Ember in the Gargoyle Night

CHAPTER ONE

They’re gone. Just…gone, their lives as fleeting as a summer breeze. Their light snuffed, like a lone spark swallowed by a sea of black.

The dying sun glinted off frostbitten cobblestones, casting a scarlet sheen as red as the blood I would soon spill.

Council Square’s sleepy, ivory-stoned buildings basked in the crimson glow, its people wary as I stalked down the steps of the hall at my back.

The flames that wreathed my fingertips pulsed in time with the words that paraded through my skull: Lydia, we have him.

We have him. We have him. Screaming droned behind the chant, but it was just a phantom of the terror that had rung through Vircann on the winter solstice fifteen years ago.

Griffon Ryker would burn for that godscursed day. Soon.

Puffs of frost danced in the wake of my heavy footfalls as I crossed the square. People scurried to its fringes, carving a comically wide path as I strode toward the half of the district that housed Privalt’s ruling council and their aides.

I turned onto a quiet avenue lined with nearly identical houses and kept my eyes glued on the park at the end of the street.

Lingering on the perfect little lawns, or cedar doors with those damned iron knockers that offered the only glimpse of who lived there, always ended in tears.

I was far from the house that sat on a corner three blocks over, but they all dredged up memories I had long since tried to bury.

Every step toward Beck’s house fractured the mask of nothingness I’d managed to wield in front of Councilman Bellan.

A long-simmering rage filtered through the cracks.

I paused at the gate in front of his house long enough to pop the latch.

I’d taken two steps toward the door when Astra, Beck’s pet hawk, swooped over my head and through an open window.

“Oh, no you don’t,” I growled.

I darted for the front door, fully aware of how pathetic it was to be racing this man’s pet for his attention. But this was about Griffon. This was the culmination of fifteen years’ worth of blood. And I’d be damned if I was upstaged by a bird—not even a cute one.

I pounded on the door, the smooth wood cool beneath my flushed skin. “Beck!” I called. “Open up!” My fist left sweaty smudges on the delicate grains.

It wasn’t long before he jerked the door open, an unbuttoned shirt perfectly framing his hard body.

He abandoned his efforts to button his pants and swept a hasty gaze over me.

“Lydia? Are you okay?” He brushed my hair off my face, the strawberry blond almost red against his pale skin. “What happened?”

My hands curled into fists. “Bellan just handed me Griffon.”

Beck inhaled sharply and his hand fell away.

“Someone reported that one of the wine dealers in Merchants bragged about making some kind of deal with him. The merchant will tell me where to find him.”

He ran that hand down his own face instead, his eyes growing distant—fifteen years distant, I guessed.

I brushed my finger along his temple, between sandy hair that stuck out in disarray and honeyed eyes rimmed with red. “You were napping.” A fraction of my rage dissipated as I took in his sleepy expression.

He nodded, his attention returning to me. “Long day of negotiations. Trade with…” He shook his head. “It isn’t important. When do we leave?”

I searched his face, my finger trailing down his cheek and neck until my palm lay over his galloping heart. “Beck. You know you don’t want to be there.”

“This time feels different.” Fear edged his voice. “I should be.”

Beck knew what I did to traitors. But knowing and seeing were two entirely different beasts, and this monster was best left in the dark.

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

“Meet me at the south ferry at eight.” The lie slid smoothly off my tongue.

He would forgive me. Thank me, once he realized I’d spared him from nightmares with little barbed claws that were impossible to remove.

His eyes hardened. “Stone will melt, if the fire is hot enough.”

“And none burns hotter than hatred.” Every drop of that loathing coated my words with venom.

I fisted my hand in his shirt before letting it fall and turning my back on him. We were just two of the dozen orphaned the night the gargoyles, humanity’s sworn protectors, turned on us and destroyed everything we loved. I would rectify that situation. Soon.

Soon, they would all burn.

I seethed outside Tablor’s Tastes as I peered up at a second-story window.

Flickering lantern light threw shadows around the room as the owners talked and laughed inside.

As if they weren’t guilty of treason. Or working with one of the stonetalons who had attacked this city all those years ago.

Like Cyprian wasn’t still a smoldering ruin on the southern coast, its people slaughtered a mere week after Vircann’s.

