A Gathering of Shadows

  “Ah, there you are, Bard,” came a familiar voice, and she turned to see Alucard striding over. “Saints, is that a dress you’re in? The crew will never believe it.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” growled Kell.

  Alucard saw him, and stopped. He made a sound halfway between a chuckle and a cough. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

  “It’s fine, Captain,” said Lila at the same time Kell growled, “Go away, Emery.”

  Lila and Kell looked at each other, confused.

  “You know him?” demanded Kell.

  Alucard straightened. “Of course she does. Bard works for me aboard the Night Spire.”

  “I’m his best thief,” said Lila.

  “Bard,” chided Alucard, “we don’t call it thieving in the presence of the crown.”

  Kell, meanwhile, appeared to be losing his mind. “No,” he muttered, running a hand through his copper hair. “No. No. There are dozens.”

  “Kell?” she asked, moving to touch his arm.

  He shook her off. “Dozens of ships, Lila! And you had to climb aboard his.”

  “I’m sorry,” she shot back, bristling, “I was under the impression that I was free to do as I pleased.”

  “To be fair,” added Alucard, “I think she was planning to steal it and slit my throat.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” snarled Kell, spinning on her. “You’re always so eager to slash and stab, why couldn’t you have stabbed him?”

  Alucard leaned in. “I think she’s growing fond of me.”

  “She can speak for herself,” shot Lila. She twisted toward Kell. “Why are you so upset?”

  “Because Alucard Emery is a worthless noble with too much charm and too little honor, and you chose to go with him.” The words cut through the air as Rhy rounded the corner.

  “What on earth are you all shouting about …” The prince trailed off as he saw Kell, Lila, and Alucard huddled there. “Lila!” he said cheerfully. “So you aren’t a figment of my brother’s imagination after all.”

  “Hello, Rhy,” she said with a crooked smile. She turned toward Kell, but he was already storming out of the ballroom.

  The prince sighed. “What have you done now, Alucard?”

  “Nothing,” said the captain, innocently.

  Rhy turned to go after Kell, but Lila stepped ahead of him. “I’ll take care of it.”

  * * *

  Kell shoved open a pair of patio doors. For a moment he just stood there, letting the icy air press against his skin. And then, when the biting cold wasn’t enough to douse his frustration, he plunged out into the winter night.

  A hand caught his as he stepped onto the balcony, and he knew without turning back that it was hers. Lila’s fingertips burned with heat, and his skin caught the spark. He didn’t look back.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hello,” he said, the word a rasp.

  He continued forward onto the balcony, her hand loosely twined with his. The cold wind stilled around them as they reached the edge.

  “Of all the ships, Lila.”

  “Are you going to tell me why you hate him?” she asked.

  Kell didn’t answer. Instead he looked down at the Isle. After a few moments, he said, “The House of Emery is one of the oldest families in Ames. They have long ties with the House of Maresh. Reson Emery and King Maxim were close friends. Queen Emira is Reson’s cousin. And Alucard is Reson’s second son. Three years ago, he left, in the middle of the night. No word. No warning. Reson Emery came to King Maxim for help finding him. And Maxim came to me.”

  “Did you use your blood magic, the way you did to find Rhy, and me?”

  “No,” said Kell. “I told the king and queen that I couldn’t locate him, but the truth was, I never tried.”

  Lila’s brow furrowed. “Why on earth not?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” said Kell. “Because I’m the one who told him to go. And I wanted him to stay gone.”

  “Why? What did he do to you?”

  “Not me,” said Kell, jaw clenched.

  Lila’s eyes brightened in understanding. “Rhy.”

  “My brother was seventeen when he fell for your captain. And then Emery broke his heart. Rhy was devastated. I didn’t need a magical tattoo to know my brother’s pain on that front.” He ran his free hand through his hair. “I told Alucard to disappear, and he did. But he didn’t stay gone. No, he turned up a few months later when he was dragged back to the capital for crimes against the crown. Piracy, of all things. The king and queen turned the charge over, as a favor to the house of Emery. Gave Alucard the Night Spire, installed him in the name of the crown, and sent him on his way. And I told him that if he ever set foot in London again, I would kill him. I thought this time he would actually listen.”

