Chapter VI. Unraveling
VI
UNRAVELING
MARGOT, EMPRESS OF Wolves and Men, was reading.
Jean-Francois stood in his mother’s rooms, hands clasped behind him, staring from a tall window out into the storm.
The Empress’s chambers stood atop a tall tower, commanding an eagle’s view of Sul Adair, but the mighty keep below was yet difficult to see.
Snows fell relentless, thunder shaking the gables high above his head.
And though dusk was already nearing, in truth this day could not end quick enough.
Empress Margot stood surrounded, a small legion of maidservants helping the great Priori of the Shepherds dress.
Half a dozen were weaving her immaculate braids with glittering jewels.
Six more were binding the stays of her magnificent gown, a trio of beauties adorning the Empress’s fingers and throat with gold.
But Margot herself was reading.
Swift as the wings of a hummingbird, she turned one page of Jean-Francois’s history after another, pausing occasionally to admire his artful sketches.
As she reached the death of the Forever King, Jean-Francois heard his mother sigh, and he wondered if she were yet displeased with him.
But at the closing of the final page, Jean-Francois found himself elated as his mother turned to him and slowly inclined her head.
“Well done, Jean-Francois. Well done indeed.”
“It is not the key you hoped for,” he ventured. “There is no secret hidden in the story of the Grail that we may use to bend the knee of the Priorem.”
“On the contrary, Marquis, it is precisely the tool we need. That the Voss squandered their legions along with their First is noteworthy. That they sought to create highbloods without sharing that knowledge with the other lines is cause for further distrust. And that their greatest suffered an end so ignominious lessens them in all our eyes.” Margot glanced to her boudoir—the bloody sheets being stripped from her bed.
“The Draigann hath proved himself compliant to our desires. And Kariim hath quarrel territorial with the Ironhearts aready. If not by this eve’s entertainments, the Spider can be swayed to our side by the knowledge thou hast gleaned. ”
Margot’s lip curled softly.
“For all her venom, Kestrel is weak.”
Turning, the Empress of Wolves and Men walked slow across her chamber, maids following. She stood a foot shorter than the Marquis, yet ever Jean-Francois felt a child in her shadow. But as she gazed up at him, her painted lips curled in a small smile.
“Thou hast pleased me.”
She cupped his cheek, black eyes gleaming.
“My son.”
“It gives me greatest joy to hear it, Mother.”
“Yet thou hast the air of a maid in mourning?”
Jean-Francois glanced to his history on the Empress’s dresser.
“The tale was long in the telling. Perhaps I am simply tired, but I confess, it has … touched somewhat me, Empress.”
“You feel something for him. For them.”
“As would all who read their story, surely?”
“The wolf frets not for the ills of the worm, Marquis.”
Jean-Francois bowed his head.
“Her Grace speaks wisdom, always.”
“Thou art so young, Jean-Francois,” she sighed. “And in sooth, I adore thee for that frailty. But fret not, love. All affection for Gabriel de León shall soon fade, I assure thee. Last impressions linger longest, and not the death of a lion shall he die, but a dog.”
Margot glanced to the hourglass on her armoire.
“Speaking of, shouldst thou not be about preparations? The murder of so great and noble a hero warrants a change of attire, surely? T’would not do to be late.”
Margot turned back to her servants, lifting a hand yet unadorned by gold.
“Until the execution, Marquis.”
“My Empress.”
With a bow, Jean-Francois retreated from his mother’s chambers, never showing his back. In the corridor outside, faithful Dario awaited, hands clasped, eyes downturned.
“What news, love?” Jean-Francois asked.
“The Lion is returned to his cell, Master. But more of the Empress’s men arrived almost as soon as we locked him in.”
“Preparing him for his end, I suppose.”
“Will you attend, Master?”
Jean-Francois sucked his bottom lip, thoughtful.
“Come,” he finally said. “Dress me.”
The pair made their way through the royal wing, past portraits Jean-Francois had painted, down grand and winding stairs and through the vast halls of Sul Adair.
Though the sun had not yet fallen, he could hear soft voices, swift footsteps, beating wings that told him Margot’s court had already begun to rise.
The execution of the greatest hero of the realm and the last child of the greatest line of monsters this world ever knew had the chateau in quiet uproar, and already, Jean-Francois could see fledglings making their way through the shadowed halls, scurrying like rats lest they miss the best vantage.
“Oh! Beauty.”
The words were pillow soft and poison sweet, sending a thrill along Jean-Francois’s skin.
Looking behind him, he found Kariim, Priori of the Ilon, gazing at him with a tiny smile on dark, lush lips.