The sight made me want to vomit in the middle of the street.

I stormed to the back door of the wine shop and set my finger against the keyhole. My hottest flames flooded the lock until its guts were nothing but molten globs of fire and metal that leaked down the wood. I nudged the door and it swung open on silent hinges.

The room was crammed with shelves of alcohol and tables that sagged under piles of soft, fluffy bread and a dozen different cheeses.

The walls were the deep red of wine but the only thing I could see was blood.

Soon, they wouldn’t be the only things painted crimson.

My palms began to sweat at the thought, but I swept past it all and crept up the stairs to the residence above.

A warm circle of light flooded the sitting room from the kitchen beyond, illuminating thick carpets and lavish tapestries that depicted each of the four gods reveling in their lunar kingdoms. A high-pitched peal of laughter sliced through the chatter.

My eye twitched. I crept to the demarcation of shadow and light and peered into the kitchen.

A family sat around a small table beside the cooking area.

They drank their own wine and stuffed their faces as they laughed, oblivious of what lurked in the darkness behind them.

Jeremy and Macy Tablor, according to Bellan.

And a teenage daughter he had failed to mention.

My eyes narrowed on the girl’s slim shoulders as she sat between her parents.

I crossed that stark line and opened my palms. The lanterns flared and flooded the space with bright, golden light.

They all jumped and whirled around. Jeremy lunged for his daughter, but I flicked my finger and ignited his grasping hand for the space of a breath.

Just long enough to sting. For him to know what would happen if I didn’t make it stop.

He didn’t need to know that wasn’t how I killed traitors.

Not anymore. Not after that first, awful death that still lurked in some dark corner of my mind.

I pitched my voice higher and sang, “I don’t think so,” even though the words tasted like ash.

I darted for the girl’s thin arm and hauled her out of the chair and against my chest before laying a dagger against her bobbing throat.

Her heart hammered out a chaotic rhythm beneath my arm, synching with the explosive pace of my own.

“Jamie!” Macy shrieked, her voice as shrill as her child’s. “Oh, gods.” Her eyes were wide and drenched with fear. Good.

“You’re going to answer my questions,” I said slowly as I glanced between them, “or she dies. Got it?” I punctuated the demand with enough pressure on the blade to draw a thin trickle of blood.

Jamie’s whimper clawed at my ears and sank tiny, dagger-sharp talons into my heart.

Her fat tears plopped against my fist that clutched the dagger.

“We’ll tell you anything you want to know,” Jeremy said, each word tumbling over the next.

“But if this is about what happened on the Hasting, we can explain.” He held his hands out in front of him, his left already blistered and raw.

“We were blown off course in a storm. What we saw was outside of normal shipping lanes and we were concerned. That’s the only reason we started talking about it. ”

I cocked a brow. What in the four moons was he on about?

“The kid we hired to captain the ship didn’t know north from south, I swear it,” he prattled on. “That’s how we ended up so far off course. We weren’t looking for it. We still don’t even know what it is! If we weren’t supposed to see it, we’ll stop talking. You have my word.”

Macy nodded frantically beside him.

I huffed out a sharp breath. “I don’t give a flippant fuck about something you think you saw in the middle of the sea. That’s not—”

“But there were da’kai!” Jamie piped up. “And ships. So many ships!”

“Hush, Jamie!” her father chided.

Shipbuilding demons. Gideon help me. Perhaps she was younger than I’d thought, to come up with such a story. My gut twisted and I drew a deep breath through my nose.

“Let me make a few things abundantly clear as I stand here with a knife to your kid’s jugular, since you all seem to think this is a joke.

First, I wouldn’t care if a horde of pirates had climbed out of some storybook and were building an armada in the Hasting.

Okay? Second, spewing bullshit like that gets you branded a bunch of lunatics.

It doesn’t get you someone like me in your kitchen interrupting—” I leaned around Jamie to look at their plates.

My nose scrunched. “Whatever the hell that is. But you know what does? Working with gargoyles. And you know what gets you me, specifically? Working with the one named Griffon Ryker. So, how about we start talking about that?”

“Oh, gods,” Macy breathed. Violent trembles wracked her frame as her eyes darted between me and her child.