  “But he came back.”

  Kell’s fingers tightened around hers. “He did.” Her pulse beat against his, strong and steady. He didn’t want to let go. “Alucard has always been careless when it comes to precious things.”

  “I didn’t choose him,” she said, drawing Kell back from the edge. “I just chose to run.”

  She started to let go, but he wasn’t ready. He pulled her toward him, their bodies nested against the cold. “Do you think you’ll ever stop running?”

  She tensed against him. “I don’t know how.”

  Kell’s free hand drifted up her bare arm to the nape of her neck. He tipped his head and rested his forehead against hers.

  “You could just …” he whispered, “stay.”

  “Or you could go,” she countered, “with me.”

  The words were a breath of fog against his lips, and Kell found himself leaning in to her warmth, her words.

  “Lila,” he said, the name aching in his chest.

  He wanted to kiss her.

  But she kissed him first.

  The last time—the only time—it had been nothing but a ghost of lips against his, there and gone, so little to it, a kiss stolen for luck.

  This was different.

  They crashed into each other as if propelled by gravity, and he didn’t know which of them was the object and which the earth, only that they were colliding. This kiss was Lila pressed into a single gesture. Her brazen pride and her stubborn resolve, her recklessness and her daring and her hunger for freedom. It was all those things, and it took Kell’s breath away. Knocked the air from his lungs. Her mouth pressed hard against his, and her fingers wove through his hair as his sank down her spine, tangling in the intricate folds of her dress.

  She forced him back against the railing, and he gasped, the shock of icy stone mixing with the heat of her body against him. He could feel her heart racing, feel the energy crackling through her, through him. They turned, caught up in another dance, and then he had her up against the frost-laced wall. Her breath hitched, and her nails dug into his skull. She sank her teeth into his bottom lip, drawing blood, and gave a wicked laugh, and still he kissed her. Not out of desperation or hope or for luck, but simply because he wanted to. Saints, he wanted to. He kissed her until the cold night fell away and his whole body sang with heat. He kissed her until the fire burned up the panic and the anger and the weight in his chest, until he could breathe again, and until they were both breathless.

  And when they broke free, he could feel her smile on his lips.

  “I’m glad you came back,” he whispered.

  “Me, too,” she said. And then she looked him in the eyes, and added, “But I’m not dropping out of the tournament.”

  The moment cracked. Shattered. Her smile was fixed and sharp, and the warmth was gone.

  “Lila—”

  “Kell,” she mimicked, pulling free.

  “There are consequences to this game.”

  “I can handle them.”

  “You’re not listening,” he said, exasperated.

  “No,” she snapped. “You’re not.” She licked the blood from her lips. “I don’t need saving.”

 
“Lila,” he started, but she was already out of reach.

  “Have a little faith,” she said as she opened the door. “I’ll be fine.”

  Kell watched her go, hoping she was right.

  II

  Ojka crouched on the palace patio, tucked into the shadow where the balcony met the wall, her hood up to hide her crimson hair. Inside this strange river castle, they appeared to be having some kind of celebration. Light danced across the stones, and music seeped through the doors. The cold air bit at Ojka’s skin, but she didn’t mind. She was used to cold—real cold—and the winter in this London was gentle by comparison.

  Beyond the frosted glass, men and women ate and drank, laughed and spun around an ornate dance floor. None of them had markings. None of them had scars. All across the hall, magic was being used in petty ways, to light braziers and sculpt ice statues, to enchant instruments and entertain guests.

  Ojka hissed, disgusted by the waste of power. A fresh language rune burned against her wrist, but she didn’t need to speak this tongue to know how much they took for granted. Squandering life while her people starved in a barren world.

