I was actually familiar with for his deception?
“Did you find Our Dominance?” Sky-Blue asked.
Baz hesitated. “No. My father the emperor’s whereabouts are currently unknown.”
The nobles gasped, forgetting the weapons dangling from their limp hands.
As if the blats were cunning enough to spot the advantage, dozens of them materialized from the darkness and dive-bombed.
They swooped at the nobles as bats would, but left behind trailing shadows like showers of fledgling-raven feathers—very much unlike every bat I’d ever seen.
The lady’s maids shrieked, ducking, and plastered both hands over their careful hairdos.
Sky-Blue squealed and dropped his bedazzled dagger, with which he evidently was not going to maim a single blat.
His only trophy was to be a battered ego.
And a man swathed in a sheath of iridescent indigo-blue dusted in gold, like a proud male trufy bird, screamed as if he were being consumed alive—fancy pantsuit and all.
Impromptu weapons clattered to the floor, where shadows that swirled along the walls stretched to slink over them, eliciting more shrieks …
which startled the group all over again, leading to even more yipping—and very much less of the calm Aziza had implored.
Night was shaking his head. “Like the trufy.”
“Only the females do this. The males have incredible plumage,” Félix said.