The Skylighter (The Keepers' Chronicles Book 2) (26 page)

Dom snorted when he saw the label:
Álcool Fogo
. The name couldn’t have been more accurate. The clear liquid tasted like citrus but burned like live coals all the way to the bottom of your stomach. Apparently, only a half glass could make a heavy drinker drunk, and the estate’s physician used it to clean wounds and sedate difficult patients. Dom had drunk it only once, two years ago, after his fifteenth birthday party, and vowed never to consume the vile beverage again.

Even though he knew its effects, the clear bottle, cool against his palms from chilling in the cellar, was tempting. He could take a few swigs—enough to avoid the hangover—and it would soften the dread that was taking up all the room in his chest.

“It was very thoughtful of you.” He tilted the bottle to her in a half toast. “Perhaps I should pour you a glass, and we can celebrate your impending nuptials?”

As he’d expected, she blushed.

Dom raised the bottle to his lips, trying not to relive the awful night, the mounds of failure, the layers of betrayal. The fumes of the alcohol singed his nostrils.

Singed.

“How many bottles of this do we have?” he asked, taking a long sniff that made his eyes water.

“Enough that no one will notice if you drink the whole thing.” She covered the mouth of the bottle with her hand. “I’m not suggesting that you should.”

An idea was bubbling in his mind. “This is the most flammable alcohol we own.”

“Probably.” Her brow wrinkled, waiting for him to complete his thought. “Do you intend to light it on fire? I’m sure that would be entertaining, but—”

“How much do we have?”

“You don’t need more than this.”

He huffed impatiently. “Give me a number, Brynn.”

“I don’t know. Maybe six or seven.”

The brief burst of hope faded, and Dom lowered the bottle to his side. “Belem didn’t bring any when he visited?”

“Of course he did. The man doesn’t go anywhere without his own personal brewery. There are new cases in the cellar.”

“Cases? We have six or seven
cases
?”

She eyed him with concern, then pulled the bottle from his grasp. “Didn’t I just say that?”

Without thinking, Dom kissed her firmly on the lips. She startled, spilling a few drops of the liquid on the floor.

Dom snatched it away. “Don’t waste it—”

“You can’t do that!” she spluttered, raising fingers to her mouth.

“I’m sorry. It was a reaction.” He grabbed the cork off the table and tamped it into the bottle. “No, it wasn’t a reaction,” he corrected, his fear of
everything
evaporating in the light of this brilliant idea.

“What? Dom, I’m betrothed—”

“Break it off.” He set the
Álcool Fogo
on the table hard enough that the glass tipped over, clanking against the tray. “Break it off, Brynn.”

She shook her head. “No, you can’t say something like that.”

“Yes, I can. Because you don’t love him. You love me.”

Her face flushed to the deepest red he’d ever seen, and she shook her head.

“It’s true, Brynn. You always know exactly what I need when I need it.” He waved to the bottle and the basket of rolls. “You know where I go when I’m upset. You know the stupid mistakes I make. You know all my stories and my jokes. You know me better than I know myself.”

His hands were steady, his fingers sure, as he touched her arms. “What I didn’t realize was how much I needed someone who knows me, even when I’m trying to be someone else.”

She shook her head. Tears pooled in her green eyes.

“I love that about you.” He slid one arm around her back, holding her close. “I love your wild hair, and the way your face turns red every time we’re in the same room. I love that you never let me charm you, and that you never believe my lies.”

“Dom, please.” He felt a shiver run through her body, but she stayed inside the circle of his arms.

“I love you, Brynn,” he whispered. The words were an oath, a promise he intended to keep. “I love everything about you, and it wasn’t until I was certain that I was going to lose you that I realized how much.”

She closed her eyes and the tears leaked onto her cheeks. Dom wanted to believe they were happy tears, that she’d say the same words back to him, but her face was too pale. No pink stained her cheeks.

“It’s too late,” she said softly.

“Of course it’s not,” Dom said, wiping the tears away with his thumb. “You’re not married yet.”

Her face changed, resentment replacing sorrow. “You’ve only decided you care about me because you like having my attention all to yourself.”

He couldn’t lie; he probably wouldn’t have admitted his feelings if he hadn’t been forced to.

“There were always other girls—girls of your class, rich merchants’ daughters—that I had to watch you sneak off with to the barn and the garden and the meadows. Because of my station I got the pleasure of packing the snacks you’d take to your little romantic entanglements.” The side of her fist pressed against his chest. “You’ve never looked at me as something other than a servant, never considered the way
I
felt, until I showed interest in someone else.”

