Chapter 5 #2
I want to train properly. With you. Our time at the Blood Court isn’t forever.
I am not their real queen. I have no interest in flouncing around Ammontraíeth, pretending to lord it over my reluctant subjects.
I need to stay fit, and I still need to learn how to wield Solace properly.
The sword is so heavy, I can barely hold it.
Fisher didn’t even bat an eyelid. Done. Though you might want to train with Lorreth, if you really want to learn.
Why not you?
He gave me the faintest look of reproval, as if I should already know the answer to this.
I can run drills with you, Osha. I can raise a sword to you and pull my blows.
I can show you footwork and teach you about warcraft.
What I cannot do is attack you like it’s real.
And that’s what you need, if you truly want to learn how to fight with a sword.
The stakes must be genuine for you to learn how to think and react under pressure.
And I will never come at you with everything I’ve got.
You are my mate. I’m in love with you. I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to. Which . . . he added softly, I do not.
“Are you two even list—urgh! They’re not even listening.
” Carrion was on his feet, standing over the bag of heads.
Lorreth watched him, dark eyes full of amusement, apparently trying not to laugh.
Taladaius had rolled one of the heads out of the bag and was inspecting it closely while studiously ignoring Carrion.
How he managed it, I would never know. It was as if he could completely tune him out.
I felt a frisson of annoyance rise in Fisher, though he didn’t show it outwardly when he addressed the smuggler. “Apologies, Swift. You have our full and rapt attention. What seems to be the issue?”
“I was just going to point out that there is something else worth noting about these feeders,” he said tartly. “But if no one’s interested in hearing what that is—”
“Just spit it out,” Fisher commanded.
“Well, I mean, I haven’t spent a great deal of time studying feeders, but—” He shoved another slice of apple into his mouth as he bent over the rotting heads, squinting at them.
At least he finished chewing before he finished his sentence.
“From what I can recall, they normally come from Yvelia, right?”
“Yes, of course,” Lorreth answered.
“Well, these ones are from Zilvaren.”
“What?” I took an involuntary step forward. “What are you talking about?”
“Are the feeders normally marked here? Tattoos and the like?” Carrion asked.
Taladaius looked up, turning his stoic gaze upon Carrion.
“Some slaves are branded when they’re turned, yes, but most members of court don’t bother.
Feeders are bound to the high blood who made them, no matter what.
They will only obey their sires. They have no choice in the matter.
Runes and tags of ownership are never required since dead-stock cannot be stolen. ”
Feeder. High blood. Deadstock.
There was so much to unpack in that statement and no real time to do so. Taladaius continued, “Why? What have you noticed?”
Carrion shrugged and dropped into a crouch, humming thoughtfully as he studied the head that was half sticking out of the bag. He quickly grew frustrated and took hold of the sack, upending it so that all eight of the heads toppled out and went rolling across the floor.
He went to the female head first—the one that had been sticking out of the bag—and carved himself off another slice of the apple, sliding it into his mouth and crunching loudly.
“Two things. The first is right there,” he said, nodding down at the head.
“On its neck. That looks like a pretty intentional marking to me. Saeris, come and tell me what you make of it.”
One of the dismembered heads opened its mouth, thick black ichor running over its chipped teeth and pooling on the floor. Its bloodshot eyes rolled wildly in its head. Nasty. “I can see just fine from here, thanks.”
Carrion rolled his eyes. He huffed as he made his way across the council chamber and reached out for my wrist—
Kingfisher was suddenly there, angled in front of me. Surprisingly, his expression was blank. “Do you like having fingernails, Carrion?” he asked politely.
“I—” Carrion gaped. “I do, actually.”
“I thought so.” My mate said nothing more.
Carrion quirked an eyebrow, pulling a face, widening his eyes as he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “All right, then. I take it that means that I should not attempt to touch your girlfriend?”
“Oh, sinners,” Lorreth muttered under his breath.
“She isn’t my girlfriend. She’s my mate,” Fisher said quite amicably. “And if any part of your body, literally any part of it, comes into contact with hers, then I will remove it.”
