Chapter 39 Keeper of Secrets
KEEPER OF SECRETS
SAERIS
Consider a sixth. Only the golden-toothed wolf can be trusted.
—Entry from the journal of Edina of the Seven Spires
“SHUNNED! SHUNNED!”
The screams were deafening.
Taladaius spun around, too confounded to speak. Beside me, Fisher covered his mouth with his hand and laughed softly under his breath. You certainly know how to light a match, he said, amused. Are you having fun yet?
No! This is not fun, Fisher. This is fucking stressful!
It seemed as though Foley mirrored my sentiments.
On his knees, he winced every time something hit him in the back; the high bloods were lobbing things at him.
Pieces of food. Cutlery. A shoe. A plate sailed through the air, and that was where I had to draw the line.
“Enough! Sit down,” I growled. “I name Foley Briarstone friend to this throne!”
That was all that had to be said. The edict I had made at my coronation took care of everything else. No member of the Blood Court could harm anyone I named a friend. With eight short words, I had ensured that no one in Ammontraíeth would ever harm Foley again.
“What farce is this?” Algat had been notably missing from the hall until now.
She bullied her way through the knot of high bloods and pushed Taladaius out of the way in her hurry to get to Foley.
She circled the male, her small black shadow cat prowling around her feet as she did so.
Guru yowled when he saw Foley and stretched out into a bow, rubbing his head against the male’s thighs.
Algat witnessed this and snarled. She bared yellowed, rat-like teeth and kicked the cat.
The blow would certainly have done some damage had Guru not dematerialized into a swath of shadows a second before her foot made contact with his side; obviously the creature had practice avoiding her boots.
“He cannot be here,” she seethed, stabbing a finger at Foley.
“It is my will.”
Foley’s cheeks burned bright red. The tips of his ears, too. Guru had rematerialized and had leaped up into his lap and was begging for affection from him. The male didn’t seem to know what to do or where to look. He stroked the cat’s head, not meeting anyone’s gaze.
The witch sputtered, furious. She reminded me of one of the crones who used to stand outside Kala’s, spitting on people who emerged from the building and telling them their souls were damned to hell for fornication and drinking.
“He can’t serve this court. How can he, when he refused to swear fealty to Sanasroth? ”
Algat realized her argument was flawed even as she made it. Her rheumy eyes drifted to the Hazrax, which stood at the head of its point on the star mosaic below the dais, unmoving, unspeaking, its long hands tucked inside the belled sleeves of its robe. She already knew what I was about to say.
“The Hazrax is not a member of this court. It has not sworn fealty to Sanasroth or a single vampire here, and yet it has been a Lord of Midnight for many centuries.”
“Yes, but that’s—”
“Different? I fail to see how.” I felt it then: the bullying push at the wall that shielded my mind.
It was Algat, scrambling to get in, even though I had forbidden her from rifling around inside my head.
Despite the command, she was still trying .
. . and my fury rose like a wave of vengeance summoned by the gods themselves.
I imagined knives, scores of them, hovering in the air, pointed tip-first at the wall.
I lowered the wall, only long enough to send the blades hurtling forward, then brought it back up as quickly as I could.
Algat swayed, eyelids fluttering, eyes rolling back into her head, as a river of blood gushed from her nose, pouring down her chin.
There would be no more tiptoeing around this one. If she wouldn’t toe the line, I would make her. If she wanted violence, it would be hers.
“What have you done?” The shriek came from Zovena. The female bore no love for Algat, but here was an opportunity to create a scene. She was hardly likely to let it pass. And she was afraid. I could scent it on her, the smell like soiled bedsheets and fever. She was afraid that she might be next.
“Today is a day of lessons,” I said. “Algat will be fine. But she should be careful where she trespasses.”
The Keeper of Records wobbled unsteadily, but within a moment or two she had regained her balance and was scowling at me again.
Algat cuffed her chin, smearing her blood up her face even as she tried to wipe it away.
“My apologies,” she rasped. “I only tried to make you see reason. The Hazrax does not count in this instance. It does not weigh in on politics. Nor does it ever opt to cast its vote. This male would do both, and to the detriment of this court. If he will not swear fealty—”
“It was Malcolm I wouldn’t swear fealty to,” Foley said softly. “I’ll swear it to her.”
