“Dahlia.” Her name again, but she recognized the voice—and his warmth—before she had turned toward Jade. He always stood a little closer than most Kavet natives considered proper, though when she asked more worldy women if she should be flattered or offended, they had told her that was simply the Silmari way. Covertly observing the other Silmari nobles had confirmed the assurances as true. “I’m glad to see you up and about.”
“Thank you. I’m glad to be up.” Though she would be even gladder to lie down. She didn’t ache as badly as she should, but her body felt heavy and tired despite her long sleep.
“I’m sorry to add one more thing to your docket, but the shipbuilders are going to need some time at the next meeting.”
“Is there a problem?” The last time that committee had spoken at the general meeting, it had sounded like progress was being made.
“There has been . . . an idea. One I personally am opposed to, but which several of the others seem to have gotten behind. I think we might want to speed up the debates over who’s going to captain her, so we can start to establish a firm authority with regards to such matters.”
Dahlia nodded, trying not to show her reservations on her face.
The shipbuilders’ committee had finally decided that since this ship was so important, the entire voting body should decide on her captain. More than one individual had mentioned to Dahlia that they thought the vote was a horrible idea, that a good captain was not necessarily the man or woman who was best liked, but the motion had passed.
Since then, it had been made clear to Dahlia by much of the assembly that her opinion would guide many others’. Jade knew that as well as she did. But she wasn’t certain he understood that he wasn’t assured her vote.
She knew of the rumors, but Dahlia was still far too Quin to tumble into bed with a man she knew had every intention of taking the first ship back to Silmat. He continued to flirt casually, but was never pushy enough for her to feel uncomfortable.
Granted, she suspected that his infinite, gentlemanly patience with her refusal to sleep with him had more to do with his having at least one other lover in Kavet than it did his being that perfectly accepting of their platonic friendship. That was, as she understood it, the Silmari way.
But it wasn’t her way.
She glanced at Celadon, her other rumored lover, who was now also waiting by the doorway. She remembered the way he had touched her hand for comfort earlier in the kitchen. Unlike Jade, who tended to do things like give an impromptu shoulder rub or to wrap an arm around Dahlia’s waist when they walked side by side, Celadon was always formal and reserved. The rumors about him came from the sheer amount of time she spent in his company, as if it were impossible for a woman to be friends with a man without sleeping with him.
“We’ll bring the captain decision up tomorrow, and establish some kind of . . . expedited campaign schedule.” She frowned again, or would have if she hadn’t discovered instead that she was already frowning. She would have to make sure runners were sent down to the docks so all the candidates would come to the meeting, and a potentially good captain wouldn’t lose by default because he was busy doing his job.
“Why did I agree to do this?” she grumbled as she and Celadon finally managed to get outside. They were stopped twice more crossing the plaza, but that was fine; at least they were in the open air.
“Someone needed to,” Celadon reminded her, “and you were the only person capable.”
Dahlia sat beside the fountain. Three of the four foxfire orbs had cracked from the heat; members of the Order of Napthol had removed them, leaving only one, which sputtered like a dying candle flame. They would need to be replaced before winter or the fountain would freeze.
“Dahlia!”
She turned with a grimace she tried to hide behind a more appropriate expression. It was easier to smile when she recognized the young lady coming toward her, up the path that led to and from the docks.
“Ginger, what brings you down here?”
“Yes,” Celadon echoed, more gravely, “what does bring you to the market—from that direction?”
Ginger tossed her head defiantly. “You only said I wasn’t supposed to go to the docks on my own,” she said. “I had Serves with me. He escorted me all the way to the market street, then needed to report back to his ship.” The frown she gave her brother turned into a smile as she turned to Dahlia. When Dahlia had first come to the city, the girl had embraced her as if she were a sister. The last few weeks, they had become close once more, despite Celadon’s attempts to keep Ginger away from the city’s political scuffles. “Will you come to dinner with us tonight?” she asked. “I want to celebrate. We’ve been hired to make the lamps for the new ship. And I’d like you to meet Serves.”
