“It is not too big for me,” Misha said. “Would you like to know why?”
“Why?” I asked. How could anyone make this kind of decision?
“After Diente Julian sold us to Midnight,” Misha said, “my little brother, Shkei, and I belonged first to Taro and later to Gabriel. I will not say out loud the things that were done to me in the months before Malachi was able to purchase my freedom, only that I am grateful the trainers never really had time to make me into a primary ‘project.’ Taro was very occupied with you, actually, which is why he kept me a few months and then gave me to someone with more time on his hands. Trust me when I say it was the kind of experience that makes one very … well, practical, as I’ve said. A lot of the little fears and doubts wash away with the blood.
“I have seen the heart of evil. It is called Midnight. If I can destroy it, I will. The world really is that simple.”
I looked at Kadee, who was looking at Misha. When the young serpiente’s eyes returned to me, I saw fear in them, coupled with knowledge. The trainers might not have broken Misha as a slave, but something inside her was broken all the same.
Her fury still burned bright.
I shuddered. “It can’t be …” My protest trailed off. I wanted my innocence back, but it was too late. I couldn’t form an argument for why Midnight should stand, because now that I had seen its dark core, I knew that all the beauty in the world wasn’t enough to justify it.
Jeshickah and the others had raised me the way they did not because they loved me but because it would allow them to control me. Midnight hadn’t wanted me. It had wanted my magic.
I loved them, but I could not let them continue.
You have never been asked to die for something, or someone, Malachi had said.
Was this what freedom tasted like?
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
“I don’t know what you can do, on your own,” Kadee answered. “We obviously can’t just let the trainers die. If we want to try to save Malachi, we need someone with the power to take the heart from the empire, swiftly. Do we know a witch who might be on our side?”
“We could ask the Shantel,” Torquil suggested. “They would probably help, if they could.”
Kadee scoffed. “A Shantel witch doesn’t sneeze without meditating on the matter for a month and then consulting the king,” she grumbled. “Even if we could find one, we would need to wait for a royal audience before they would even listen to our proposal. Malachi will be dead and the plague will have run its course long before they decide to act.”
“There’s a Shantel guard in the marketplace,” I said.
“He’s loyal to Midnight,” Misha replied.
“I don’t think he really is.” I remembered my conversations with the guard, about how he followed Midnight only because he didn’t see another option.
“Do you honestly expect us to put any faith in your opinion of who we should trust?” Misha snapped.
No one spoke up to argue with her, though Kadee cast me an apologetic glance. Any suggestion I made, I suspected, would be met with the same response.
No other choice, then, I thought. I couldn’t justify it to my companions here in the Obsidian guild, but I couldn’t get the idea of the Shantel guard out of my head. The increasingly frustrated conversation around me seemed to dim, and his face rose in my mind instead.
Without waiting to ask or hear if they would actually let me leave, I shifted shape. I pumped my wings harder when I saw Misha snatch at my fleeing form and made it above the tree line without further interference.
We weren’t far from the road; I was able to find paths I recognized and made it to the market in a short time, even on foot. It was late now, and the only movement in the market was merchants making last-minute deals and packing their wares into wagons so they could flee before the Azteka returned. The Shantel I needed wasn’t present, but the other guards were able to give me directions to his home.
It didn’t take me long to locate his one-room cabin. I knocked on the door, trembling at the enormity of what I was doing.
Who was I to make this choice? What if Kadee, Torquil, and Misha were at that moment coming up with another option? Surely they knew more about the world than I did.
The guard came to the door, his steps heavy with sleep as if I had woken him. His eyes widened when he saw me, and he asked, “Do you need me?”
Desperately, I thought. I’m out of other choices.
“CAN I TALK to you for a minute?” I asked.
“Sure,” the Shantel guard answered, giving me an odd look. “Should I put on a pot of tea?”
He didn’t wait for me to respond before turning from the door and setting a kettle over the fire.
Though it was about the same size as my “home” in Brina’s greenhouse—about the same size as some of the sheds off Midnight’s stables—this tiny cabin had a very lived-in feeling, from the tidy bed in the back to the chest and woodstove nearer to the front. There was a knife on the one-person table, sitting next to an unfinished carving; I couldn’t tell what the piece of wood would someday be, except that it was obviously intended to be decorative, not practical.
The room was cold despite the hearth. My breath fogged in front of my face. Even so, the one-room domain had a distinct advantage that my more luxurious cabin had lacked: the real world was outside the door. That made it much bigger, all things considered.
“This is nice,” I said. I meant it.
“Thank you,” he answered. “But I doubt you wanted to talk to me about how to set up house.”
I wasn’t sure how to start. I knew he didn’t work for Midnight out of loyalty to the vampires, but that didn’t necessarily mean he would be willing to stand up against them. His life was comfortable enough. He might not want to jeopardize that.
“How did you end up working for Midnight?” I asked.
He sank into the chair in front of his whittling project with a sigh. There wasn’t a second chair, and I wouldn’t have felt comfortable sitting on the bed, so I stayed standing.
