Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,38

are.” He wanted her close and vulnerable if he was to stop her; he pretended that was why he let the words leave his tongue. “You are the worst thing I’ve ever done. Out of a lifetime of murder and lies and schemes. You are the unforgivable deed.”

“Do you want my forgiveness? Are you asking for it?”

“I could never do that.”

“No. You never would.” She buried her head in the crook of his neck; no breath stirred his skin until she spoke. “Hold me. Please. I have bad dreams.”

He didn’t believe in forgiveness, or atonement. But he held the demon in his arms and stroked her hair until she grew heavy and still. And, eventually, after the moonlight had crawled away and died, he slept too.

He stands on a tower of grey stone, overlooking a dizzying drop. The hands on the crenellated stone are not his, but white and slender and ringed with gold and rubies, laced with fine scars. Black hair whips around his face; the stomach beneath heavy skirts has barely begun to round.

The dream is not his own. He knows that, even as it ensnares him. He might escape it, but perhaps he believes in penance, if not atonement.

Far below, beneath the castle walls and the sheer plunge of cliff, the Ardos¸ River runs cold and wild. The wind tastes of snow, and slices to the bone as it rushes down the winter-dark slopes of the Varagas Mountains. Riders approach from the south, faint with distance on the winding road. They will be here soon.

He turns, trapped in her flesh as he is trapped in her memories, to face the man standing behind them. Ferenz Darvulesti. Tall and lean and hawk-nosed, with deep-set green eyes shadowed by heavy brows. A warrior, swathed in leather and fur and mail with a sword at his hip, but his hands are gentle as they close on Kiril-and-Phaedra’s arms. He speaks, but no sound accompanies the shaping of his lips. There is no sound at all, not even the wind. Only the empty and aching silence of what is past and gone.

The man kisses them twice. Once hungrily, pulling them close till cold steel links bite their flesh. And again, soft as a snowflake on the brow. A kiss of benediction, or forgiveness. Then he turns and strides down the frost-rimed steps, knuckles white around his sword hilt.

Phaedra-and-Kiril raise a hand, and a cloud of ravens bursts from a lower rooftop, fighting the wind on soundless black wings to reach them. They have their own defenses to marshal, even as Ferenz readies his soldiers below. The riders draw ever nearer; this will end soon, one way or another.

* * *

Kiril woke to dawnlight and an ache like cold iron in his chest. He could still feel the wind’s bite, the press of rough lips on his mouth. The weight and softness of foreign limbs.

He needed no oneiromancy to parse the meaning of it. A true dream, a memory, bleeding out of Phaedra and into his mind. Whether she did it on purpose as punishment, or whether the pain of recollection was simply too strong to contain, he couldn’t say.

He might have asked her, but the bed was empty beside him, save for the ghost of cinnamon in the wrinkled sheets and a strand of black hair wrapping his fingers like a fetter.

CHAPTER 5

Isyllt woke alone, tired and aching, to an insistent pounding on her door. A cursory inspection revealed a dark bruise scabbing on her inner thigh—a delicate nip instead of a full bite. Only a taste taken, since she was already weak. A few stray drops of blood spotted her sheets.

“Sand and saints,” Khelséa said when Isyllt opened the door. “You look terrible. More terrible. You did something stupid, didn’t you?”

“Probably.” The smell of spiced meat wafted from one of several bags the inspector carried, and saliva flooded Isyllt’s mouth. Her courses always left her craving meat and greens and this was many times worse.

“What did I tell you about that?”

“Believe me, you don’t want to know about some of the stupid things I do.”

Khelséa unpacked her bags, producing lanterns, rope, a map of the sewers, a small arsenal of weapons including an extra pistol loaded with spell-silver, and lunch. Isyllt fell on the food, but shook her head at the proffered gun.

“I’m hopeless with them,” she said around a mouthful of spiced mutton and spinach. “And magic has better aim.” She stopped short of licking the last of the