The Armies of Heaven (30 page)

Belphagor pushed his boot roughly against Vasily’s thigh. “Shut up, love,” he murmured. “Or you won’t believe the spanking you’re going to get.”

“You’re right, that was a year ago.” Vasily winked and gave me a wicked grin. “He’s one hundred and eleven.”

Lively’s needle still hovered over the gown as if she hadn’t heard any of this.

“The dress is perfect, Lively,” I said. “You must be starving. Why don’t you and Margarita get something to eat?”

She handed me the dress as she stood and curtsied, her cheeks unnaturally pink.

“Your hand!” Margarita grabbed Lively and turned her palm up. She looked at me in surprise. “You healed it?”

“It was Ola,” said Lively shyly.

“Ola?” Vasily’s eyes widened at his daughter as she climbed back into his lap. “By herself?”

I smiled. “It seems she truly is an aetherspirit.”

Still stroking Lively’s hand, Margarita tucked it over her arm and gave me a gallant bow as she turned and led Lively out.

Despite the lovely jade silk to which Lively had added her expert touches of embroidery, and the upswept curls Love had arranged to give me a regal yet serious air, Aeval’s stunning simplicity in a bone-colored sheath with a trailing train drew all eyes as she rode sidesaddle into the square. I had come by carriage and I felt a fool as I stepped down and she remained mounted. Kae stood behind me trying to fade into the background, but the striking black silhouette of his uniform made it impossible. He’d begun to break a sweat as our carriage neared the square and I worried this proximity to Aeval would be too much for him, but there was no turning back now.

The demons began to boo and curse as Aeval prepared to address the crowd, but I could see there were many of the Host among the gathered who seemed attentive to her as loyal subjects, while they gave me sullen looks of mistrust. She had come unattended beside my large contingent of Virtues and she looked for all of Heaven the wronged and Virtuous maiden to my apparent role as conquering usurper. I began to regret having allowed her to set the terms of her departure, but it had seemed almost anything was worth being rid of her for good.

“I have come to bid you all adieu,” she said simply over the noise of the crowd. “My dear cousin, Her Supernal Highness Anazakia Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk, has made a miraculous recovery from the madness that befell her and darkened our land.”

My mouth dropped open and I took a step toward her in outrage, but the whisper of the syla around me steadied me.

“Bloody Anazakia!” someone shouted.

“Where’s the boy?” yelled someone else. “We want the grand duke! The rightful heir!”

“The traitorous Cherubim have abducted him,” Aeval announced with righteous indignation. “I shall make it my life’s work to find him, no matter how far away he may be or how long it takes me.”

I swayed on my feet, feeling faint. I’d made a terrible blunder.

“Her Supernal Highness is beside herself with grief,” she added, glancing at me. “And has given me the great honor of seeking His poor Supernal Highness, for which I thank her and wish her all good health.”

She held out her hand toward my Virtues for assistance and one of them stepped forward automatically and helped her as she slipped gracefully down from her mount. Aeval raised his hand in the air, clutched in hers as if in victory, and he looked toward me with chagrin.

“All hail the queen of Heaven!” She turned and curtsied deeply to me, sweeping the Virtue’s hand down with hers. The crowd broke out in a cacophony in which it was difficult to make out whether there were more cheers or jeers.

Gereimon murmured at my side. “We must get you into the palace, Your Supernal Highness.”

I stared at him, too stunned to move, and Kae took my arm as if I’d commanded it and led me toward the gates.

“Bring her!” I hissed at Gereimon.

He turned toward Aeval, but she’d already risen, taking the arm of the Virtue she’d appropriated. She stepped into place behind me as if it had all been prearranged.

Inside, the palace was a shambles from the morning’s battle and from days of occupation by the demons, apparently having been looted at some point in the last few weeks. My troops had taken control of the crowd in the square, and as if I’d called them, the Ophanim appeared and took up their positions around the palace as they’d done for hundreds of years.

“They are not particular whom they serve.” Aeval shrugged as I gazed out at them. “As long as it isn’t demons.” She sat on the only piece of furniture in the hall, a stone bench by the grand staircase, spreading her train out beside her. “You don’t intend to make that demon your formal consort, I hope?” She addressed me pleasantly, as if we were compatriots and she was giving me advice on a potential match. “I suppose he’s technically not a demon after all, but appearances are what matter to the people.”

“Shut up,” I ordered, feeling as if my eyes were blazing as hot as Vasily’s when his ire was roused.

“You really must be more gracious, dear, in front of the help,” she whispered loudly. “They will spread stories. Your madness, after all, is legendary.”

“If you’ve had enough of her,” growled Kae, “I can have her locked up in the cellar until the House of Correction is ready.”

“She’s not a prisoner, Kae.”

He stared at me as if his hearing were going.

“I’ve made a bargain with her to secure her cooperation.” I turned to her with a furious scowl. “Which you have promised to stand by.”

