Bloodtraitor (22 page)

Vance looked at me quizzically for a moment, and then he laughed. The first meal we had ever shared had been squirrel stew.

“I'm ready,” I said, once I had eaten my fill and felt a little stronger. “We should let Kadee know we're alive, and then decide what to do next.”

Please don't leave me,
I thought. Vance and Kadee had other options.
Better
options, probably, than I could offer them—especially if Midnight was really gone. How selfish would I have to be, to encourage them to remain together in the shattered remnants of what had once been the Obsidian guild?

As selfish as I was when I spoke my prophecy a little over two decades ago:
Someday, my sister, you will be queen…and this place, this Midnight, will burn to ash.

It had been a lie then. I had made it true.
Is that enough to let you rest in peace, Farrell? You gave up everything and dedicated your life to this task. I did it for you.

I paused at the edge of the Shantel Family Courtyard as the truth crashed down on me. Past that wall was a civilization, a king and two princes. They were probably panicked about their lost witch, but they would also be celebrating. They were free, but I wasn't. I had never been free. I still had sins for which I needed to atone.

“I need to go to the serpiente,” I told Vance.

“You need a few days of good food and deep sleep,” Vance argued. “After that, if you want to go fight Misha, Kadee and I will go with you. Until then, Obsidian or not, I won't let you go anywhere.”

I quirked a smile. A child of Obsidian didn't need or give permission, and Vance knew that.

Very well. I would stay a day, long enough to rest and heal. Then I would move on.

I didn't want to go anywhere near the royal or even public areas of Shantel land, but I made use of their resources in order to bathe and eat, and accepted the clothing they gave me to replace my own ruined garments, as well as a sleeping roll and blanket, which I spread in front of my campfire.

I lay down alone, but it wasn't long before Kadee and Vance joined me, guarding my back and sharing their warmth.

If only their presence could keep the nightmares away.

Over and over again, I watched Alasdair's golden feathers falling to the ground: the trainer, shearing her flight feathers on one of her first days in Midnight.

When it wasn't feathers, it was scenes from a serpiente royal bedroom. The rapid patter of feet, the shouting of guards, and a canister of oil and flame flew in an arc through the air. It shattered against the base of the bed, igniting the linens and canopy immediately.

Three-year-old Hara screamed.

She kept screaming, older now, as fire closed in on her from all sides.

Golden feathers. Black scales.

It all ended in fire.

When I woke, I first thought my face was damp from morning dew. Only as I blinked the sleep from my eyes did I realize I had been crying. I instinctively wiped the tears away before anyone could see them, then took a minute to marvel at the way my eyes felt swollen and I could taste salt on my tongue.

Like the ocean.

I had never seen the ocean. That was Gabriel's thought.

I knew Vance wanted us to take more time to rest, but it was time to see my sister and Farrell's son.

MISHA WOKE WITH
a quiet gasp and a shudder, recoiling from the man in bed with her. In his sleep, Aaron instinctively tried to pull her back, but she shoved him away again. He grunted and rolled over, dragging the edge of the blanket to his chest as if he couldn't stand not having something to hold.

She refused to think about what had disturbed her rest. These days, her dreams were always full of icy marble, black eyes, a smooth tormenting voice, and pain. It was bad enough waking from them when she was alone. After one of those nightmares, Aaron's arms felt suffocating.

She had to steel her courage before leaving the royal bedchamber and stepping into the halls of the serpiente palace, reminding herself that no one would dare accost her now, or ever again. She was queen.

One of the guards outside the bedchamber shadowed her silently as she walked in long strides, trying to look as if she had a destination instead of as if she were fleeing her mate.

Most of the Obsidian guild had claimed an area called the Opal Hall, which was adorned much like a small dancers' nest. As Misha paused in the doorway, Aika looked up from where she had been dozing, her swelling belly making rest increasingly difficult. It was also making both her and Torquil increasingly protective and therefore problematic. Once the babe was born, Misha suspected she would need to find a way to take them more firmly in hand.

Discreetly, of course. They were well liked by the others, and people tended to have an irritating affection for newborns.

Despite what we were going toward, Vance and Kadee seemed as anxious to leave as I was. Though the Shantel mouthed words of gratitude and hospitality, their hollow, mourning gazes drove us out as surely as our duty to our next task drew us on.