“You don’t know me, Vance,” he replied softly. “You don’t even know my name.” Before I could rectify that problem, he shook his head. “Don’t bother. I work for Midnight because I once believed I could make a difference here. When I lived among my own people, I spent my time in the sakkri’s temple, and shared the visions, and chose my path … or they chose my path, or she did. I don’t know. But I left because I was told to leave, and then I was told I was never allowed to return. The Shantel do not accept traitors back.”
“What is the temple?”
“At any point in life, if one of us feels lost or uncertain, we can choose to dedicate ourselves to the temple for a time—a day, a month, a year, or more. It is supposed to provide guidance. Some stay to study magic. Others learn a new trade or find their mate. It made me restless. I felt as if I had seen the world for the first time, and it was larger than I had ever imagined. I sought stillness by studying with the deathwitch, who prepares the dead for burial, but eventually the sakkri told me that the visions I had seen in the temple had left me unfit to remain on Shantel land.”
“So you didn’t have a choice but to work for Midnight?”
“I work for Midnight because I still feel like I can do … something good, somehow,” he answered. “We can’t kill the vampires. They’re too strong. We can hate them all we like, but if we make them into enemies, they will destroy us completely. Our only choice is to work with them so we can make ourselves strong enough to survive.”
The question then was: If I told him what was going on, what would he do? He said he had studied for a time as a witch, so he would at least know what Shantel magic was capable of. Would he want to try to help the trainers—or would he support the Obsidian guild’s plan and turn on Midnight? Would he report immediately to Jeshickah?
Since he was already loyal to Midnight, Jeshickah would probably trust him.
Tha
t was assuming he wasn’t too bitter about being told to leave by the Shantel. He didn’t seem to like Midnight, but that didn’t mean he wanted to overthrow it.
“What if someone could fight Midnight?” I asked.
My host shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Midnight has spent the last century playing the shapeshifter nations against each other. Sometimes I think that having a common enemy in the vampires is all that keeps most of us from outright war with each other.”
That was bleak. What was the point of fighting Midnight if it might only lead to more devastation?
“It’s up to you, Vance,” he said.
I looked up, confused, because I hadn’t said anything.
“The vision I had in the Shantel temple involved me working on one of the vampires,” he said. “There was some kind of sickness. Given your anxiety at the moment and the severity of Jeshickah’s reaction, I have to assume the sickness in that vision is the one afflicting Midnight now, and that at least some of the vampires have contracted it. You’re trying to decide whether or not to ask me for my help. Am I right?”
I nodded slowly. “You’re a healer?”
He shook his head. “I am, or was, a deathwitch. My power is with the dead.”
“The trainers aren’t dead.”
He gave me a look that was half pity and half patience. “Vance … all the vampires are dead. That is their nature. Magic and power animate them, but their bodies are dead. I cannot manipulate their minds in any way, but I could manipulate their flesh and perhaps undo damage done by a foreign magic.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not sure, no, but there is a chance.”
“Are you going to?” I asked. “Now that you know, are you going to go to Mistress Jeshickah and—”
“I already told you,” he said, interrupting, “that it is up to you. In the vision I seemed to be helping the vampires, but I could have been concealing my true purpose. The possibility that I would help them with our sacred magic disturbed me so deeply that I had to leave my home, but at that time I did not know all I do now. I only know my power led me to you, just as it surely drew you to me tonight. I will abide by your decision.”
“If the trainers die and Mistress Jeshickah does not, she has said she will just start over,” I said, “with the Obsidian guild.”
My voice sounded far away. I could barely hear it past the pounding of my own heart.
“Children of Obsidian are not easily broken,” my host said. “If the Mistress of Midnight insists on starting with them, it may buy us time and win her nothing.”
“Time for what?”
He stopped to think but finally admitted, “Time for another miracle, perhaps. The trainers are not the only vampires in Midnight. Jeshickah created them like she created the empire itself. She might be weakened without them, but she will recover.”
“Then we need to make sure she’s infected, too.” Had I spoken those words aloud? Or were they just in my head?
One of the slaves had been infected trying to clean up spilled blood. It did not take much to transmit the disease. If the Shantel witch was in close contact with Jeshickah, and the infected trainers, and me, there would surely be some chance to pass the disease on to …
… to the woman who had raised me and given me everything.
… to the woman who had savagely beaten Malachi and made it clear she had no regard for my life when her trainers were threatened.
“Jeshickah will kill us if she thinks we have betrayed her,” I added.
“She will do worse,” he replied. “Death is not so bad.” He paused before adding, “They say a quetzal can’t be broken—that your power will drive you mad and kill you before it will allow you to live in a cage. Is it true?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we’ll see.”
With that ominous statement he started assembling the necessary traveling supplies on the bed. “We should leave immediately—if you’re sure?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but I don’t think I can stand to do nothing, either. Besides, your visions brought you here. Who am I to defy fate?”