“Ask my woodspirits.” She lifted her hands and glanced around her as if she could see them all. “I will stand by every word of it.”

“Her woodspirits?” Kae blinked, following her glance at nothing.

“The Splendors,” I said. “The syla from the Unseen World. She was their queen once and has agreed to resume her former position.”

“Are you mad, Nazkia?” he exclaimed. “You’re just going to let her go?”

“You wanted the killing to stop,” I said quietly. “This was the only way. I have the word of the syla.” I paused a moment to collect myself, not wanting to lose my composure before him. “I hope you can understand that I’ve done what I had to, what I thought was best.” Though I couldn’t see them, I felt the leshi as they moved in around him.

Kae looked puzzled.

“I’m sorry.” There was nothing else I could add that wouldn’t cause me to break down in front of everyone assembled, and I could not afford to be seen as defeated.

“For what?” He’d asked me this once before, with equal bafflement, before I’d stabbed him in the gut. I was about to do it again.

Aeval rose, and the triumphant smile on her face was almost more than I could bear. “Did you think you could simply walk away from me?” She moved toward him with Virtuous grace. He tried to step back, but the force of the Unseen around him held him there.

“I am the queen of the Midnight Court. I am the judge of weak and faithless men. And you, my fair angel, are the weakest and most faithless of men.” She breathed against his ear. “In any world.” Aeval walked toward the garden exit and Kae stumbled forward, prodded by the invisible leshi at his back.

He shot me a look of disbelief, trying to pull away from the unseen force. “Nazkia.”

I shook my head.

His look of puzzlement turned to anguish. “Nazkia, please! For the love of Heaven! Take my head, but don’t do this.”

The leshi moved him away and he reached out his hand toward me as he struggled uselessly with them. I turned my back and he cursed me in his throaty voice as they took him from me and jumped into the breach.

Dvadtsat Vtoraya
: Of All the Heavens

It ought to have been the happiest of times, but everyone around him seemed heartbroken. Vasily had been left out of the loop about the deal with Aeval until afterward. Anazakia had suspected he’d give the thing away by goading Kae, and she was probably right. He couldn’t understand her sorrow over what she’d done. It seemed only just that the man who’d slaughtered her entire family be relegated to his own special hell. Regardless of how he’d served her in battle, he deserved to pay for his crimes. But Belphagor wouldn’t allow him to speak of it. He, too, seemed inexplicably saddened by the angel’s fate and Vasily found this maddening. After what Kae had done to him, he ought to have gift-wrapped the bastard for Aeval.

But Belphagor was also mourning the death of Loquel, and though it made Vasily ache to think of Bel touching the beautiful Virtue with the same fierce hand that cherished him, in the face of such sorrow, he couldn’t begrudge Belphagor whatever they’d shared.

Anazakia at first refused a public coronation, but her advisors managed to convince her she needed to make a grand and victorious debut before her people in order to solidify her reign. She demanded then that it be immediate, rather than waiting for the elaborate plans they recommended for restoring the ransacked palace and repairing the damage done to the square and the city during the weeks of fighting. It took place within a day of settling in Elysium.

Vasily was stunned by her beauty during the candlelit ceremony, draped in a magnificent, snowy gown Lively had altered for her from among Aeval’s wardrobe. It had been embellished by Aeval with thousands of supernal facets and Anazakia had argued that Lively should remove them rather than make a callous display of wealth in the face of the city’s suffering, but to her great frustration, she had again received unanimous counsel by the noble houses supporting her that a show of highest ceremonial grandeur was necessary to earn the respect of her subjects in the angelic peerage.

The coronation was held in the Great Hall and she insisted the palace be open to the people—Host and Fallen alike—for the event. The Ophanim were there to see that no one got out of hand, she said, and if they couldn’t handle a few eager citizens, then what hope did she have of holding the city against further revolution from those who were not so eager to see her crowned?

He watched with Belphagor from the wings of the crowd, though she’d wanted them with her. Belphagor had managed to convince her that having her lover—and her lover’s lover—attending her at her coronation would be in bad form, and Vasily was glad of it; he’d had enough of the curious looks and vile rumors as it was. Belphagor had to remind him that most of the “vile” rumors were in fact true: they
were
sexual deviants and petty thieves, and Anazakia
had
been profligate with a man believed to be a demon and had borne a child to him outside the sanctity of marriage.

“She wasn’t
profligate
,” he’d protested, but Belphagor had silenced him with a bit of profligate behavior of his own behind the curtains before the ceremony began.

Anazakia wore her hair down, with the curls falling over her back beneath a single braid from two thin plaits at her temples, and it glittered in the candlelight as if it too were embroidered with facets. He nearly wept at the sight of Ola dressed in a matching gown Lively had somehow whipped up from the extra fabric where she’d taken up the hem. Belphagor did weep, though he tried to deny it later.

