Impyrium

  He handed Hob a small envelope sealed with black wax. Hob guessed what it contained before he opened it.

  His Lordship Dante Willem, Earl of Eastmarch, and Heir to House Hyde, demands satisfaction for a blow struck earlier this day. He will be waiting at the cliffs by Hound’s Trench at two o’clock tomorrow morning. The muir may be assured the matter will be settled without magic. Show or be scorned for eternity.

  Hob laid the card aside.

  “What is that?” said Viktor uneasily.

  “A challenge. To a duel.”

  “You’re joking,” said Viktor. “What, with that squeaker out there? I’ll box his ears and send him off. He can’t be ten.”

  “Not with a page. Dante Hyde.”

  Viktor’s grin faded. “What?” Once again his eyes fell on Hob’s knuckles. “Hob, please tell me you didn’t sock an earl on the chin.”

  “More like his nose and teeth.”

  Viktor slumped on his bed, staring at Hob with an expression that alternated between horror and awe. “You really did this?”

  Hob nodded. With his permission, Viktor read the card twice before setting it down. “I don’t understand. Nobles don’t duel pages. No offense, but you’re not even mehrùn, much less a member of a Great House. It’s beneath Dante Hyde to fight you. He can just have you hanged.”

  “He won’t press charges.”

  “Why not?”

  Hob did not want to get into the details. “Hazel Faeregine spoke up for me. I’m under her protection, but if I agree to meet Dante in a duel . . .”

  “He can have his revenge,” said Viktor grimly. “Well, I’ll just tell that little twit outside you’ll take your scorn with two lumps of sugar.”

  “No,” said Hob, standing in his way. “Where I’m from you don’t refuse a challenge. Not ever. You’d be hissed to the grave.”

  “You’re not in Dusk,” said Viktor pointedly. “And you’re not some lord with family honor to uphold. No one even cares what a page’s name is, much less whether he shows up to a duel.”

  “I’m not afraid of him.”

  “Then you’re an idiot too,” retorted Viktor. “Dante Hyde is a psychopath, Hob. He’s not just some school yard bully and this isn’t his first duel. He’s killed people.”

  “So have I,” said Hob softly.

  “Well, maybe you did,” said Viktor dubiously. “But this isn’t some brawl in the Sentries. It’s a gentlemen’s duel and your opponent’s been trained by the best swordmasters in Impyrium. You won’t last two sneezes.”

  “Then you can have my best boots. But I’ll need a second.”

  Viktor looked anxious. “I’ve never been someone’s second in a duel. I wouldn’t know what to do.”

  “You can start by telling the messenger I’ll be at Hound’s Trench,” said Hob.

  Viktor pursed his lips. “You’re resolved on doing this?”

  Hob nodded.

  Viktor sighed. “Then I guess I’ll be your second. I have only one condition.”

  “Name it.”

  “You have to steal a pie.”

  The two shook hands.

  CHAPTER 11

  HOUSE BLADES

  Prime visited in the night. The uprising was finished.

  No ruler of a rebel house would escape the empress’s wrath.

  Prime would find them all.

  —Impyrium, An Official History, Vol. XI

  It was past midnight when Hazel trudged back to the triplets’ tower. Rascha had suggested rest after the Direwood (she was ready to throttle the master, who claimed nothing like this had ever happened before), but Hazel insisted on having their Mystics lesson. She had wanted a distraction after all the excitement and upset. Oddly enough, it proved to be a wise choice; despite her weariness, she had never performed better. Even Rascha found little to criticize.

  She could have made the trip to her tower blindfolded. Sixty-seven steps from the art gallery to the library, thirty-three more to their chambers. She eyed the familiar portraits as she passed them: Mina I, Mina V, Mina XIII, and their grandmother Mina XLII. Between each, a sconce illuminated a bust of some long-dead archmage or magistrate. She paused at the final niche where a pen lay on a velvet cushion. Sigga stopped two stairs ahead.

  “Everything all right, Your Highness?”

  “Fine,” Hazel murmured. She tapped the protective runeglass. It rippled red at the pressure. DO NOT TOUCH. “Do you know what this is?”

  “I believe it’s a pen, Your Highness.”