He laughed as he pulled the drawstring on the bag he had hastily packed. “There is no defying fate. There is no submitting to fate. I do not know if we have free will, only that we cannot know what fate has planned, so we need to act as if we make all of our own decisions. This is your choice, Vance. What do you want me to do—try to save them, or try to end them?”
“This is my choice,” I echoed. How could this be my choice?
Yet it was, and I had decided.
“If we can end Midnight,” I answered, “we should.”
End. A gentle word for murder.
Traitor, my mind whispered to me.
Yes, I was. I had betrayed the Azteka and all the shapeshifters by loving the trainers to begin with, and by having a heart loyal to Midnight. Now I was betraying my heart at the whims of my … what? My mind, or my soul? Either way I was twice a traitor.
“Why won’t you tell me your name?” I asked as we mounted our horses and started up the path.
“My people believe that names have a great deal of power. In this case my concern is that names get put into songs and stories,” he answered. “Whether we succeed or fail, I do not think I want to be remembered for this.”
Despite the late hour, the road was busy with guards and merchants moving to and from the market, which put an end to conspiratorial conversations. I should not have been surprised when we passed a bend in the road and saw Kadee standing there.
“Torquil convinced Misha to look for the Azteka,” she said. “Who’s your friend?”
“A Shantel witch,” I answered. I started to add more, but another merchant passed us, close enough to overhear our words. “He … thinks he can help us with our problem.” Kadee would think the witch meant to heal the trainers, not kill them, but I couldn’t think of any safe way to tell her the true plan.
“That’s convenient,” Kadee remarked, casting a baleful eye at the witch. Without asking, she reached toward me and swung up on the saddle behind me.
“It is not convenient when the magic itself tells you where to be,” the witch replied.
“Prophecy,” Kadee said, shaking her head. “So, you can heal them?”
The Shantel shrugged. “I have never seen a vampire fall ill or even have a lingering injury, so I have never tested whether my magic could possibly heal one.”
“At least we can save Malachi,” Kadee said, “if we save the trainers.”
I wanted to comfort her and tell her what we also intended to do, but it was hard for me to speak, even if I dared risk being overheard. The closer we came to Midnight, the tighter my throat grew and the louder my heart pounded.
The main building of Midnight was surrounded by a high, ominous iron fence. The gates were guarded, but the men recognized the Shantel traveling with me and let us in as easily as the vampires themselves had let my poison into their blood. I wanted to warn Kadee to flee before the Shantel witch gave her permission to enter with us, but couldn’t do so without betraying our true purpose.
All my fault.
“Breathe, Vance,” Kadee whispered to me, squeezing my hand after I dismounted. “We just need to get through this so we can get her to release Malachi.”
My gaze lingered for a minute on the door to the stable loft where I had so recently lived. It hadn’t been as beautiful as Brina’s greenhouse, but it had been a home. It looked small from here. Maybe I had only just recognized that it could not shelter me when all this was done.
We approached the main gates. Again the guards let us pass, as did the ones on the west wing. Finally we stood at Jeshickah’s door.
For long moments we stood there, none of us brave enough to knock. What would we find beyond?
We were still staring when the door opened. Jeshickah stood there, dressed in slacks and a man’s button-down shirt that was tied at the waist. Her face was pale, but her bl
ack eyes were hard as jet as she regarded the three of us.
“What is this?” she asked.
“We brought a witch,” I said. I flinched as the focus of her attention turned to me. For the first time, it occurred to me that she might be furious that we had defied her, even if she believed that we came with help. “I know you did not want one, but when he mentioned his power, I had to ask. I could not stand to do nothing.”
Slowly, she looked at the guard.
The Shantel took a half step back. “Pardon our presumption, Mistress,” he said, “but I may be able to help. I was trained as a witch before I came to work in Midnight.”
She stared again at all of us, each movement lethargic. I wondered whether she had avoided feeding to protect herself from this plague, or whether she was simply exhausted. At that moment she seemed almost pitiable. Almost like a person, instead of the almighty evil power she was supposed to be.
“Very well,” she said at last. “You may enter.”
THE GUARD GLANCED at Jeshickah for permission before approaching the unconscious trainers in the back cell. There was no expression on her face anymore. She did not look angry, or hopeful, or sad. She just looked … blank. Was it exhaustion that had stripped her of all emotions, or was this what she was like when she did not bother to hide her true face?
She gestured for us to go before her, but it took all my willpower to walk through that heavy black door.
The Shantel witch knelt next to a fair-skinned, blond vampire whose name I did not know. Maybe I should have been grateful that the deathwitch had started with someone I had no attachment to, but it felt like he was stalling so I would have more time to panic.
“What will you do?” I asked.
Was he just going to pretend to help while letting them die, or was he actually going to try to find a way to kill them? Would it be quick or slow? How long would it take for Jeshickah to realize what we were doing?
“I need to examine them first,” he said, “but I think the Azteka magic may have disconnected them from their original source of power. Mistress Jeshickah, if I am right, I may need your blood in order to restore them.”