He was newly stepped from a grand bedchamber, wreathed in the perfume of fresh blood.
Dark braids adorned with gold tumbled over shoulders as broad as heaven.
His frockcoat was likewise gold, crushed velvet, that golden serpent with opal eyes fixed in his white silk cravat.
“What delight,” the Spider smiled, “to gaze ’pon thee again.”
A soft chuckle dragged Jean-Francois’s eyes to the figure on the Spider’s arm.
“Have a care, sweet Kariim,” Kestrel warned. “Press much harder and thou shalt have this gormless whelp in love with thee.”
“Wouldn’t that be just terrible.”
A cold smile curled Kestrel’s lips, but no hint of it reached her eyes as she stared Jean-Francois down.
The Iron Maiden stood at the Spider’s side, pale arm linked through his.
Kestrel wore no armor tonight, clad instead in a silken dress, black as the hair flowing over her bare shoulders.
The gown’s cut was perilous, plunging low and hugging tight, and despite its chill, Jean-Francois was forced to concede the Priori’s dark beauty.
“Dame Kestrel.” He bowed, swallowing. “Lord Kariim. A pleasure, as always.”
“Not so much as it might have been,” the Spider sighed. “But there is always tonight, young Marquis. Prithee, are thy duties for thy fair and noble dam concluded?”
Jean-Francois’s belly rolled, his senses totally overcome as the Priori Ilon wove his silken webs. But the pain in his nethers lingered, his tongue gone dry as dust.
“They are concluded, my lord, but—”
“Come, Kariim.” Kestrel’s gaze was black ice as she slipped deeper onto the Spider’s arm.
“Sunlight fades, and the hour of de León’s fall draws near.
Half twelve of kinsmen and a king besides hath I lost to the teeth of that dog and his wretched sister.
Not all the blood in empire would I trade to belay witness to one second of their suffering. ”
Jean-Francois bowed his head, murmuring.
“My condolences, Dame Kestrel. For the murder of your kin and king besides.”
“Not commiseration my desire, little Shepherd. But retribution.”
Kestrel tightened her grip on the Priori Ilon.
“Come.”
Kariim winked at Jean-Francois, allowing himself to be led away on the Maiden’s arm. Jean-Francois turned, headed toward the stairs leading up to his chambers, stopping so suddenly Dario bumped into his back.
“… Master?” the boy whispered.
“Dame Kestrel?”
The Maiden paused, turning with one eyebrow arched in cold question.
“Forgive me, Priori. But … what you said just now…” Jean-Francois wet his lips, swallowing thickly. “Half twelve of kinsmen? I suppose technically Gabriel de León only helped Dior Lachance kill Prince Danton, but—”
“Brother Danton’s blood stains the Lion’s hands and his sister’s both, as surely as doth sister Morgane’s. Six, my siblings slain by their efforts entwined.”
“… Then you do not weigh Celene responsible for the death of Patience?”
“Patience hath reached its end, surely. But thou art its assassin, little Shepherd.”
“I speak of Patience de León, Priori.”
Kestrel blinked. “Patience de León perished with her slattern mother in a squalid lighthouse off the coast of Alethe. Punishment due for my dear sister Laure.”
“Oui, but afterward…”
The Iron Maiden looked at the historian as if he were moonstruck.
“Afterward? Her pretty head did my father tear from her body, and her virgin blood did he feed unto the ground. Four years hath she rotted in the arms of cold earth, little Shepherd. Of what afterward speak ye, if not a feast for worms?”
“I…”
“Patience de León is dead.”
Bells began tolling, echoing in the great rafters above—the grim parody of a cathedral calling the faithful to mass.
With a soft scoff, the Iron Maiden dismissed the historian, striding now toward the execution with the Spider on her arm, her steps quickening lest she miss a moment of the Black Lion’s torment.
Head swimming, thoughts racing, Jean-Francois ascended to his chambers. Slamming the door at his back, the vampire began stalking back and forth in the dark.
“Master?” Dario asked. “Should I dress—”
“Shut up,” he snapped, raising his hand. “Just shut up, let me think…”
Jean-Francois continued pacing, his mind a tempest now.
His hands were knotted into fists behind him, boots ringing upon cold stone.
Dario touched the chymical globe on his desk, throwing dim light into the boudoir, shadows stretching out beneath him.
The mice in the glass terrarium squeaked, little Marcel and Davide furious at being woken.
A pale moth flew from some dark corner, circling the globe.
“Master, what’s wrong?” Dario whispered.
“He lied.”
The historian shook his head, snarling.
“Don’t you see? De León lied to me!”