We were still a half day's ride from the serpiente palace when I stopped short, sensing someone through the trees, moments before a man in the regalia of the palace guard stepped out and demanded, “Who goes there?”

Normally, I would have turned to run, but…something wasn't right.

This man didn't have the aura of a guard, and his uniform appeared battered, no longer crisp and vibrant black and navy.

Kadee and Vance drew weapons, but I didn't, even though the man facing me had a bow pulled.

My instincts were rewarded a moment later as the guard relaxed his hold on the bow and, inexplicably, started to laugh.

“Obsidian,” he said, shaking his head. “Naturally.”

“What's going on?” Vance asked warily. He held his knife loose by his side, taking my cue that it wasn't time to fight, but still concerned.

“I'm Quentin. If I'm not mistaken, you're Malachi, Kadee, and Vance Obsidian. I'm sure you're aware that
Naga
Misha has put you all on a list of individuals wanted for treason.” The guard spat the word “Naga,” the serpiente title for their queen, as if it was poison. Before I could decide whether or not those words were a threat, he added, “That's good. We could use someone with experience. If you need anything, our camp is through this way.”

He turned his back on us and started to lead the way through the woods. Vance, Kadee, and I exchanged glances, but were too curious to resist following. Soon we found ourselves approaching a rough encampment.

We were challenged again as we drew near. Unlike the first guard, this woman had only a knife, which looked more like a kitchen implement than a weapon. She wasn't wearing a uniform.

“Are you crazy?” the woman hissed. “What are you doing, bringing them here?”

“Where else would I bring them?” Quentin answered. “They're allies.”

It was certainly the first time a royal guard had looked at me, or any child of Obsidian, and thought “allies.”

“I take it your group is fighting Misha?” I asked.

“Fighting may be too strong a word,” he answered.

“ ‘Hiding from' would be more accurate,” added the woman. “Surviving, if we can.”

Barely surviving,
I thought, as Vance, Kadee, and I toured the ramshackle camp. These were not people used to living in the woods. Many were dancers, used to the most luxurious accommodations the serpiente had to offer. Others were merchants, shepherds, or craftsmen. Only a few were guards.

“Misha and Aaron have the palace guards tightly under control,” Quentin explained. He seemed to be tentatively in charge of the exiled group. “Anyone who speaks up disappears for a few days, and comes back more…tractable.”

I winced, imagining the persuasion that caused that kind of change. Magic was probably involved, but based on what I had seen in the palace months ago, it was surely mixed with physical cruelty as well.

“There are about two dozen of us,” Quentin said as my gaze raked the camp.

Their shelters were barely sufficient for summer or fall; they were probably already becoming uncomfortable at night, especially for individuals used to soft living. The camp supplies I could see were obviously scavenged or improvised, few of them appropriate for their current uses. The Obsidian guild had always lived rough, and I had known plenty of cold and hungry nights when supplies were scarce, but we had been better off than this because we knew what we were doing. These people would never make it through the winter without help.

“Our only safety comes in the fact that Misha isn't comfortable sending guards to hunt us,” Quentin added. “I don't think she trusts them to come back.”

That was good news. Misha's magic wasn't all-powerful; it was significantly weaker than mine, and I had never had the strength to conquer a civilization.

Vance was the first to ask, “Does she know yet—for that matter, do
you
all know—that Midnight is gone?”

Quentin just stared at us at first, as if waiting for Vance to continue. After a long silence, he said, “Do we know…
what?
”

As we began to speak, Quentin hushed us, and called the rest of his band over. My skin crawled as we stood in front of the crowd, many of whom were looking at us with much more suspicion and loathing than Quentin. He seemed to have quickly grasped the idea that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” but the rest were not so swift to trust members of the guild they had been warned about for a generation.

We didn't explain what our roles had been in the attack, but we described the fire, and what we had seen of the aftermath: the sludge of molten stone, the still-smoldering embers, and the lingering stench of the dead.

“My understanding is that another group of vampires plans to step in and take control over their own kind,” I said, “but they don't care about the shapeshifters. We're on our own now.”

I expected to see relief and celebration, and there were moments of that…but many faces fell. Quentin was the one who finally articulated what many of the others were thinking.

“That means Misha did it,” he said, with what sounded like dawning horror. “She promised to fight Midnight, and now it's fallen—”

“The timing is a
coincidence,
” Vance snapped. “Misha can't take credit.”

