Bright Smoke, Cold Fire

  Today, Paris thought as he fastened his mask: the first formal, jeweled mask that he had ever worn. It covered his face from his temples to his chin; when he looked in the mirror, all he saw of himself was his eyes—obviously—and his lips, half revealed through the little hole that allowed him to breathe and speak. The rest was beaten gold inlaid with garnets and lapis lazuli. His pale hair, spilling over the top edge, seemed like one more part of the mask. It covered everything that was “Paris” and “youngest” and “perfectly adequate.”

  He was going to be the Juliet’s Guardian. He was going to matter.

  When they got to Lord Catresou’s house, nobody was waiting for them. The servant who answered the door looked nervous as he said, “Just a moment,” and then fled.

  It was no surprise the household was in chaos. But as Paris waited with Father and Meros in the entryway, he listened to the slamming of doors, the shouting of voices, and he started to feel that something was wrong. He couldn’t make out the words, but the voices were a little too angry, a little too desperate. Was that someone sobbing in the distance?

  And there was Lord Catresou standing in doorway. His face was covered in a full mask, but the eye slits were fixed on Paris.

  “You,” he said. He held a paper in his hand, but he let it flutter to the floor as he strode forward. Paris’s heart gave one awful jolt, and then Lord Catresou shoved him against the wall.

  “You knew,” he snarled. “Where did you take her last night? Where is she?”

  “I don’t know,” Paris said. His head was ringing; he didn’t know if he had banged it against the wall, or if he was just dazed by Lord Catresou’s sudden fury. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. I—”

  “Stop babbling and tell me the truth!”

  “My lord!” Father protested, and he sounded actually angry. Of course he was. The family was being disgraced.

  Meros let out a sudden crow of laughter. “I knew it!”

  They all looked at him. He had the paper and he was grinning down at whatever was written on it.

  Then he looked at Paris and held it out. “Didn’t I tell you, little brother?”

  Father’s voice snapped like a whip. “My lord, cease this unseemly display and tell us what happened.”

  Lord Catresou let go of Paris and turned away from him as if he didn’t exist anymore. In a cold, distant voice, he said, “The little whore betrayed us.”

  Paris snatched the letter from Meros.

  My lord Father:

  Mahyanai Romeo, who killed Tybalt, has married me in secret according to the custom of his people. I will accept no duty that compels me to destroy him. Therefore I am going to make him my Guardian, so that he can order me not to kill him. At his side I will protect not only our clan but all the people of the city.

  Do not blame Paris. He knew nothing of this, and has only done his duty.

  Juliet Catresou

  7

  “SHE DIDN’T WRITE IT,” SAID Paris. He felt numb and hot and cold all at the same time. Nothing made sense.

  “She couldn’t have,” he insisted, and everyone looked at him as if he were insane.

  Meros clapped a hand to his shoulder. “Little brother, you’d be surprised and delighted to learn what women will do for a man who kisses them well enough.”

  “Her mother was always willful,” Lord Catresou growled. “I should have known.”

  “You must see that Paris had nothing to do with it,” said Father. “He doesn’t have the wit to take her to a secret meeting, let alone the will.”

  The words shouldn’t have surprised Paris, and he shouldn’t have cared about anything except the Juliet right now. But hearing them still felt like a kick in the gut.

  Lord Catresou barked a laugh. “True.”

  “What if he kidnapped her?” Paris said desperately. “Maybe—”

  “Paris.” Father fixed him with a look. “Enough.”

  Paris could feel the hot flush creeping up his face. But they had all met Juliet—Lord Catresou was her father—surely they had to understand that she would never, ever betray them.

  Yet there was the letter.

  Maybe Paris had never understood. Maybe he just wanted to keep believing that he could be useful to the clan, when really the girl he wanted to protect had never been worthy.

  He remembered her quiet, wistful voice in the sepulcher, as they sat by the sacred fire and spoke about zoura.

  It’s all I ever wanted, she had said.

  Whatever she had done—however misguided she might be—she must have a good reason. She was still worth protecting. And that meant he had to get to her before the rest of his family did.

  “I’m sorry, my lord Father,” he said meekly. “What can I do?”

  Father never wanted his help. If Paris could just be dismissed because he was useless one more time, then he could go look for Juliet himself.

  “Go fetch the rest of the men from your household,” said Lord Catresou.

  “What?” said Paris, but of course he should have expected it. Maybe once he delivered the message, he could slip away in the commotion.

  “Did you think you’d find her by yourself, boy?” said Father. “We need search parties. Meros, you go with him too.”

  “Don’t you want him to—” Paris started, but then he saw the disapproval on Father’s face. He wasn’t supposed to question orders. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “Never mind.”

  “Come, I’ll comfort you along the way,” said Meros, slapping his shoulder.

  There was nothing to be done but go back out into the cold, predawn streets. Paris tried to walk as quickly as he could, his throat tight with frustration, because Meros was in a talking mood now and he would like as not try to follow Paris even after they had gotten back to the house.

  “There are other girls, you know,” said Meros. “Prettier ones. I could introduce you.”