Celadon asked, “Did you ask Aunt Willow—”
“Of course,” Ginger interrupted. “She has been asking to have Serves over for weeks. You are the one being a grouch.”
Dahlia watched Celadon grit his teeth as his sister flounced her hair again, and then reached up to brush it back off her face.
She was on the verge of laughing at Celadon’s protective instincts when she noticed the mark on Ginger’s wrist. It looked terrifyingly like it was a frostbite scar, wrapped halfway around Ginger’s wrist. The gray-black mark was ugly on the girl’s skin—twice as much so because it reminded Dahlia of the wounds she had seen in a devastatingly severe form on Helio.
“What is this?” Dahlia asked, pulling Ginger’s arm toward her to examine the mark.
“Oh.” Ginger pulled away and tugged her sleeve down. “I don’t know. I’m absent-minded sometimes. Aunty says I probably leaned on something. I don’t remember doing it, I just noticed it there one day. Anyway, I should get the order back to Aunt Willow.” She patted her pocket. “I’ll see you tonight, Dahlia.”
She kissed Celadon on the cheek, and then hugged Dahlia before hurrying off.
“I’d like to kill that sailor of hers,” Celadon observed, tone resigned.
“Ginger mentioned a beau, back . . . before,” Dahlia said. “I didn’t realize it was so serious.”
“It probably wouldn’t have been, but a lot of sailors have been stranded here,” Celadon replied. “Ginger waited until a week ago to tell us about him.”
“Scandal,” Dahlia breathed.
Celadon nodded sharply before noticing the teasing glint in her eye. “I didn’t yell at her for seeing him, or forbid him from coming to dinner, did I?” Under his breath, he added, “Little sisters should never be allowed to date.”
Back to the more concerning subject, Dahlia asked, “How long has she had that mark on her wrist?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t notice it until the same moment you did.” He sounded disappointed in himself.
“I know it’s not . . .” She struggled with how to phrase the request. “Would you be willing to let someone from the Cobalt Hall look at it, just to make sure it is what it looks like?”
“What else would it be?”
“Some of the members of the Order have had odd injuries like that just appear recently.” She didn’t want to disclose all the Order’s secrets, but Celadon needed some information. “Sometimes they’re serious. It seems to be related to their magic.”
“My sister doesn’t have magic,” Celadon snapped, instinctively, before shutting his eyes and drawing a deep breath. “Please, Numen, don’t let her have magic.”
“Someone at the Hall would be able to tell for sure,” Dahlia said. “It’s not something I want for her, either, but it would be best to know.”
“Is it, really? Knowing hasn’t helped me any.”
“If she has magic, and it’s possible it might hurt her, she needs to know,” Dahlia pointed out. “And if she doesn’t have magic, and the affliction attacking the Order is spreading to non-magical people, we need to know that.”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “Why do they have to hide things like this?” he demanded. “I have spent the last mo
nth and a half arguing with the other Followers of the Quinacridone, and convincing people that we have to cooperate with the orders of Napthol and A’hknet. We have to be open with each other and we have to work together, or we won’t last the winter. But the damn sorcerers won’t let anyone in, won’t let anyone help, won’t share any kind of information that might be helpful to us . . .”
Dahlia had done no more than lift an eyebrow, reminding him who he was talking to and that she had been on his side throughout, and he broke off.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It frustrates me, that my people are compromising all they believe in order to help this city, while it feels like no one else is willing to bend an inch. The idea that it might have put my sister in danger now makes my blood boil.”
“Hopefully it’s nothing,” Dahlia said. “There’s a chance it might have nothing to do with magic.”
“Hopefully,” Celadon echoed. He started to cross the market in long strides, trusting Dahlia to keep up with him. “Let’s try to catch up with her. I’ll feel better if we can get this sorted out quickly.”
