Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,20
took Kiril’s place at the king’s side, but the scribe was an old friend. For such a foolish enterprise, Mathiros had acquitted himself well enough. An armistice with the Ordozh, and only two hundred Selafaïn dead to show for it. That number might be lower had Kiril been at the front, and it might not.
Which rankles more, old man? he thought wryly, rubbing the bridge of his nose against an incipient headache. That he needs you and ignores you, or that he doesn’t need you at all?
But among the dead were forty mages, and that wasn’t a number to be shrugged aside. Kristof Vargas, Kiril’s replacement and former student, was a talented sorcerer but still cocky with advancement. Selafai didn’t have scores of battle mages to spare.
That rankled most of all. That Kiril had been set aside after long service he might forgive, but for a decade he had groomed Isyllt Iskaldur to be his successor, and Mathiros had ignored her as he ignored all of Kiril’s advice these days.
Leaving her in the city to stumble over tomb robbers, and secrets he couldn’t confide to her.
He banished the witchlight and touched both notes to the coals in the brazier, breathing in the acrid smoke of burnt parchment. The warmth eased the pain in his hands more than he cared to admit. His joints had begun to ache even before his heart failed three years ago, and the rheumatism had worsened with every winter since. Now even his magic couldn’t distract him from the pain.
It would pass. He’d endured worse.
When the last corner of parchment blackened and fell to ash, Kiril wiped the soot from his hands and rose, leaning against his chair. He didn’t need strength or magic to deal with tomb-robbing vampires, only wits and caution.
He snuffed the lamp and prepared to lie to someone he loved.
Rain hissed and tapped against the rooftops of Calderon Court, streaming past the warped panes of the great octagonal window in Isyllt’s living room and rinsing the city into a grey blur. The streetlights weren’t lit till true dusk, but lamps and candles flickered in other windows, bleeding pale and gold through the gloom. Isyllt’s stomach felt as cold and watery as the glass.
Her left palm ached against her teacup. During the chaos in Symir a would-be assassin had put a knife through her hand to steal her ring. She’d reclaimed the diamond, but all the skill of the Arcanostoi surgeons hadn’t been enough to save her hand. Foretelling the weather was a paltry compensation. She swirled her tea, watching leaves twist and spiral through the dregs. A pity she couldn’t foretell anything else.
Hours remained till sunset—only a formality, with the sky the color of old pewter, but one to be observed nonetheless. She set the teacup aside and wished for something stronger. The thought of the catacombs sent a not entirely unpleasant chill up her back, and she rubbed the scar on her shoulder. She had known of the vrykoloi since she first became an investigator, but only met one two years ago, after she’d come home from Symir. The meeting hadn’t begun well, but they had sorted things out since.
Her wards shivered a moment before a soft knock fell on her door. Her magic recognized the man outside and rubbed against him in friendly greeting, even as she tensed. Isyllt forced her hands to relax as she opened the door and smiled up at her master.
Once he would have kissed her cheek; once she would have kissed his mouth. Now they settled for a brief clasp of hands, and she felt the starkness of bone through skin. His short beard was finally more white than dark auburn, his hair even paler. Students had called him “the Old Man” since his thirties, but it had never seemed like the truth before. Shadowed black eyes met hers and he smiled wryly.
“I know,” Kiril said, shrugging out of his dripping oilcloak and hanging it on a peg. “Any day now I’ll be leaning on a stick and complaining about the stairs.”
“Don’t be silly.” Beneath the clinging scent of rain, he smelled of incense and herbs, orris and olibanum and resinous dragon’s blood, and under that the lightning tang of magic. Sharp and sweet and comforting—she still wanted to lean into it whenever he was near.
She also wanted to shake him; it shouldn’t take tomb-robbing demons to bring him to her door. It had been more than a decad since she’d spoken to him, and