  Before Holland, she reminded herself. Things were changing now; the world was mending, flourishing, but would it ever look like this? Months ago it would have been impossible to imagine. Now it was simply difficult. Hers was a world being slowly roused by magic. This was a world long graced.

  Could a polished rock ever truly resemble a jewel?

  She had the sudden, pressing urge to set fire to something.

  Ojka, came a gentle chiding voice in her head, soft and teasing as a lover’s whisper. She brought her fingers to her eye, the knot in the tether between her and her king. Her king, who could hear her thoughts, feel her desires—could he feel them all?—as if they were one.

  I would not do it, Your Highness, she thought. Not unless it pleased you. Then I would do anything.

  She felt the line between them slacken as the king drifted back into his own mind. Ojka turned her attention back to the ball.

  And then she saw him.

  Tall and thin, dressed in black, circling the floor with a pretty girl done up in green. Beneath a circlet of silver and wood, the girl’s hair was fair, but Kell’s was red. Not as red as Ojka’s, no, but the copper still caught the light. One of his eyes was pale, the other as black as hers, as Holland’s.

  But he was nothing like her king. Her king was beautiful and powerful and perfect. This Kell was nothing but a skinny boy.

  And yet, she knew him at first sight, not only because Holland knew him, but because he shone to her like a flame in the dark. Magic radiated like heat off the edges of his form, and when his dark eye drifted lazily across the bank of windows, past shadow and snow and Ojka, she felt the gaze. It rippled through her, and she braced herself, sure he would see her, feel her, but he didn’t even notice. She wondered if the glass was mirrored instead of clear, so that everyone inside saw only themselves. Smiles reflecting back again and again while outside, the darkness waited, held at bay.

  Ojka adjusted her balance on the balcony’s rail. She’d made it this far by a series of ice steps forged on the palace wall, but the building itself must have been warded against intrusion; the one and only time she’d tried to slip inside through a pair of upstairs doors, she’d been rebuffed, not loudly, or painfully, but forcefully. The spellwork was fresh, the magic strong.

  The only way in appeared to be the front doors, but Holland had warned her not to make a scene.

  She pulled on the tether in her mind, and felt him take hold of the rope.

  I have found him. She didn’t bother explaining. She simply looked. She was the king’s eyes. What she saw, so would he. Shall I force him out?

  No, came the king’s voice in her head. It hummed so beautifully in her bones. Kell is stronger than he looks. If you try to force him and fail, he will not come. He must come. Be patient.

  Ojka sighed. Very well. But her mind was not at ease, and her king could tell. A soothing calm passed through her with his words, his will.

  You are not only my eyes, he said. You are my hands, my mouth, my will. I trust you to behave as I say I would.

  I will, she answered. And I will not fail.

  III

  “You look like hell.”

  Alucard’s words rang through her head, the only thing he’d said that morning when she wished him luck.

  “You say the sweetest things,” she’d grumbled before escaping into her own tent. But the truth was, Lila felt like hell. She hadn’t been able to find sleep in Elsor’s room, so she’d gone back to the Wandering Road, with its cramped quarters and familiar faces. But every time she closed her eyes, she was back in that damn crate, or on the balcony with Kell—in the end she’d spent most of the night staring up at the candlelight as it played across the ceiling, while Tav and Lenos snored (who knew where Vasry was) and Kell’s words played over and over in her head.

  She closed her eyes, felt herself sway slightly.

  “Master Elsor, are you well?”

  She jerked back to attention. Ister was fitting the last of the armor plates on her leg.

  “I’m fine,” she muttered, trying to focus on Alucard’s lessons.

  Magic is a conversation.

  Be an open door.

  Let the waves through.

  Right now, she felt like a rocky coastline.

  She looked down at her wrist. The skin was already healing where the ropes had cut, but when she turned her hands over, her veins were dark. Not black, like the Dane twins, but not as light as they should be, either. Concern rippled through her, followed swiftly by annoyance.