Chapter 36
Naples
Naples and Cyan slammed into the captain’s quarters with little pretense, already pulling at each other’s clothes, a task made more difficult by the fact that neither of them wanted to break the kiss locking their bodies together.
Yes, Naples had work to do. He needed to find a way to corner and interrogate Celadon Cremnitz, and he had to find a way to bind back the Abyssi. Those were important things, and part of his mind was adamant that he should be working on them. But this was important, too.
I need the power to do my work, he thought, but he knew that was only an excuse.
Cyan made him feel good. Unsullied. Fear and pain faded away in his presence.
Naples wasn’t in a strange town with a man he couldn’t remember meeting. He was with someone who looked for him whenever the ship came in the spring, and thought of him while in distant ports.
He wasn’t with the Abyssi.
The thought made him freeze for just long enough for Cyan to notice. The sailor raised his head, saying past his rapid breath, “You okay?”
Naples nodded, unable to speak, and dragged Cyan’s head back down.
He tasted like the cold mint tea volunteers brought for the men and women working to repair the shipyard, and of the huskvine root many Silmari sailors chewed to help them focus. Not of smoke and fire. His lips were hard, aggressive, but the little nibbles of his teeth on Naples’ lips were human and did no damage. The hands that roamed over Naples’ skin, even when they clenched in passion, did not burn or draw blood.
Naples pushed Cyan back against the wall, and the sailor laughed.
“Aggressive today,” he observed, pulling Naples closer without moving away from the wall.
“Complaining?” Normally Naples preferred dominant partners, but just then he felt the need for control.
Cyan shook his head and smiled. “Nope.”
He let Naples strip off his shirt and undo his belt, revealing deep brown skin marked with the signs of a rough and hard-working life: a scar left by the lash of an ill-tempered and impatient ship’s mate, early in Cyan’s career as a sailor; a smaller scar on his ribs from when he had fallen from a low section of rigging directly onto the ship’s slop bucket in a failed attempt to impress an adolescent crush; and a shallow slice on his belly that was the result of a bar-room brawl in another distant port.
Naples traced these marks of humanity with his hands, and then with his mouth, remembering the way Cyan had shared the stories during a post-coital half-dozing conversation.
Modigliani. The Abyssi had told Naples its name, finally, as it entered him. His name. Naples kept thinking “it,” but the demon was most certainly male. He claimed to be a prince of the lowest level of the Abyss, and Naples knew he had spoken the truth when he said his power alone would have burned most men’s blood away, had he tried to take them.
Modigliani hadn’t been entirely certain Naples was strong enough.
For a while, Naples hadn’t been, either.
Being with the Abyssi was ecstasy. And it was pain. And it was magic. And it was terror. And Naples had been too lost in all of that to even notice that every time the Abyssi’s hands crossed his skin, they drew blood—blood that, once raised, only heightened the power until it should have blackened his flesh.
“Naples?” Cyan asked.
“What?” Too sharp, too loud.
The sailor was looking at him with frowning concern. “Are you all right?”
“I told you—”
“I know what you told me.” His voice was soft, but firm. He urged Naples back on his feet and pulled him close, but gently, not passionately. “What’s wrong?”
“Hard few weeks,” Naples admitted, giving the sailor as much honesty as he could stand.
“Do you want to . . . talk?” the sailor suggested, despite the fact that his body was clearly voting in favor of other pastimes.
Naples shook his head. “I want you,” he said. “Distract me from my thoughts. If you think you’re up to it?” He tried to make the desperate plea into a teasing challenge, but wasn’t sure he succeeded.
Regardless, Cyan took him at his word. He lifted Naples onto the empty chart table, and finished the work of unbuttoning and removing his shirt.
This time it was Cyan’s turn to freeze, his gaze locking on the last of the wounds left by the Abyssi. Naples hadn’t had the power to heal all the Abyssi’s “love marks” right away, so the deepest ones remained as pearly scars.
“Not important,” he said. “Spell gone bad.”