  And though he knew better, Paris couldn’t help snapping, “I didn’t become the Juliet’s Guardian because she was pretty.”

  “That’s right, you didn’t become her Guardian,” said Meros amiably. “But come, now. You really never thought about what you’d do with a pretty young girl who had to obey you?”

  It took Paris a moment to realize what his brother had said. “I did not—I could never—”

  “And who liked you, of course.” Meros raised his hands. “I wouldn’t suggest you do anything she didn’t want. Doesn’t the bond mean she has to love you?”

  The bond between a Juliet and her Guardian could not force them to love or even like each other. Paris knew this, because he had bothered to read the histories, and there had been some times where the bond went terribly wrong.

  Meros wouldn’t care if Paris told him, any more than he would care that the Juliet was a girl who had mourned her cousin and—apparently—fallen in love. Who knew she would never walk the Paths of Light, and who said, I can bear that if I can protect people first.

  Who was now in danger, while Paris ran errands for his father.

  What was he thinking?

  Meros had started talking again, but Paris paid no attention. It felt like the world was tilting under his feet. He knew that the Juliet was in danger, but he had still thought that he had to carry out his father’s orders first, simply because he had always obeyed.

  But his duty to the Juliet was more important. If his loyalty to the Catresou had ever meant anything, she had to come first.

  For one awful, stomach-churning moment, he was coward enough to hesitate.

  Then Meros reached for his shoulder. Without thinking, Paris slapped his hand away and ran.

  He was around the corner and two houses down the side street before Meros gathered his wits enough to shout. When he glanced back a moment later, he saw Meros running after him.

  Paris gulped for breath and ran faster.

  Meros had longer legs, so if it came to a race, he would probably win. But it wouldn’t come to that, because Meros would much rather go back
and tell Father about Paris’s latest failure than run himself breathless.

  Sure enough, within a few minutes—and a few quick, skidding turns—Meros was gone.

  Paris stopped to lean against the side of the building and gasp for breath. He had to rip off his mask; the mouth hole was too small for him to get enough air. But after only a few moments, he pulled himself back upright, because there was no time to lose.

  Father and Lord Catresou would soon have men combing the city. But they thought that the Juliet had betrayed them. They thought she could have gone anywhere to defile the sacred ceremony with a Mahyanai boy.

  But Paris was sure that however much this Mahyanai Romeo might have deluded Juliet, she would never willingly defile the ceremony. That meant she must do it in a hallowed place, and with the sanctum of the Catresou magi so full of people, there was only one other place she could go.

  The white dome of the sepulcher was exactly as he remembered. But the guards were gone.

  As he ran inside, Paris had never been so grateful that the laws of the city forced the sanctum to have an open archway with no door.

  But he was too late. The Juliet—unmasked—sat with Mahyanai Romeo at the center of the room, and they had already started.

  The ceremony to create a Juliet’s Guardian was, in essence, very simple. The Juliet wrote the sacred word for trust on her palm in ink. Then she clasped hands with her new Guardian, transferring the word to his skin. And the word that was written upon them became true.

  There were rituals—prayers and meditations and spells—that surrounded the bonding. But the word was what mattered. Only the Juliet, having borne a sacred word for years, could survive the writing of another; when she passed that word to her new Guardian, her strength allowed him to survive it. The other rituals only helped.

  Juliet must have wanted to be careful, because she had written a circle of protective sigils around herself and Romeo on the floor. But the lines were shaky, and Paris thought that some of them might be drawn wrong.

  Romeo looked up. Juliet didn’t. She was already writing the sacred word on her palm.

  Everything changed.

  The air was suddenly ice cold; it felt crystal clear and razor sharp, as if Paris had spent all his life living in a thick fog that had only just now cleared. The pale morning light that had shone through the doorway was gone. The walls were gone too. The three of them were surrounded by infinite, empty darkness, the only light coming from the sacred fire.

  Juliet dropped the brush—the tiny clatter was terrifyingly loud in the silence around them—and reached for Romeo.

  And as their hands met, Paris heard the sound of death.

  The Catresou magi and the Mahyanai sages and the Viyaran priestesses all told different tales of what would happen after death. But there was one thing every person alive knew for certain. At the moment of death, people heard a song. Water, singing with many voices was how they described it with their last breaths. Paris had never been able to imagine what that meant.

  Now he knew.

  It was liquid and sibilant and wordless as the song of running water. It had all the urgent meaning of a chant from human tongues. It was cold and rippling and relentless, and it was all around him, tugging at his bones and his blood, and it was going to draw him away. He was going to die.

  He had to save the Juliet.

  Paris realized he had fallen to his hands and knees. He staggered to his feet, and he saw—

  He wasn’t sure what he saw.

  Ripples of darkness and light rolled through the air, shoved at his chest and made him stagger. For a moment he could see Juliet and Romeo, silhouetted against the flashes of light; then everything frayed apart in dazzling lines of light and darkness, but he knew they were still there because he heard a scream, and he staggered forward. If only he could catch hold of Juliet, maybe he could save her.

