Soul Fire (29 page)

Their shadowy counterparts whirled with them, spinning
inside the enormous arched windows that lined the stone
walls, stretching from floor to ceiling, the diamond-paned
glass darkened by the night sky beyond.

Only Iminique
’s shadowy reflection stood still and silent
among them, her eyes too wide and dark for her face, her
diminutive form alternately hidden then exposed by the
whimsy of the dancers twisting and twining around her.

Another scream shivered overhead, but this time the revelry
went staunchly on without pause. Only Iminique remained
motionless, with every fiber of her being fighting the urge to
seek out that scream and ease that pain. Her fingers twitched.
Her power pulsed at the edges of her mind. It made her head
ache, full to bursting.

“You think she’ll birth a
living childthis time?” Her
father’s gravelly voice drifted across her bloated
consciousness. His reflection scowled, dark brows swooping
down, self-indulgent jowls aquiver with indignation, their
owner well embroiled in his debate with another grim-faced
ambassador. They flanked Iminique, two robust men in
brocaded waistcoats, their thick fingers clutching wine
glasses and fiddling with decorative pocket watches.

“T
he midwives predicted twins,” came Ambassador
Henrikei’s conciliatory tone, his head bobbing forward.
“That’s twice the chance of a living heir.”

“A living heir?
One
living heir?” Snorting, her father lifted
another glass of Second Demesne wine to his lips but then
lowered it without drinking. “Who cares about twice the
chance? We need the full seven. There’ll be mutiny among
the masses and murder among the nobility if she can’t bear
the septuplets.”

Another cry wrenched across the ballroom. Iminique kept
her eyes on the window’s dark reflection of reality and
grappled with her throbbing power, tamping it down.

Henrikei grimaced, tapping a fingertip against his
wineglass.“The septuplets have been born every generation
for centuries, Joufei. And the queen is young yet.”

“And wed seven years with naught but miscarriages and
dead singles to show for it.” His voice hitched, stumbling
and slurring the hind end of his sentence.

The uneven rhythm of
her father’s faltering heart trickled
into Iminique’s consciousness, bringing her head round and
luring her, unwilling, back to the garishness of reality.
Slowly, as if the amassed power inside imparted her with the
sluggishness of a dream, she looked at her father.

Two bright spots of scarlet splotched the cheeks above his
wineglass’s rim, his florid complexion nearly as red as the
brocaded ruby waistcoat straining over his paunch. Beads of
sweat dotted his brow. Plucking out a handkerchief, he
dabbed at them, his breathing coming louder and harsher.

Pushing a tendril of magic into his skin, Iminique waded
through the layers of fat, muscle, bone, and tissue, her
mind’s eye following her magic’s path, tracing veins to the
source of the irregular murmur: a build-up of...whatever it
was that clogged the veins and arteries of his heart.

Swiftly and with the ease of repeated practice, she picked
apart the blockage, dissolving it until it disintegrated fully
and his blood pumped freely, relieving the strain on his
heart.

The crimson blotches on his face faded and he downed the
rest of his glass, relinquishing the empty one and plucking
another full one off the tray of a passing servant.

The blue and gray liveried servant offered some to her, but
Iminique declined. Known for its odd greenish color and
fresh lemon-mint taste, Second Demesne wine was a muchsought-after luxury, but her first consumption of it tonight
hadn’t impressed her. It still clung bitter and acrid to the
underside of her tongue, making her feel as if bile had
gathered there rather than the leftovers of fine wine.

The servant bowed an exit, and Iminique noted that the
anxiety contorting her father’s face relaxed. He didn’t know
why he suddenly felt better, and if she could help it, he
would never find out that her healing was keeping him alive.

Henrikei lowered his voice, sloshing his wine carelessly as
he leaned forward. “I’ve heard there are riots in the Fifth
Quarter again.”

Her father barked laughter, eyes following a pretty, darkhaired girl dancing past. “Riots! Huh. Nothing will come of
it. The malcontents will always rise up against their betters,
but without the brains, the brawn or the supplies of the
wealthy, they will get nowhere.”

Iminique didn’t
agree with him, but was smart enough to
hold her tongue. She’d sensed the seething resentment that
lurked below the surface of servility even in their own
servants. The discontent stirring the heart of povertyhadn’t
yet hardened into resolve, but the breaking point
would
come
if the magnate did nothing to ease their plight.