Carrion thought about this. “What about if she’s hanging off a cliff by one hand and can’t hold on much longer? Can I touch her then?”
“Where am I in this unlikely scenario?”
“Probably dead.”
Fisher just gave him a tight smile. “If I’m dead, then—”
“Urgh! You’re ridiculous, both of you! I’d rather poke a dismembered head than bear witness to this. Just stop already!” I shoved them aside and crossed the chamber to the godscursed heads. Lorreth stooped and picked up the female feeder’s head by the hair, holding it out for me to see.
Sure enough, there was a mark on its neck, just as Carrion had said. My stomach bottomed out the second I saw it. Carrion had known precisely what it was. “Oh,” I whispered.
The mark, an X behind the female’s earlobe, had once been a simple tattoo, but now it was made of knotted veins, bulging up beneath the skin. They looked necrotic, and they pulsed, echoing with the memory of a heartbeat that no longer fed them.
My hand raised of its own accord, moving to my neck and the small black cross hidden behind my hair.
I couldn’t say the words. Fisher did it, albeit a little breathlessly. “Your sterilization mark? Is that what . . .” He nodded to the head that Lorreth still held. “Does she have it, too?”
I nodded.
“The second clue that these feeders aren’t Yvelian is staring you right in the face,” Carrion said.
My stomach rolled at the weightless, sick feeling that formed there. “Their ears.”
“Gods alive,” Taladaius groaned. “How did none of us notice? They’re round! Their fucking ears are round. They’re human.”
“They could have been here from before,” I said. “Yvelia was full of humans once, back before the blood curse, right?”
But my maker was shaking his head. “Deadstock have a limited shelf life here.
The dark magic that causes them to rise from death reanimates them, yes, but it is temporary.
Their bodies still decay. Eventually they fall apart and go back to the dirt.
Five years. Maybe ten. These feeders have been dead weeks rather than months.
They still have their hair. Some of them have their tongues—
“All right. All right. I . . . get the picture.” I was suddenly overcome with the need to sit down. “What does this mean, then? People are jumping into the quicksilver pool in Zilvaren whenever we open the gates? They’re coming through in Cahlish and . . . being attacked there?”
“No.” Fisher’s expression was stormy. His leathers creaked as he paced up and down, trying to piece this together.
“They can’t have come through in Cahlish.
They would have been found immediately. And anyway, they would have to want to come here specifically for the quicksilver to deliver them here.
And forgive me if I’m wrong, but the people in Zilvaren know nothing of this place. ”
“Right.” Carrion nodded.
“It’s also impossible for someone to just sneak into Madra’s palace and hide in the Hall of Mirrors on the off chance that the quicksilver will wake. No . . .” Fisher shook his head. “This is intentional. This is Madra’s doing. This . . . is how the rot got here in the first place.”
“You think she infected them with it?” Lorreth asked. “We’ve seen that kind of warfare before. Fae, sick with one illness or another, sent into the middle of military camps to kill off all the warriors there.”
Fisher said nothing, his face a mask of furious concentration. The sound of his footsteps echoed around the chamber as he prowled up and down like a caged beast.
She hears . . .
The quicksilver laughed in the back of my mind, as if it knew the answer to these questions we were trying to unravel and had no plans of shedding light on the situation.
Its whispers had been plaguing me for days now, and they were growing louder.
It was perfect timing that it would choose now to harass me.
I closed my eyes, hands trembling at my sides. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t breathe. A stab of pain relayed up my arm as the whispers grew louder still, the runes on the back of my right hand throbbing . . .
She hears us. Oh yes, she hears. She will come. Soon. Soon. Soon.
Finally, I’d had enough. My eyes snapped open. “There’s a pool here, isn’t there? It’s small, but I can sense it.”
Fisher stopped his pacing. He looked at me questioningly, then slowly turned his frown on Taladaius, whose gray eyes seemed reflective as mirrors for a moment. My maker drew a long, displeased breath, and then nodded. “Yes,” he said, confirming my suspicions. “Ammontraíeth has always had a pool.”