Well, damn.
I hadn’t been expecting that.
We’d come a long way from him trying to kill me in the library, it would seem. I would never have dreamed I’d hear those words coming out of Foley’s mouth. He was earnest and clear-eyed as he gestured to the steps, asking wordlessly if he could approach the throne.
I nodded my consent.
The male dropped to one knee at my feet, pulling a dagger from the sheath on his belt. He held it up to show me.
Strange, sad eyes, with vertical, slit pupils met mine.
“I was reminded recently that I was a wolf,” he said, smiling softly.
“And wolves do not cower in dusty libraries, afraid of their own shadows. I swear myself to you, Saeris Fane. I will carry out your bidding so long as there is breath left in me. And when I pass from this place and move on to the next, I will carry your banners there and storm the gates of heaven in your name if you wish it.”
He closed his hand around his blade and drew it free, staining it deepest, darkest crimson with his blood. I accepted the weapon from him and used its point to draw forth a bead of my own blood, which was still somehow the same bright red as that of the living.
“I accept you as my sworn male,” I told him. “I accept your loyalty and your service. In return, I offer you the protection of my house. I name you Lord of Midnight.”
Leaning forward, I gave him back his dagger. Foley accepted it, and as he did so I took the opportunity to deaden the air around us so that when I whispered to him, no other would hear. “What made you change your mind?” I asked teasingly.
He huffed out an unsteady bark of laughter under his breath. “Well, I figured if he’s prepared to follow you,” he said, nodding in Fisher’s direction, “then I’d be a fucking idiot not to, wouldn’t I?”
Kingfisher snorted under his breath, but I could tell he was pleased. I was about to tell Foley he was wrong, that Fisher didn’t follow me at all, but the thought never made it to my lips. A shout cut through the air, and then another.
“What now?” Just a moment’s peace. Was that too much to ask for?
When I searched for the source of the shouting, I found that everyone in the hall was suddenly looking up. It had been impossible to tell before, but the sections of the vaulted ceiling were actually panels, and they were peeling back.
“It’s here!” someone cried. “It’s here!”
What’s here?” I twisted around on my chair—my throne—trying to figure out what was causing the commotion, but Kingfisher took my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“The evenlight, Osha. Spirit of the gods.” He pointed toward the night sky, to the west, where a brilliant green, glittering wave of light was rolling across the heavens at tremendous speed.
“They are with us,” Foley muttered, pressing his index finger and middle finger to his forehead, between his brows.
Many of the high bloods mirrored the motion, too.
Surprising, that. Whether they had chosen this life for themselves, or it had been thrust upon them—undying, a perversion of nature, never to know the rest and peace of the afterlife—it stood to reason that they were beyond the sight of the gods here, in this unholy place.
But there were still some among them who worshipped the gods.
They bowed their heads in reverence as a wind ripped through the hall, and the pale green light tore overhead in a shimmering pennant that filled the night sky from horizon to horizon.
It was beautiful. Like nothing I’d ever witnessed before. Not even the aurora that had blazed across the sky after Lorreth had named Avisiéth had been this spectacular.
The evenlight in the torches throughout the hall flared, brightening anew.
The fires burning in the grates strengthened, roaring violently up the backs of multiple hearths.
It was as if, all throughout the Black Palace, the sources of evenlight that already existed were being powered up by the arrival of the shifting green banner in the night sky.
The high bloods forgot Zovena’s attempts to sow discord.
They forgot Algat, and the vampire with the golden teeth on his knees at my feet.
They forgot Tal’s showmanship, and the ever-present threat my mate posed, sitting beside me. As one, the Blood Court craned their necks upward, and they marveled.
Music filled the air—a frenzy of a piece, full of soaring peaks and crashing crescendos.
High bloods flew around on the dance floor, whipping their dance partners around in the dervish, their coattails and full skirts flaring around them as they spun.
Above it all, the firmament glowed, stars winking through the evenlight as if through a veil of thin jade silk.
Thralls topped off the high blood’s wineglasses, sacrificing a drop of their blood into each cup, and the vampires drank. The whole scene was a sight to behold—and one I would gladly have sacrificed in exchange for the peace and quiet of Cahlish, and the presence of my friends.