  Hazel’s breath fogged the glass. “Not any pen. The Demon-Queen Lilith used it to surrender all of Zenuvia to the empire.”

  Sigga grunted. “The Three-Day War. But I thought that pen was in a museum.”

  “This is the real one,” said Hazel. “My grandmother had it placed here to remind us what our ancestors accomplished. We didn’t even have to send soldiers when Zenuvia refused to pay tribute. Mina the Fourth went herself. The Reaper versus a kingdom. And the Reaper won.”

  “She was formidable.”

  You have no idea, thought Hazel, staring at the pen in silence. The Reaper was there today in the Direwood. A tiny part of her deep beneath those stones. All hatred and fury.

  “It’s late, Your Highness. You should get some rest.”

  Nodding, Hazel continued up the stairs to where Omani Kruger, Violet’s bodyguard, sat outside the triplets’ outer door. He was the second oldest of the Red Branch, a two-hundred-year-old mountain from the Navaché slums with red-brown skin, a silver beard, and the warmest smile Hazel had ever seen. He was said to have over a hundred grandchildren, a fact that struck her as rather horrifying. Assassins should not have grandchildren.

  He greeted them pleasantly, but his hand remained on his spear until Sigga relayed some private signal.

  “Are you on dawn duty?” said Hazel to Sigga.

  The agent yawned. “Omani’s the lucky one. Good night, Your Highness.”

  Slipping inside, Hazel heard Agent Kruger secure the locks behind her. The door was almost six inches thick and brimming with warding spells. Nothing could get past it; no boots, ax, or battering ram.

  Tossing her coat on the vestibule bench, Hazel was about to remove her shoes when she noticed firelight peeping beneath the door to the common room. She bit her lip; her sisters were still awake.

  The minute she went through that door, Isabel would surely pepper her with questions, but what could she tell her? She had not been entirely truthful with Sigga in the stairwell. In the Direwood, she hadn’t merely felt the Reaper’s presence; she’d heard the goddess’s voice.

  It had started by the lake, a faint whisper on the breeze skimming over the grass. Hazel had gotten in that boat not merely to thank Mr. Smythe, but to get away from that ghostly hiss on shore. When she returned, however, the voice had grown stronger. It no longer carried on the wind but flowed like poisoned honey from the Direwood hills. Five simple words that nearly froze her heart.

  I’ve been waiting for you.

  The voice had been drawing her forward, luring her like that piper in Uncle Basil’s storybooks.

  Poking her head into the common room, Hazel saw her sisters sitting by the fireplace, talking quietly and sharing a plate of cookies. Neither was facing the door and they had yet to notice she was home. Slipping off her shoes, Hazel tried to tiptoe around and scoot quietly into her room. She made it three steps before Isabel swiveled about.

  “There you are,” she said. “I can’t believe Rascha kept you up so late after everything that happened. Were you at Tùr an Ghrian?”

  Hazel forced a yawn. “Yes, and I’m exhausted, so—”

  “Sit down,” said Violet, pointing at the couch. “We want to talk with you.”

  “It will have to wait until morning,” said Hazel. “Like I said, I’m tired.”

  Violet stood. “And like I said, sit down.”

  Hazel laughed. “Or what? You’re going to rub burrs in my hair like you did when we were six?”

 
“If you’re going to act like you’re six, I just might,” Violet retorted. “Sit down.”

  “Listen,” said Isabel soothingly, “we just want to make sure you’re all right. What happened in the Direwood?”

  A lump formed in Hazel’s throat. She was tired and frightened and in no mood to be interrogated. “I don’t want to talk about it right now, Isabel. All I want to do is go to bed.”

  She turned to go into her room, but Violet strode forward. “Sit down this—”

  “Leave me alone!”

  As Hazel spoke, the fire roared up, sending a crackling shower of embers onto the hearthstones. Hazel glared at her sisters, who looked stunned by her outburst. Neither spoke as she stormed into her room.

  Once inside, she locked the door and tapped it after making an intricate sign with her fingers. It was not precisely the same spell Rascha had taught her last week. Hazel’s instincts led her to make some modifications. No more hairpins would be picking this lock.