  Fingertips brushed his and then were gone. He lunged and caught a hand. He knew it was Juliet, because he could feel the sacred word written on her palm; it felt like it was burning through his skin, all the way down to the bone. He screamed, and held on.

  Then there was nothing.

  Paris woke up crying.

  He never cried. He hadn’t since he was a little child and his mother died. But now he was kneeling on the stone floor of the sanctum, gasping for breath, with tears running down his face.

  He couldn’t see anything. For a moment he thought the room was still plunged in darkness; then he realized his eyes were shut. He thought, I have to find Juliet, and tried to open them.

  The world rocked dizzyingly. Suddenly he wasn’t kneeling; he was flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling. His body ached all over; his hand still felt like it had been burned. And he wasn’t crying; there were no tears stinging at his eyes or trickling down his face.

  But he could hear somebody weeping next to him.

  Juliet, he thought, with a surge of fear that enabled him to sit up.

  Juliet was gone.

  The light coming in the windows was still pale and weak; only minutes had passed. But everything in the sepulcher had changed. The sacred fire had gone out. Soot was smeared across the walls. And the Juliet was gone, only Mahyanai Romeo was left, doubled over and weeping.

  Paris staggered to his feet. “What did you do to her?” he demanded. His voice felt raw.

  It took Romeo a moment to lift his head and look at him. “She’s gone,” he said, his voice quiet and dazed. “I killed her.”

  He sounded so desolate, a sudden wave of sadness choked Paris. For an instant he wanted to sit down next to the boy who had destroyed Juliet and weep with him.

  Then he remembered that he was a Catresou and he had a duty.

  “She’s not dead,” said Paris. “She can’t be dead, all you did was . . .”

  All Romeo had done was defile the sacred ceremony.

  Paris remembered how the room had filled with shadows and the rippling, insistent song of death. How the many voices had felt like many hands, pulling him inexorably into darkness.

  The magi said that sacred magic would avenge itself on those who misused it. And dragging someone into the land of the dead was surely a fitting vengeance.

  But surely the magic should have turned on Romeo instead—not on Juliet, who was Catresou and loyal, but on the boy who had wanted to defile her—

  “I was saving her,” Romeo snarled. “Your people are the ones who would defile her, by turning her into a slave!”

  Paris’s breath caught. He hadn’t said defile out loud.

  His hand still ached. He looked at it, and his heart turned to ice.

  “Show me your hands,” he said, and without hesitation, Romeo held them up.

  The sacred word for trust was written on his right palm, in ink that looked as black as night, ink that would never wash off because the word was part of him now.

  The same word that was written on Paris’s hand.

  He felt sick. Unclean. The bond between a Juliet and her Guardian was sacred. To have a Juliet joined that way to an outsider was bad enough. But for that bond to be ripped away from her and twisted like this—it was obscene.

  And it didn’t make sense. Only the power of a Juliet could allow a normal human to survive the bond. How was this possible? How were they not dead?

  “She touched me first,” Romeo said dully. “She screamed. She must have—”

  Somehow she had borne the power of the link for both of them. She had saved them and died, when they should have died saving her.

  “No.” Romeo flung himself back on the floor. “She lives. We are dead.”

  “What?” said Paris.

  “This is the land of the dead,” Romeo whispered. “Life is where Juliet is.”

  The words were ridiculous, but Paris could feel Romeo’s grief like a dark wave drowning them both, and for a moment he choked.

  Grimly, Paris took one slow breath and then another. He remembered the meditations he had been taught. He built the
wall between their minds. He rubbed at his eyes, to get rid of the tears that were not his.

  “We have to go back,” he said. “We have to tell them what happened.”

  He’d failed in everything else. At least he could tell Lord Catresou the truth about his daughter’s death. At least he could face his punishment like a man.

  “This room is the last place that saw Juliet,” Romeo said stubbornly. “I will lie here until I die.”

  “This is the sepulcher,” said Paris. “Do you think the magi will clean around you while you wait to die of thirst? Get up.”

  Instantly and without complaint, Romeo stood. And because Paris could feel what Romeo felt, he knew Romeo hadn’t wanted to. That his limbs had moved against his will, as instantly and helplessly as his own heartbeat, and he knew that now Romeo’s hands were shaking as he wondered if his body was his own again.

  Romeo whispered, “What did you do?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Paris, who hadn’t truly pitied him until that moment. “I didn’t mean to.”

  Even when he’d realized they were linked, he hadn’t expected the bond between them would include obedience. Probably he should feel triumphant now—he had captured the Mahyanai who stole their Juliet—but instead he just felt sick.

  “You meant to do it to Juliet,” said Romeo.

  Paris’s stomach twisted as he remembered Juliet saying, I can bear that.

  It didn’t change his duty. But he could at least try to persuade Romeo instead of forcing him.

  “Listen,” said Paris. “You have killed a noble lady. If you ever really loved her, you will come back and make amends to her family.”

  Romeo’s anger burned right through the wall that Paris had tried to put between their minds.

  “Amends to the family that wanted to enslave her?” he demanded. “Lie down among your precious bones and rot.”