“Perhaps the chevalier was mistaken…”
“Mistaken?” Jean-Francois bellowed, whirling on the lad. “Mistaken about his only daughter being kith and not a corpse? Are you crazed, boy?”
That pale moth ascended, circling now about the frightened lad’s head.
Jean-Francois dragged one hand through his hair, fear roiling in his belly.
He’d swallowed it.
God help him, he’d swallowed it all.
And worse, he’d repeated it to his Empress.
“I believed him,” he hissed. “I pitied him. The trembling, the tears, Almighty God…”
He stopped then, whispering.
“If he’d lie about his own daughter … what else did he lie about?”
“He was drinking a lot. Perhaps—”
Furious now, the historian flashed across the room, slamming Dario into the wall.
“He deceived us, you bloody fool! You heard Kestrel. Patience de León died four years ago! The Forever King tore her fucking head off right in front of him; how many oceans of wine would her father have to drink to forget that?”
Dario gritted his teeth, making no reply. Again that pale moth battered the boy’s cheek, almost insistent now. And snarling, the historian snatched and crushed it in his palm.
“No, d—”
Dario flinched, biting on his tongue rather than crying out. Jean-Francois let the remnants fall, brushing the dust of ruined wings from his palm as his eyes narrowed.
“It’s only a moth, boy.”
“… It was pretty.”
The thrall smiled weakly, caressing the vampire’s cheek.
“I like pretty things.”
Dario leaned in, lips brushing against Jean-Francois’s, but the historian pulled away.
Thoughts roiling.
Mind racing.
A moth.
A white moth.
Battering upon the chymical globe in de León’s cell.
The same breed that had been circling the globe in the Liathe’s dungeon.
The same breed?
Jean-Francois blinked.
Or the same moth?
No, no, de León had crushed a white moth in his cell, the night we first spoke.
But … could that have been for show?
He pictured the creature now, beating fragile wings ceaselessly on the glass while he and the silversaint and the Liathe spoke. Tracing those futile courses over and over …
But had they been futile?
Or … had it been tracing out messages one painstaking letter at a time, just as the Liathe had done in the dungeons of Dún Maergenn upon the skin of …
“Lachance.”
White moth.
White wolf.
“Lachance,” he hissed again.
He looked at Dario, the boy swallowing thickly.
“Master?”
“Where did you say Nicolette found you?”
“On the road to Sūdhaem, Master. After she departed Talhost.”
Jean-Francois stepped forward, pushing the thrall back against the wall. The boy’s eyes were stone, his face a mask; but this close, Dario couldn’t quite hide the thunder of his pulse, the scent of his sweat rising soft on that smooth, warm skin.
Jean-Francois’s lips peeled back from his fangs.
“You’re lying, too.”
The boy broke, sudden, savage, kicking the vampire in the chest and sending him back into the desk. The terrarium shattered, glass and mice flying as the thrall drew a familiar silversteel dagger from his boot.
And with a snarl, “Dario” lunged at the historian’s chest.
Jean-Francois was no warrior, no veteran of battles hard fought and won.
And though Dario had seemed the softest, sweetest lad, the vampire saw in him now a rage boundless.
He cried out as the silversteel dagger sank into his chest, but a few inches from his heart. And snarling, he slapped the boy away.
“Stop,” he spat. “Your master comm—”
Dario was on his feet in a blinking, blade raised in his fist. Jean-Francois couldn’t understand—the boy had drunk his blood every night for weeks, he should be thralled a dozen times over. And yet, he flew across the bedchamber with murder in his eyes …
The pair met, the knife sinking into Jean-Francois’s shoulder. Crashing to the floor, the historian flailed, desperate, gasping as his claws sliced Dario’s beautiful face from chin to brow. Blood sprayed, the boy cursed, twisting the knife in Jean-Francois’s flesh.
“Stop this!”
Cursing, hissing, the historian fought, finally seizing the lad’s wrists and forcing them to the stone.
“Stop it! Stop, I command you!”
Dario laughed, spat a mouthful of blood into Jean-Francois’s face.
“Fuck you. Master.”
Jean-Francois scowled as the boy flailed, realization slowly sinking home.
Any who’d supped of her blood was immune to thralldom.
And the historian understood then. Who this boy truly served.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“Nobody’s dog, leech.”
Jean-Francois blinked, cold fear in his belly.
“Joaquin Marenn…”
He clenched his jaw, the tapestry unraveling, bloody sweat rising on his skin as he seized the boy’s throat.
“What is this?” he demanded. “What is happening here?”
“By the blood of the Five was it done. By the blood of the Five shall it be undone.”
“… What?”
The boy sneered, hissing through bloody teeth.
“You should have learned Rousseau, leech.”