  She went straight for the painting. For the time being, it was hidden behind a large portrait of Mina VII that hung above the fireplace. Mina IV sat comfortably between her great-granddaughter’s canvas stretchers. Sliding the painting free, Hazel propped it against the pillows on her bed.

  She glared at it, breathing hard. “Was that you talking to me in the Direwood?” she demanded.

  The longer Hazel stared at the moonlit image, the more foolish she felt. Did she actually expect it to answer? Slowly, her breathing steadied. Unballing her small fists, she assessed the portrait as a sane person might.

  She found it impossible to reconcile that girl with her reputation. Mina IV was responsible for both the greatest and most appalling deeds in history. The young empire was on the verge of dissolution before she came to power. Muir were in open revolt and the Great Houses, who thought little of Mina III, undermined the empress’s authority by establishing the Triad, a legislature whose laws openly defied her edicts. Despite her ineffectiveness, Mina III’s advisers opposed her decision to abdicate in favor of her daughter. None of them believed that gentle, soft-spoken Arianna could possibly deal with the challenges at hand.

  They were mistaken.

  The very hour she became empress, Mina IV destroyed the Triad in a storm of witchfire so hot it melted the building’s stone into glass. Everyone inside—every noble who had boycotted her coronation—was burned alive. The act sent a shock wave throughout Impyrium. No one suspected the girl possessed such power, much less that she would wield it in such fashion. Within the week, all the surviving members of the Great Houses prostrated themselves before the Divine Empress and swore everlasting fealty to the House of Faeregine.

  Within two years Mina IV had conquered every last outpost of rebellion, leaving trails of blight and desolation that remained to this day. Half the global population died during the purges that would give the empress her fearsome epithet. Not content to merely salvage her empire, the Reaper expanded it by swallowing up Zenuvia and portions of the Grislands. And once this was done, she solidified her dominion with unprecedented feats of magic.

  The list was seemingly endless. The Reaper had fashioned the four Otherland Gates, permanent portals to other worlds. It was her magic that ensorcelled the dragons who guard them, her sorcery that held the Shibbolth at bay when the ancient demons sought to enter this world. When her enemies sent assassins to slay her, the Reaper brought forth Prime the Immortal to obliterate them. The power she wielded was both awesome and terrifying. As Hazel mused on these facts, her eyes adjusted to the dark room. The painting’s finer details began to emerge, so fine that Hazel fancied a peculiar glint in the eyes of the painting’s subject. It imbued the portrait with an eerie, almost lifelike quality. By moonlight that innocent face now looked mocking, even sinister.

  I’ve been waiting for you.

  Again, Hazel heard the whisper, but she could not be certain if it was a trick of the mind. She promptly conjured a glowsphere which bathed the room in a cheerful radiance. Once again, the painting’s subject was lifeless, her eyes mere daubs of pigment. If there had been a spirit lurking in the canvas, the light had banished it.

  Don’t be ridiculous, Hazel told herself. There never had been any spirit—just her weary mind projecting her fears. The Reaper was dead, murdered over twenty-six hundred years ago by the Atropos, an assassins’ guild working in league with muir revolutionaries. That was the official history. The unofficial history, popular with conspiracy theorists, was that the Faeregines themselves were behind the plot, that the family had secretly hired and equipped the killers in a bid to save the world—and their dynasty—before the Reaper destroyed them both.

  It did not matter which version was true: the Reaper was no more. Her body was scattered among a thousand consecrated graves. She was never coming back.

  Hazel froze as a knock sounded behind her.

  Isabel’s voice called softly through the door. “Hazel?”

  A second knock launched Hazel into action. Whisking the portrait off the bed, she quickly stashed it behind the larger painting. Isabel was now trying to turn the doorknob. A moment later, something rattled in the lock, but the door refused to give. Hazel felt a twinge of pride as the rattling ceased and the knocking resumed.

  “Hazel, please open up. Violet didn’t mean to be rude. We’re just worried about you. Please come out. Do it for me.”

  Hazel bowed her head. She couldn’t say no; Isabel was always there for her.

  “Just a minute,” she said, and quickly changed into the nightgown Olo had left on her bed. If she was going to be interrogated, she might as well be comfortable.

