House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(85)
Vampiric magic is not like scriv. It moves between skin and blood, it follows the shape of heartbeats, the chambers of the human temple. It fills them and walks between them.
This is not a simple matter of knowing the body like a chirurgeon, and slicing with a blade of sharpened air. It’s about something far stranger and harder to explain.
Heartbeats echo, loud as if I had my head underwater. Distant drums of the body. I sense my own, slow; Jannik’s in time, and deeper-pitched; the scatter-thump of Carien’s, and the smallest sound of all. So fast and bright.
I bring the magic neatly to rein and, with a tenderness I almost did not expect of myself, I end the child’s song. I want to ask it to forgive me, that I would have made it my own, if I’d known how. But there are no words in magic.
The first cramp hits me as I open my eyes. Carien is staring at me, her amber eyes bright as lamps. When she speaks it is with a happy ferocity. “It’s done?”
I grimace, pressing one hand to my stomach, and nod at Jannik to leave. I would speak with Carien. She has no need of further humiliation. He closes the door softly behind him, leaving us alone in a room already beginning to smell heavy with blood. “I will have servants bring you cloths and food and drink.” With my hand still hard against the pain in my belly I rise from the bed. “When you have recovered I will organize safe passage for you to Pelimburg.”
“And then what?” Her face has gone pale.
“There are people who will help me find you a place. I will set you up with a patron.”
“So I’m still to be beholden to someone else?”
“Only for a while. You are Iynast. Reinvented, I believe it will not be long before you have thrown the Pelimburg art world into chaos, and gathered many patrons to choose from. I think you will find yourself to be a flame, surrounded by little moths.”
She manages a weak and painful approximation of mirth. “And there I will burn all those who want me.”
“It’s your choice. I think there are better ones to make – to burn steady and long, rather than flare, consume and die out after too brief a moment.” The pain is damping and rising, and I wince as another surge passes through me. Perhaps using Jannik’s magic too often will have its toll on me the same way Harun suffered to take his scriv.
Carien narrows her eyes. Her dark hair is stuck to her waxy skin, the sweat on her temples golden dew in the candle light. “How many lives have you lived?” she asks me. “You’re still just a girl. You’re younger than me.”
“I know.” I smile sadly at her. “And today I feel it. I am overwhelmed.”
“You don’t look it.”
“I was trained to wear a mask, like all House girls.” My face relaxes. “You were never one, were you?”
She shakes her head. “Garret concocted some fancy tale about House Sidora, but I’m an accident. A throwback.”
“He hid your ancestry?” He would only have done that were she not from a House; Great, High, or Low. She is most certainly not a Hob. “A low-Lammer?”
“My mother was. My father.” She shrugs. “I’m no Mata.” She touches her dark-brown hair with the palm of one hand. “Whoever he was, he gave me something of his lineage, the ability to Read.”
“And Eline Garret created for you some suitable history that allowed him to marry you.” I gnaw at my lower lip. “Why did you say yes?”
She laughs. “Why did your bat say yes to you?”
The lance catches me. I withdraw from her room and beckon for servants to bring her necessities, to give her lady’s gown and let her sleep. I have other enemies to destroy.
Downstairs I am greeted by silence. Jannik must have already told them that it has been done, that I have successfully bound Carien to us and set her on her path against her husband. There is no sign of Merril. Undoubtedly he has been locked away out of sight, far from Isidro who, of us all, finds him most upsetting.
“Well,” says Harun. “It will not be long before Eline makes another move.”
Especially now that we have taken more than mere playthings away from him or humiliated him at Council. “Do we wait?” I ask as I walk to the table. Someone has bought more wine. Harun must have decided to refill his depleted stocks. At least he still appears to be sober and standing. I make no comment, instead taking the glass of apple-coloured wine left on the table for me. “Or do we use this to bring him to heel now?”
Isidro, always more familiar with the finer blades of cruelty, leans forward with a raptor’s delight. “I could grow to like you. If you keep up this act.”
On the couch, Jannik slumps further down. He has already tasted the way I think, and while I can feel his unhappiness, I can also feel his reluctant accord.
“You would do this how?” Harun asks.
“Isidro knows.” I nod at the vampire in acknowledgement of our unwanted mutual understanding, and offer him a defeated smile. Eline is going to play soft with us, and we don’t have the time or the resources to keep playing this shadow game.
For the moment we are strong, with magic Eline doesn’t know about. But we may not be able to keep this secret for long. We need to goad Eline into making a thoughtless, angry move, preferably one that exposes him. He’s a cold man, and he doesn’t love people, but he does love power and prestige. If something we do makes him lose face, he’ll react. If he attacks us publicly, we can retaliate. Publicly.