Both mother and daughter were barefoot as a symbol of walking upon the same ground as all of Heaven’s citizens, and when Anazakia took the vow to protect the Firmament and all the Heavens and knelt to receive the crown, Ola knelt beside her, making everyone gasp and murmur at how precious she was despite her “unfortunate” heritage.

A surge of rage nearly overtook Vasily when he recalled what Anazakia had told him of young Azel’s report that Helga had kept Ola starved and drugged, carting her from Aden in a metal box like an animal. Belphagor seemed to know exactly what had struck him and he grasped Vasily’s hand fiercely for a moment despite the danger of drawing attention, whispering in his ear, “She’ll pay for it.”

Holding her train, Love and Lively knelt behind Anazakia as her attendants, and when she’d been crowned, she turned and knelt before them both and kissed them each on the cheek to show she was the servant of the people. Love burst into tears and Ola went to Love and kissed her, too, and everyone broke down at that. One woman fainted, though it might have been the oppressive heat with so many crowded together.

It was what Anazakia did after the ceremony that shocked everyone. She stepped from the daïs and walked through the crowd, snipping facets from her dress and pressing them into the hands of her subjects. Carried by Love while Lively held Anazakia’s train, Ola began pulling facets from her dress as well and holding them out, causing more women to cry.

The gesture didn’t win everyone over, however. Pamphlets of protest were printed the following day, calling it a vulgar display on a par with the legendary humantale of “Marie Antoinette and the Three Little Cakes.”

Anazakia’s first official act as queen generated even further controversy when she signed the Liberation Decree that had languished on the desks of the rulers of Heaven for three generations. The wide-sweeping law not only granted the indentured Fallen their independence and the right to be paid commensurate with their work, but also abolished the proscriptions against the settlement of demons within the city of Elysium and against miscegenation among the Fallen and the Host.

In addition, Anazakia amended the decree to include a repeal of the Writ of Exile against the Grigori and their descendants. Belphagor convinced her to stop at that, though she had wanted to allow free travel between the realms. Leave it restricted, he advised, but enforce it with laxity. Her desire to restore the Princedom of Raqia shocked them both, and though Vasily adored her for it, he and Belphagor both argued that Heaven wasn’t ready for such drastic change. It had taken Lively’s added insistence to get her to abandon the idea. In private, the three of them had agreed there was a certain pride and mystique in the lawlessness of the District that such legitimacy would destroy.

As it stood, the signing of the Decree spawned riots and calls for Anazakia’s head. Vasily feared civil war might break out before her reign had even been established, but the support of the demon community and of forward-thinking angels who had long argued for emancipation soon eclipsed the criticism. By the end of her first week in power, the bitter Archangels and Principalities who’d lost their free labor had dubbed her Queen of the Fallen, which pleased her immensely, though the less popular term, the Harlot Queen, she wasn’t quite so fond of.

She visited Vasily that night for the first time as queen of Heaven, still deferring to Belphagor for permission. They had to be discreet, and she would be back in her own bed before morning, but for these few hours, she belonged to him.

The idea of bedding the queen both frightened and excited him—as did the punishment he was sure to get for the pleasure. He whispered in her ear that he was defiling her as he tore off her silk corset and lace petticoats and ripped holes in her stockings, and she shivered beneath his rough touch as he swung her over to straddle him.

“Some Supernal Majesty,” he growled derisively. “Letting a filthy demon inside you.” He looked up at her with flaming eyes as he punctuated the words with a thrust of his hips.

“You’re not a demon.” The words escaped her in a gasp of pleasure, the electric sparks of their element flowing over his skin where they came together.

“Be quiet, you dirty little angel,” he growled. “I am tonight.”

As she lay in his arms later, she stroked his piercings lightly with the tip of her finger, painting the aether across them. “I don’t know how often we’ll have this. They’re already calling me the Harlot Queen.”

“You are the Harlot Queen.” He nipped at her throat. “You’re my Harlot Queen.”

She tried not to let him see her smile. “Stop it,” she said, making no attempt to enforce this decree, and then sighed in his arms. “Belphagor thinks you should leave the palace.”

This stopped him. “He what?”

“He’s right. It looks bad. It will only breed resentment.”

“Belphagor is
not
always right.” Vasily pulled her hand away from his neck. “And sometimes he’s right and he’s an ass, all at once.”

“Vasily, I don’t want you to go. I’m not telling you to go.”

“Where the hell
would
I go? What about Ola? After all we’ve been through!”

“I don’t know.” She clutched her curls in frustration as she rolled over. “Never mind.” Anazakia reached for him again. “I’m sorry I brought it up. I don’t want to think about it now. I don’t want to waste this time.”

Neither did he, and he proceeded to not waste it rather forcefully.