“What we
really need to watch out for are the weirs.” Her
father’s eyes finally slid away from the dark-haired girl. He
smiled his meaningless smile at Henrikei. “Thankfully we
have the walls to keep them out.”

Again, Iminique held her silence. According to the words
of the faded history tome buried at the bottom of her late
mother’s trunk, the city walls hadn’t been ensorcelled to
keep the weirs out, but had been warded against the shadowhungry. The weirs being locked out had been a side effect,
not the intention.

But with the passage of five hundred years and fickle
human memory, who could say now what the truth was?
“There’ve been attacks on supply wagons.” Extracting his
handkerchief once again, her father dabbed at a spot of wine
on his upper lip and then jabbed the bit of cloth in the air for
emphasis of his next point. “Surely you’ve noticed the
increase in guardsmen that accompany us on our trips
between demesnes.”
“What was that?” Overhearing her father’s words, short,
wiry Ambassador Irvon leaned over from a cluster of
ambassadors standing beside them. Excusing himself from
his circle with a nod and a smile and smoothing back his
black, oily hair, he joined Henrikei and Joufei. “If it’s the
shapeshifters you speak of, I had a run-in with them just last
week. Had to kill two of the beasts myself.” His narrow
shoulders shuddered and his hands fluttered as if searching
for a transient glass of liquid fortification. “Can’t say how
strange it is watching the animals turn back into humans
once they’re dead – makes you feel like you just killed
people rather than monsters. One of them was a woman.” He
shook his head, lip curling. “I can’t believe they send their
females into battle like that. But they’re getting out of line.
I’ve been petitioning the magnate to do something before
they go from attacking travelersto attacking the walls.”
Her father clapped Irvon on his back, nearly sending the
little man staggering. “The walls will keep them out, Irv.”
Irvon regained his balance and leaned forward intently,
head shaking. “The protection spells are failing. They’ve
found holes in—”
“The spells have held for centuries.”
“Things change.” Irvon jutted out his diminutive chin,
making him resemble a belligerent youth. “The spells are
fading, and there have been rumors that the mages are
growing weaker. Each generation, fewer remain who can
reconstruct the original spells should they fail. As it is now,
the mages can barely repair the wards where there are gaps.
What’s to happen if the spellsbreak completely?”
Henrikei raised his wine glass. “That’s right, Irv! They
need all the mages they can get. We should round up the few
we have and shuck ‘em down to the Seventh Demesne to…”
His words trailed off and an awkward silence ensued. Two
sets of eyes flicked toward Iminique and away.
“What are you looking at my daughter for?” Her father’s
dark brows swept low over narrowed eyes.
Henrikei ducked his head in mute apology, but Irvon
wasn’t so tactful. “Your wife was a healer, was she not? That
means your daughter—”
“Will
never
heal,” her father clipped out.
Irvon faltered, stepping back as if dodging a physical slap.
“Come, Daughter.” Latching his fingers onto her thin
shoulders, her father spun her around and steered her away.
“It’s time you meet the other ambassadors and their
families.”
His fingers digging into her flesh and the rough inelegance
of his movements unexpectedly brought that horrible night
rushing back, the night he would never forgive her for. His
hands had bruised her shoulders then, too, as he’d dragged
her silent and devastated away from her mother’s body. He’d
been shouting then, calling her incompetent, her powers
useless. He had sworn that night that she would never heal.
And she had silently sworn that she would. That somehow,
some way, without him knowing, she would learn the craft
he’d forbidden her mother to teach her, the powers he had
never let her use until that night – after the physicians had
left, after he’d sent the servants away, after he’d locked the
door to make sure no one would see. The powers that had
failed her because she did not know how to use them.
But never again. Never again would another die because
she could not heal them.
His grip gradually loosened and his breathing returned to
normal as they circled the ballroom, meeting group after
group of normally staid, now slightly inebriated ambassadors
and their equally nondescript families. Iminique smiled at
them over teeth gritted against her uncomfortable, too-tight
dancing slippers, the blister forming on her heel, the stinging
soles of her feet, and the ache in both her ankles. Ignoring
her own discomfort, she sent her magic questing through
those her father introduced her to and she healed what
infirmities she found, reforming everything back into its
natural flawlessness.
All too soon they stood before Ambassador Indrix Oufei,
the most respected ambassador of the Seven Cities, and his
nineteen-year-old son, Brent – the reason her father had
forced her to come tonight, even though at thirteen most