  She was fine.

  She would be fine.

  She’d come this far.

  Delilah Bard was not a quitter.

  Kell had beat the Veskan, Rul, by only two points, and lost to her by four. He was out of the running, but Lila could lose by a point and still advance. Besides, Alucard had already won his second match, securing his place in the final three alongside a magician named Tos-an-Mir, one of the famous Faroan twins. If Lila won, she’d finally get a chance to fight him. The prospect made her smile.

  “What is that?” asked Ister, nodding down at the shard of pale stone in her hand. Lila had been rubbing it absently. Now she held it up to the tent’s light. If she squinted, she could almost see the edge of Astrid’s mouth, frozen in what could be a laugh, or a scream.

  “A reminder,” said Lila, tucking the chipped piece of statue into the coat slung over a cushion. It was a touch morbid, perhaps, but it made Lila feel better, knowing that Astrid was gone, and would stay gone. If there was a kind of magic that could bring back an evil queen turned to stone, she hoped it required a full set of pieces. This way, she could be certain that one was missing.

  “Of what?” asked Ister.

  Lila took up the dagger hilts and slid them into her forearm plates. “That I’m stronger than my odds,” she said, striding out of the tent.

  That I have crossed worlds, and saved cities.

  She entered the stadium tunnel.

  That I have defeated kings and queens.

  She adjusted the helmet and strode out into the arena, awash in the cheers.

  That I have survived impossible things.

  Rul stood in the center of the floor, a towering shape.

  That I am Delilah Bard …

  She held out her spheres, her vision blurring for an instant before she let them go.

  And I am unstoppable.

  * * *

  Kell stood on the balcony of his room, the gold ring on the rail between his hands, the sounds of the stadium reverberating through the metal.

  The eastern arena floated just beside the palace, its ice dragons bobbing in the river around it, their bellies red. With the help of a looking scope, Kell could see down into the stadium, the two fighters like spots of white against the dark stone floor. Lila in her dark devil’s mask. Rul with the steel face of a canine, his own wild hair
jutting out like a ruff. His pennant was a blue wolf against a white ground, but the crowd was awash of silver blades on black.

  Hastra stood behind him in the balcony doors, and Staff by the ones in the bedroom.

  “You know him, don’t you?” asked Hastra. “Stasion Elsor?”

  “I’m not sure,” murmured Kell.

  Far below, the arena cheered. The match had started.

  Rul favored earth and fire, and the elements swirled around him. He’d brought a handle and hilt into the ring; the earth swirled around the handle, hardening into a rock shield, while the fire formed a curving sword. Lila’s own daggers came to life as they had the day before, one fire and the other ice. For an instant the two stood there, sizing each other up.

  Then they collided.

  Lila landed the first blow, getting in under Rul’s sword, then spinning behind him and driving the fire dagger into the plate on the back of his leg. He twisted around, but she was already up and out, readying another strike.

  Rul was taller by at least a foot, and twice as broad, but he was faster than a man his size had any right to be, and when she tried to find her way beneath his guard again, she failed, losing two plates in the effort.

  Lila danced backward, and Kell could imagine her sizing the man up, searching for an in, a weakness, a chink. And somehow she found one. And then another.

  She didn’t fight like Rul, or Kisimyr, or Jinnar. She didn’t fight like anyone Kell had ever seen. It wasn’t that she was better—though she was certainly fast, and clever—it was just that she fought in the ring the way he imagined she did on the streets back in Grey London. Like everything was on the line. Like the other person was the only thing standing between her and freedom.

  Soon she was ahead, six to five.

  And then, suddenly, Rul struck.

  She was rushing toward him, mid-stride when he turned the rock shield and threw it like a disk. It caught Lila in the chest, hard enough to throw her back into the nearest column. Light burst from the shattered plates on her stomach, shoulders, and spine, and Lila crumpled to the stone floor.

  The crowd gasped, and the voice in the gold ring announced the damage.