§

In the morning, she’d not only gone from his bed but from the palace as well, taking a trip to the northeast to accompany Captain Iaoth and his men back to Iriy, where they were to be awarded the Supernal Medal of Valor for their faithfulness during the war. Belphagor seemed to know of the trip already, and Vasily fumed at being kept in the dark.

“Kept in the dark.” Belphagor repeated the phrase as if it had an interesting ring to it. He crossed his heavy black boots on the edge of the table in the Queen’s Dining Room and leaned back in his chair as they ate a late breakfast together. He was peeling a bergamot with a knife rather sharp for the purpose, and as he pulled the segments apart, he speared one on the end of the knife and held it out for Vasily to open his mouth. Vasily took the sour fruit with a glare and then hissed in indignation as Belphagor pulled the knife away just swiftly enough to nick the end of his tongue. The juice stung like hell.

“You’re insolent this morning.” Belphagor gave him a dark look.

“You told Nazkia she ought to give us the boot,” he snapped, wiping the back of his hand against the blood. “You want to leave her? Leave
Ola
?”

“Do you think that’s what I want?” Belphagor closed the knife and put it in his boot. “Do you trust my judgment or just take me for a great fool, Vasily?”

“A great ass,” he muttered.

Belphagor’s chair dropped forward with a
bang
. “What did you say?”

“I said you have a great ass.” Vasily gave him a defiant stare.

Pushing back his chair, Belphagor stood and pulled Vasily up by the collar. “I want to see you in that room in five minutes.” His mouth was so close to Vasily’s ear as he gave the quiet order that the words vibrated against his skin. “That room where you apparently had such a wonderful time violating the queen of Heaven that you’ve suddenly put on airs.” He dropped Vasily back into the chair and went to the room ahead of him, putting the onus of submission on Vasily to follow. Vasily waited for five and a half minutes before rising and sauntering into the room as if he weren’t afraid of what that extra thirty seconds had bought him.

Standing against the far wall, Belphagor waited with arms crossed. “Crawl to me and kiss my boots.” He planted his legs solidly apart.

“Kiss my ass.”

A long, slow sigh of displeasure from Belphagor sent shivers along Vasily’s skin. He came forward and stared unsmiling into Vasily’s eyes. Vasily always intended to stare him down but had never succeeded, and he lowered his eyes first, knowing that would be the moment Belphagor grabbed his hair and forced him to his knees. He wasn’t disappointed.

With a sharp yank of his locks, Belphagor pushed him down and pressed him toward the polished boots. He wouldn’t issue a command more than once, but the intent was clear.

Instead of kissing them, Vasily spat on the boots, and for a moment, he thought he’d gone too far. Belphagor let go of him and stood still, and Vasily didn’t dare look up. Then he walked away and returned with something from the bed and Vasily gasped as a black silk pillowcase dropped over his head. He grabbed at it uncontrollably—Belphagor knew he was claustrophobic—but Belphagor yanked Vasily’s hands behind him and ripped off his belt, securing Vasily’s wrists and straddling him like he was tying down a calf.

Vasily jerked in panic. “I can’t breathe!”

“Yes, you can,” said Belphagor without sympathy.

“Please. I’m sorry!”

“
Chto
?”

“Pozhaluista!”
Almost too panicked to remember the words, his mind raced, trying to think in Russian.
“Ya ogorchen!”

Belphagor crouched over him. “Do you trust me?” While Vasily tried to still his pounding heart, Belphagor’s lips brushed lightly over the pillowcase at his temple.
“Do you trust me?”

“Da, ser,”
Vasily choked out.

“Breathe,
malchik moi
.” The beloved words were calming, and Vasily felt himself breathing more easily, though the closeness of the cloth still terrified him. “You don’t like being kept in the dark.”

“Nyet, ser,”
he managed.

“Let me assure you,
malchik
, I would never do anything to you in the dark that you don’t like.”

“Ya eto ne nravitsya.”

“Yes, you don’t like
this
, you don’t like the dark. But you like what I’m doing to you.” Belphagor slid his hand inside Vasily’s pants, his palm encircling the telling erection, and elicited an involuntary moan. “I thought so.” He deftly undid the buttons restricting his access. “Now I’m going to have you in the dark, because I want you in the dark, and you are
my
dirty little angel.”

Vasily sucked in his breath in surprise and Belphagor tightened his hand on him.

“That’s right. I listened. And you like that, too, don’t you?”

Vasily nodded, unable to speak.

“Good boy.” Belphagor used the belt at Vasily’s wrists to pull him to his feet, and let the pants drop and tangle about Vasily’s boots as he hauled him forward onto the bed. It aggravated Vasily not to be able to move his legs as he pleased, and Belphagor knew it. “It makes it harder for you to get away, should the notion take you,” he’d said once when Vasily had grumbled about it, adding, “Besides, they are down as far as I need them.”