considered her too young to be presented at a ball.
Being the obedient daughter she was, she studied him with
the air of one who hadn’t already rejected him in her mind.
Although of average height, he still towered over her. His
dark brown hair had been combed back and slicked down
with some kind of pomade, and his thick eyebrows were
arched and groomed over narrow, critical brown eyes. His
nose sloped gracefully downward in a straight, aristocratic
line, shadowing the thin mouth that cut into his features like
the slash of a knife.
“…Iminique,” her father was saying, his smile wide and his
chest puffed out with pride. “My daughter.”
Brent’s sulking lips parted in a grin, revealing two rows of
perfect teeth and a certain charm not visible when he was
brooding. Taking her hand, he brought it to his lips and
kissed her knuckles, his eyes never leaving hers. Intense and
secretive as a thief’s, those eyes promised something
perverted, as did the intimate way his fingers slid back and
forth against her palm.
Iminique dipped into a curtsy, wanting to pluck her fingers
out of his grasp but knowing she mustn’t cause a scene.
When he relinquished her hand, the clammy heat of his
fingers clung to her even through her silken glove, and only
her sheer doggedness to adhere to courtesy kept her from
peeling off the silk and discarding it.
While their fathers exchanged formalities and tidbits of
news, Brent watched her with avid – unwelcome– interest.
Iminique endured his delving gaze and maintained her polite
smile, nodding when it was expected of her and contributing
when requested to. But even as her father led her away,
Brent’s eyes, intrusive and…
unwholesome
, slunk behind her,
creeping over her shoulders in a sensation reminiscent of
cobwebs clinging to her in a dark passage.
“That would be a fine match, Daughter!” Her father,
buoyed up out of good spirits and overflowing into effusive
goodwill, seized her hand, tucked it into the crook of his
elbow, and patted it fondly. He practically strutted among the
guests, nodding here and waving there as if he were the ruler
of the First Demesne himself. He loweredhis voice. “And he
appeared quite taken with you.”
Iminique made a noncommittal sound and then bit her
tongue on more as her father rambled on, extolling the
benefits of a match with Brent Oufei and glorifying his
assets.
Dancing on the razor’s edge between dutiful daughter and
secretly rebellious became harder the older she got.
Eventually she would have to tell him she would never
marry–
ever
. That she refused to pay the price her mother
had.
But not tonight.
The endless string of ambassadors resumed, and Iminique
pasted her polite smile back on her face to match everyone
else’s. Though no one spoke of it, they were all acutely
aware of how ill it boded that the queen’s screams had
stopped but no one had yet come to announce the birth.
Keeping pace with the false cheer, Iminique bobbed curtsies
and nodded smilingly at banalities and all the while healed in
secret.
It was as she was making the unpleasant discovery that one
of the ambassadors’ unwed daughters, a sallow, thin-lipped
girl of sixteen, was quite definitely pregnant with an
illegitimate child, when Iminique’s skin started to prickle.
Every part of her tensed, suddenly aware of some other,
darker power stalking her.
No, not stalking her; it already crawled its meandering way
inside her healing, twining around her magic like a snake,
plucking at it, testing it.
Her heart pounded in her ears. The metallic pungency of
fear clung to the roof of her mouth, joining the acerbic,
fermented aftertaste of the Second Demesne wine. Noises
became muffled, as if the magic had cut her off from the rest
of the world. She could still see it, see the dancers, their
faces split with ghastly laughter, see the ambassadors and her
father in animated discussion, a mere hand’s-reach away, see
the wives and daughters leaning close and winking, winking
at some delicious gossip, but she no longer felt a part of it.
Father
. She tried to speak, to clutch his jacket sleeve, but
no sound came out. Her arms wouldn’t move.
The malicious magic curled around her, tightening each
moment. The edges of her vision went dark.
In the distance, the queen screamed. Iminique felt it more
than heard it, felt it quiver in her bones.
The magic whipped away, toward the queen, forsaking
Iminique and leaving her sagging.
Her father’s grip on her elbow yanked her from her trance
and hefted her up, his face thrusting toward her, filling her
vision. Iminique struggled to focus on him, on what he was
saying, but she was gasping for breath. Clinking wine glasses
and voices sounded too loud, assaulting her ears and making
her cringe. The cloying fragrance of over-perfumed dancers
swished past and mingled with the overpowering scents of
body odor and sweaty armpits. Bile merged with the fear
already lodged in her throat.
Her father gave her arm a disgruntled shake. “Daughter?”
Everything snapped into focus, with one thought
tantamount.
The presence had gone after the queen.
And she had to stop it.