Cyan nodded, but slowly.
It was only moments later, though, as soon as the rest of Naples’ clothes were gone, that Cyan stepped back and demanded, “What the fuck, Naples?”
Gooseflesh raised on Naples’ skin where Cyan’s warmth disappeared. “I could say the same.”
The sailor’s eyes were wide, and his gaze was not focused anywhere Naples wanted it to be. Watching Cyan’s eyes dart place to place, staring at the scars, Naples let out a frustrated snarl.
“I’ve seen a man who survived a leopard attack,” Cyan said, slowly, “but it didn’t look like this. And Kavet doesn’t have leopards.”
“It wasn’t a leopard attack,” Naples spat. “Can we just—”
Cyan pulled him close again, a hand on each side of Naples’ hips, and at first Naples thought the sailor had decided to ignore the obviously closed wounds and trust him that they were nothing but the consequences of magic Cyan couldn’t possibly understand. One of his hands slid down Naples’ back, and then he reached around Naples’ leg as if to lift him onto the table again.
Then he dropped him, pulling back with a hiss of horror, and Naples realized what he had been doing.
Each place Cyan had just touched was scarred. Claws not quite like a cat’s had traced the exact lines the sailor’s hands had followed. Cyan was too smart to miss the connection.
The silence stretched into eternity, it seemed, before the sailor said, “Rumor has it Kavet’s sorcerers have dealings with the Abyss.”
Naples stood, lust now intermixed with anger. “You’ve always known what I am.”
The sailor scooped Naples’ pants off the floor and tossed them at him. “I knew you were a follower of the Napthol. I ignored the rumors because I know better than to trust the kind of gossip a man hears in port.”
“What does it matter?” Naples demanded.
“It matters if you are fucking a demon!” Cyan seemed to want to shout but was struggling to keep his voice down, so it came out as a strangled cry. “It matters because if you’re doing that, I have no idea what other rumors are true.”
“You’re not my father and you’re certainly not my wife,” Naples said. “Since when do I owe you explanations?”
He pulled on his pants, then reached for the rest of his clothes. To the Abyss with Cyan, with the ship, with everything. All of Kavet co
uld burn for all he cared.
“Since I haven’t been able to get you out of my head!” Cyan shouted. “I jumped ship for you, Naples. If the storm hadn’t locked all ships back in here, if I hadn’t had the horror of that morning as an excuse, I would have lost everything. At the time, it seemed like a reasonable idea to give up my entire life for a chance to touch you again.”
Naples recoiled. “I never—”
“I wrote it off as the effects of the festival, all the magic in the air, and general restlessness. But if you hadn’t disappeared—”
“I didn’t do a damn thing to you.”
Probably. Naples was no ignorant novice who might accidentally use his power to seduce and entrance, but that night he had been tied tightly into the Terra’s spell for the Osei. Could that have—
“It wouldn’t have been the first time, would it?” Cyan challenged.
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“They say you raped Celadon Cremnitz, and that you tried to kill him.”
Naples let out a sound that was half laugh and half growl. Dressed now, he shoved past Cyan, and started toward the door. If Cyan wanted to blame his stupid decisions on Naples, that was his own issue.
Cyan grabbed his arm.
“Get your hands off me,” Naples growled.
“Deny it. Deny something.”
“Fuck. You.”
He pushed at Cyan, but the other man held on. “Naples, please. Tell me I’m wrong, or tell me I don’t understand. Because no matter what else might be true, those scars on your body make me think you’re in trouble.”
Naples spun on him with the rage of a wounded badger. He spoke each word clearly, concisely. “I’ll tell you this about me, and about how my power works. I’ve had you. I’ll have you again any time I want you. I’ve had my power so deep inside you that, if you don’t take your hand off me right now, I’m pretty sure I can melt your body into tar before you can scream.”
Cyan pulled back. Not immediately, but with the wary horror of a man confronting a dangerous animal.