Reckless (Free Preview) (31 page)

"Give the
order."

Donnersmarck
lowered his head, as was his habit whenever he disliked one of her commands.

"What?"

"You can
kill their King, but their armies are still barely twenty miles away."

"They'll
be lost without Kami’en and the Fairy."

"One of
the
onyx
Goyl will replace him."

"And
bargain for peace.
 
The
onyx Goyl just want
to rule underground."
 
She heard the impatience in her own
voice.
 
She didn't want to think; she
wanted to act.
 
Before
her opportunity passed.

"Their
underground cities are overflowing.
 
And
his subjects will want revenge.
 
They
adore their King!"

He was so
obstinate, and he was obviously tired of war, but nobody was smarter than him,
or less corruptible.

"I won't
say it again:
 
Give the order."

She waved to
one of her Dwarfs.
 
"Bring my
breakfast.
 
I'm hungry."

The Dwarf
scuttled away.
 
Donnersmarck still had
not moved."

"What
about the brother?"

"What
about him?
 
He's the King's bodyguard, so
I expect that he will die with his King.
 
Did you get those items for my daughter?"

Donnersmarck
placed them on the table where she often had sat as a child and watched her
father put his seal on treaties and death warrants.
 
Now it was she who wore the signet ring.

A healing needle, a Dragon's claw, and the skin of a Waterman.
 
Therese approached the table and stroked the
pale green scales that had once covered the Waterman's hand.

"Have the
claw sewn into my daughter's wedding dress," she said to a maid waiting by
the door.
 
"And give the needle to
the doctor who will be standing by the sacristy."

Donnersmarck
handed her the second claw.

"I
brought this one for you."

He saluted and
was about to leave.

"What
about Jacob?
 
Did you have him
arrested?"

Donnersmarck
stopped short, as if she had thrown a corpse in his path.
 
He turned around, keeping his face as
expressionless as hers.

"The
soldier who was waiting for him by the gate reported that he didn't come out
again.
 
But we couldn’t find him in the
palace, either."

"You're
having his hotel watched, I presume?"

He looked into
her eyes, but she could not read his glance.

"Yes.
 
He's not there."

The Empress
stroked the Dragon's claw in her hand.

"Find
him.
 
You know what he's like.
 
You can let him go again as soon as the
wedding is over."

"It'll be
too late for his brother by then."

"It's
already too late.
 
He is a Goyl."

The Dwarf
returned with her breakfast.
 
The sun had
risen.
 
The night had taken the Dark
Fairy with it.
 
Time to
claim back what her magic had stolen from her.

Who wants
peace when you can have victory?

49

One of Them

Will tried not
to listen.
 
He was the King's shadow, and
shadows are deaf and dumb.
 
But Hentzau
was speaking so loudly that he was hard to ignore.

"With the
Fairy gone, I cannot protect you.
 
The
additional troops I summoned won't get here before tonight, and the Empress
knows that!"

Kami’en
buttoned up his jacket.
 
No dress coat
for this groom, just the dark gray uniform, his second skin.
 
He had defeated them in it, and he would
marry one of them in it.
 
The first Goyl to take a human wife.

"
Your
Majesty.
 
It's
not like her to just vanish like that!"
 
Hentzau's voice betrayed something Will had never heard in it
before.
 
Fear.

"On the contrary.
 
It is very much like her."
 
The King let
Will
hand him his saber.
 
"She hates our custom of having several
wives, though I've told her often enough that it also gives her the right to
have other husbands."

He fastened
the saber to his silver-studded belt and stepped up to the mirror that hung
next to the window.
 
The shimmering glass
reminded Will of something.
 
But what was
it?

"She
probably planned this from the start.
 
That's why she had you find the Jade Goyl for me.
 
And if she is right," the King added,
looking at Will, "then all I need to be safe is to keep him close
by."

"Never leave his side."
 
The Fairy had told him that so often that
Will heard the words in his dreams.

"Even if he dismisses you, do not obey him."

She was so
beautiful, but Hentzau despised her.
 
Yet
he'd trained Will on her orders, sometimes so hard it had seemed he wanted to
kill him.
 
Fortunately, Goyl skin healed
fast, and fear had only made Will fight harder.
 
Just yesterday he had managed to strike the saber from Hentzau's
hand.
 
"What did I tell you?"
the Fairy had whispered in his ear.
 
"You were born to be a guardian angel.
 
Maybe one day I'll grow you a pair of
wings."

"But who
was I before?
"
Will had asked.

"Since
when does the butterfly ask about the caterpillar?" she'd answered.
 
"He forgets.
 
And revels in what he is."

And yes, he
did.
 
Will loved the resilience of his
skin and the strength and the tiredlessness of his limbs that set the Goyl
apart from the Doughskins, though he knew that he'd been made from their flesh.
 
He still blamed himself for letting the one
get away
who'd
snuck into the walls like a rat.
 
Will couldn't forget his face, the gray eyes,
goldless eyes,
the
hair as fine as cobwebs, and the
soft skin that betrayed his frailty.
 
Will ran his fingers reassuringly over his own smooth jade skin.

"The
truth is
,
you don't want this peace."
 
The King sounded edgy, and Hentzau bowed his
head like an old wolf to the leader of his pack.
 