“But she will,” Quentin replied, “and that will make it even harder to convince people to stand against her.”

I shook my head. I hadn't ever considered a civilized rebellion where everyone rose up against a corrupt queen. A covert assassination was more likely to succeed.

A woman in the crowd whose name I didn't know spoke up next, asking, “What happened to Hara? A lot of people won't fight Misha because they see no choice. We could easily overturn a white viper if we had a cobra to take the throne.”

I resisted the urge to look at Kadee and Vance, an expression that would have instantly and absolutely given away my guilt in the matter.

Kadee answered for me. “We tried to save her,” she said, voice heavy with sorrow that I knew was more sincere than mine would have been. “She was in Midnight when the attack happened, and we tried to rescue her, but…we were too late.”

I appreciated that she said
we.
She said it as if she believed that I would have kept my word and tried to rescue the cobra we had allowed Misha to sell, if I hadn't been knocked out.

Unfortunately, the woman raised her voice again. “That isn't what I meant,” she said. “I mean, what
happened
to her—really? I know what our new royal house says. I want the truth.”

Again, thankfully, Kadee spoke up. This time her voice was softer, less sure, but no less honest.

“Misha,” she said. “She came up with the plan. We”—she gestured to herself, me, and Vance—“we tried to argue with her, and she turned on us. I would have saved Hara if I could have, but there was no way.”

“We couldn't even go to Hara to warn her,” Vance added. “We're children of Obsidian. She never would have let us speak, and if she had, she never would have believed anything we said.”

I thanked the fates that I had such companions with me—dear, sincere Kadee, and clever Vance, who could lie so smoothly and carefully. The crowd seemed mollified, at least.

“Where is Julian?” I asked. I had always hated the old king, but if the serpiente insisted on having a king before they would get rid of their false queen, he was the only one left who could fill the role.

“Murdered,” Quentin answered. “A man from the Obsidian guild was arrested for it. Aaron and Misha had him publicly executed as a way of disavowing themselves from his actions.”

I felt myself blanch in a way I hadn't previously. Misha had only been on the throne a few months, and she was already using us as scapegoats. Was that how she planned to get rid of Torquil and Aika when they became too inconvenient?

“Who?” I asked, imagining my scattered kin. Even though many had followed Misha, I didn't have it in me to hate any of them.

“A mamba named Phillip,” Quentin answered.

There was no one in our guild by that name. Asking Quentin for more details only made it clear that the poor serpent hadn't been one of ours. What unfortunate wretch had Misha sacrificed to hide what I had no doubt was her own crime? And did it make it better or worse that she blamed Obsidian, but killed a stranger?

Kadee, Vance, and I stayed with the group. Where else? We were all exiles, with nowhere else to go and only the most tenuous of goals.

More importantly, we stayed close to each other, and watched each other's backs, because there were plenty of whispers from people who weren't happy to see us. I didn't want Vance or Kadee to show up one morning with a slit throat.

Bit by bit, we helped make the camp livable, applying our knowledge of how to survive in the woods and make do with minimal supplies. The three of us hunted almost every day. Without consulting the rest of us, Kadee sneaked into the palace and found Aika and Torquil; even pregnant, Aika refused to flee danger, but instead helped smuggle us supplies, information, and occasional allies.

Bit by bit, we learned the true depth of our disastrous situation.

I had negotiated with Nathaniel to protect the central market and fields, but I hadn't accounted for the reckless acts of panic. The market had been sacked within hours of Midnight's end. Any wares left there had been stolen or destroyed. There were also fights in the bloodtraitors' village. The fall harvests had been haphazard, and many of the food supplies on which the shapeshifter nations depended were either hoarded by those who had them, or left to spoil when no one organized their harvest, packaging, and transport.

Trade, which should have been revitalized for the serpiente once they were unafraid of Midnight's laws, remained stagnant. The Shantel disappeared into the woods again instead of supporting the others and sharing the supplies they had prepared. No one could reach them. As for the avians…

“What do you mean,
missing
?” I demanded.

Vance didn't flinch. “Exactly what I said,” he replied flatly. “Rumors say the avians' queen Miriam and her only child, Stephen, are both gone. They went for a meeting with Misha and Aaron, and never returned.”