  She opened the door to find her sister holding out a sugar cookie. “A peace offering,” Isabel said.

  Hazel took it and followed Isabel into the common room. Violet was now sitting on the chaise beneath a blanket. She scooted in her feet, signaling that Hazel could sit beside her. This was the closest thing to an apology Violet could manage, and so Hazel settled next to her and shared the blanket.

  Isabel sat in the nearby rocker. “Let’s try this again,” she said. “Are you really all right? Mei-Mei said some kind of goat or stag creature tried to attack you.”

  “I’m fine,” said Hazel. “It never laid a finger on me.”

  Isabel frowned. “No thanks to Sigga, I hear. Where was she?”

  “No idea,” said Hazel. “All I know is that she was there when I could make sense of things. I’d nearly fainted.”

  “I spoke with the empress,” said Violet. “Sigga takes idiotic risks. She isn’t suited to be your bodyguard.”

  Hazel could not help but smile. “I’m touched, Violet. Last I heard, you didn’t think I needed one.”

  Isabel shot Hazel a pleading look to desist. “And what did Grandmother say?”

  Violet gave a dissatisfied sniff. “She is ‘perfectly content’ with Sigga’s performance.”

  “There,” said Hazel. “Can I go to bed now?”

  “Not yet,” said Isabel. “Something weird is going on with you, and not just today in the Direwood. It’s been weeks, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it tonight.”

  “You can start,” said Violet, “by telling us what you were doing just now.”

  Hazel sighed. “Getting ready for bed.”

  “Not that,” said Violet. “What have you been doing with Rascha at all hours, every day since New Year’s?”

  “Studying Mystics,” said Hazel, finishing her cookie.

  Isabel nudged the plate on the coffee table toward her. “Come off it, Hazel. I study Mystics. Violet studies Mystics. That’s not all you’re doing.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Hazel, selecting another cookie. She was starving.

  Isabel gave a dubious snort, but Violet held up her hand. “Let’s pretend that’s true. Why do you suddenly have to binge on Mystics when you’re failing everything else?”

  Hazel wiped a crumb from her chin. “I am not failing everything else. Montague wrote ‘better’ on my last
essay. He even underlined it.”

  “Congratulations,” said Violet drily. “The point is, why has Mystics—”

  “Become an obsession?” said Isabel pointedly.

  Hazel groaned. “I knew this day would come. You’ve finally started finishing each other’s sentences.”

  “Please answer the question,” said Isabel.

  Hazel closed her eyes, the cookie clutched lightly between her fingertips. She just didn’t have the energy to stonewall. If she held out long enough, Violet might get bored and disengage, but not Isabel. She exhaled slowly.

  “I have to pass the Mystics exams by our birthday.”

  “We all have to pass Mystics exams,” snapped Violet.

  Hazel clarified. “I have to pass official examinations. Third Rank.”

  Isabel chuckled. “Come off it. You’re joking.”

  “I’m not.”

  Violet shifted, claiming the entire blanket. “If you’re going to lie, at least make it plausible. There aren’t five hundred Third Ranks in all Impyrium. Rascha’s lost her mind.”

  “Rascha’s not the one pushing me,” said Hazel.

  A pause. Isabel’s eyes widened. “The Spider?”

  Hazel said nothing. She didn’t have to. Who else but their grandmother could impose such a mandate?

  Violet turned so that she faced Hazel directly.

  “Why would the Divine Empress demand such a task of you?” she asked.

  Hazel hesitated. “She thinks I have the Old Magic.”

  “You’re a Faeregine,” said Violet coolly. “Of course you have the Old Magic. Every Faeregine has the Old Magic.”

  Oh dear.

  Hazel took a deep breath. “I think what Grandmother meant is that I might truly have the Old Magic. That it’s not just something our family says. Or pretends.”

  Violet swatted this notion aside. “Ridiculous. You’re no more magical than either of us.”

  “How do you know?” said Isabel. “We’re only allowed to practice magic with our tutors. It’s been years since you’ve seen Hazel do anything.”

  “Maybe so,” said Violet. “But I don’t recall her being some prodigy at fairy lights.”