"You'd rather slaughter them all.
 
Every single one of them.
 
Men, women, children."

"Yes,
that's right," Hentzau replied hoarsely.
 
"Because as long as even one of them is alive,
they'll want to do the same to us.
 
Postpone the wedding for one day.
 
Until the reinforcements get here."

The King
pulled his gloves over his claws.
 
They
were made from the leather of the snakes that dwelled deep under the earth,
where the heat melted even the skin of the Goyl hunters.
 
The Fairy had told Will about the
snakes.
 
She had described it all to him
— the avenues of the dead, the sandstone waterfalls, the underground lakes and
amethyst meadows.
 
He couldn't wait to
see all those wonders with his own eyes.

The King
reached for his helmet and brushed the saurian spikes that adorned it.
 
Feathers for the humans,
spikes for the Goyl.
 
"You
know exactly what they will say.
 
‘The Goyl
fear us, now that he can no longer hide behind his lover's skirt.
 
We always knew he only won the war because of
her.’"

Hentzau said
nothing.

"You
see?
 
You know I'm right."
 
The King turned his back on Hentzau.
 
Will quickly lowered his head as the King
stepped toward him.

"I was
with her when she dreamed of you," he said.
 
"I saw your face in her eyes.
 
How can one dream of something that has not
yet happened?"
 
Of a man one has
never met?
 
Or did she dream you into
existence for me?
 
Did she sow all that
petrified flesh only to reap you?"

Will's grip
tightened around the hilt of his saber.
 
"I thing something in us knows the answers, Majesty," he said,
"but there are no words for them.
 
I
will not disappoint you; that is all I know.
 
And I swear to it."

The King
looked at Hentzau.

"Will you
listen to that?
 
My jade shadow isn't
mute, after all.
 
So you taught him not
only to fight?"
 
He smiled at Will.
 
"What did she tell you?
 
That you must stay by my
side, even during the vows?"

Will felt Hentzau's milky gaze like hoarfrost on his skin.

"Is that
what she told you?" the King repeated.

Will nodded.

"Then
that's how it shall be," Kami’en said, turning back to Hentzau.
 
"Have the horses readied.
 
The King of the Goyl is taking a human
wife."

50

Beauty
And
The Beast

A wedding.
 
A daughter in payment, and a white dress to hide all the bloody
battlefields.
 
The morning sun
made the cathedral windows glow blue, green, red, and golden.
 
Jacob was standing behind one of the
garlanded columns, watching as the pews filled with guests.
 
He was wearing the uniform of an imperial
guardsman.
 
The soldier he had taken it
from was lying trussed up in an alley behind the cathedral.
 
Nobody noticed the new face; there were so
many of them posted all over the massive church, flecks of white in the sea of
color that was filling the cathedral.
 
The Goyl, however, looked as though the stones of the cathedral had
taken human form.
 
The cool air was probably
not to their liking, but the dim
light, which not even
the thousands of dripping candles could brighten, was ideal for them.
 
Will wouldn't
have
to hide his eyes behind onyx glasses as he carried out his new duties.
 
The
Jade
Goyl
 
Your
brother, Jacob
.

He felt for
the golden ball in his pocket.
 
"Not
before the wedding is over."
 
It
would be hard to wait that long.
 
Jacob
had hardly slept the past three nights, and his arm hurt from the bit with
which the Fox had driven the waneslime poison from his veins.

Waiting...

He saw Valiant
and Clara come with Fox down the center aisle.
 
The Dwarf had shaved himself again, and not even any of the imperial
ministers sitting in the front row were better dressed than he was.
 
Fox looked around.
 
Her face lit up when she spotted Jacob
between the columns, but the very next moment the anxiety was back.
 
Fox didn't like his plan, of course.
 
He didn't think much of it himself, but this
was his only chance.
 
Once Will followed
the King and his bride back into the underground fortress, the Dark Fairy would
never get to prove that she could break her own spell.

There was a
roar from outside the cathedral, as if the huge crowd on the square had been
stirred by the wind.

Finally.
 
They were
here.

Goyl, Dwarfs,
and humans all turned around to stare at the garlanded portal.

The groom.
 
He took
off his black glasses and stood on the threshold.
 
A murmur rose as Will appeared next to
him.
 
Carnelian and
jade.
 
They seemed made for each
other, so much so that Jacob had to remind himself that his brother's face
hadn't always been made of stone.
 
Including Will, there were six bodyguards who flanked the King.
 
And Hentzau.

The organ on
the balcony struck up a wedding march, and the Goyl began to walk toward the
altar.
 
Even through their stone skins,
they must have felt the wave of hatred surging around them, but the groom
looked as relaxed as if he were in his hanging palace and not in the heart of
his enemies' capital.

Will
passed
close enough to Clara and Fox that they could've
touched him.
 
Clara's face became rigid
with pain, and Fox put an arm around her shoulder.

The groom had
just reached the steps in front of the altar when the Empress arrived.
 
Her ivory dress would have done credit even
to the bride.
 
The four Dwarfs carrying
her train pointedly ignored the groom, but the Empress gave him a benevolent
smile before proceeding up the steps and disappearing behind the screen of
carved roses that surrounded the royal enclosure to the left of the altar.
 
Therese of Austry had always been a
magnificent actress.