“I know and I’m sorry. That was thoughtless and immature.” With a roiling sense of self-loathing, Dom realized that those words weren’t true. He hadn’t acted thoughtlessly; he’d known exactly what he was doing—playing a foolish little game with Brynn’s affections simply because he could. “Can’t we—”

“No.” Pushing him away, she stood tall, the tears on her face long forgotten. “Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t pretend you see me as something more than a servant now. I’ll always be lower than you, and I’ll never be worthy of your notice.”

She was breathing hard and so was he. The words racing out of them and stealing all the air. Dom sought for something to say, some way to fix this. Should he take it all back, pretending that it had been an effort to charm her? No, he’d be someone different, someone more like Rafi.

“I apologize for any pain I may have caused you,” he said, stepping away and giving her free access to leave, which seemed like the right thing to do, even if it felt wrong. “Please pass my congratulations on to your aunt and brother.”

“See? This is what I’m talking about. You don’t know anything about me. My aunt died six months ago, but you didn’t notice, even when I took a few days off to handle her funeral arrangements without even my brother to help. You don’t notice anything until it’s about to be taken from you.” With that she turned and fled down the hall.

Dom righted the goblet on the tray, his finger sliding across the smooth lip without any conscious thought.

The glass was fine, so clear it almost disappeared into the tray’s gleaming silver surface. It was right there, obvious but almost invisible.

Like so many other things.

An Elite Guard was trained to sleep lightly and maintain a sense of time and location. As the cart bounced over a hole in the road, jolting Pira awake, she realized she’d done none of those things. She had no idea how or where she’d passed the night, but from the cramp in her neck and the gray light of the sky overhead she guessed she’d been in the cart for a long while.

Bodies were pressed close to her. She was lodged between a white-haired man and a middle-aged woman. Both were small boned like Performers, and both were blank eyed. She didn’t remember them from among the original dozen Sapo had brought with him to Cruzamento, and one look at the collars around their necks confirmed her suspicions. These were new captures, wearing collars she’d made with her own hands.

Made by my hands.

Leão.

With dreadful clarity she remembered. Centering the knife on Leão’s chest. Plunging it deep into his body. Sapo healing the ghastly wound and then forcing her shaking hands to lock the collar around Leão’s throat.

But Leão didn’t wake up. He didn’t move, didn’t shift. His chest rose and fell, his pulse thundered in the hollow of his throat, but his eyes didn’t open.

Essência
usually helped Keepers recover quickly, but Leão’s was being diverted to Sapo. Pira had heard of cases like Leão’s, of times when a Keeper had gone to the very precipice of death, and although the physical body recovered, the soul escaped into Mother Lua’s embace. Then it was only a matter of time. The body might last for a few days longer, until it withered away from dehydration or starvation.

It was against Keeper law to heal a body in Leão’s state, continually prolonging its life, until even magic couldn’t keep the heart beating.

But Sapo followed no such law. Keeping Leão drained of his power and sedated served Sapo’s purposes. He’d have one less slave to worry about feeding, training, keeping on task. Leão had become a well, something for Sapo to use and drain and use again.

Leão tried to save me, and one way or another I’ve killed him.

Unless she could figure out some way to defeat Sapo.

A hysterical laugh bubbled to her lips. She clamped her hand over her mouth and felt tears drip onto her fingers.

No one could defeat Sapo.

She’d made fifty collars in the time she’d worked in the blacksmith’s shop. As she looked down the line of carts, seeing heads bob in each one, she guessed Sapo had used half. Beyond that were two long lines of armed and mounted soldiers.

“Where are we going?” she asked the man, but he stared at her listlessly.

The woman answered, raising a quaking hand to her collar. “Performers’ Camp.” She cleared her throat and started again. “My grandmother was a Performer. I heard one of the drivers say we were going to Performers’ Camp to rally the rest of the army. I always wanted to see the valley.”

“What army—”

Her words were drowned out by a guttural scream. It arose from the carriage near the middle of the train. Pira moved to her knees to get a better look but was nearly knocked over when a blast of
essência
rent the air. The people in her cart went rigid. Their eyes rolled back in their heads, while their heels drummed against the cart’s bed and their fingers scraped against the wood convulsively.

The door to the carriage swung open and Sapo tumbled out, clutching his hair in his hands.

Vibora followed close behind, yelling after him as he ran to the top of one of the rolling hills that hugged the east side of the trail. The wagons following the carriage jarred to a halt, a trumpet blew, and the entire line of soldiers stopped. Every head turned toward Sapo.

“No!” he screamed again, dropping to his knees. Horizontal lightning tore across the sky, dividing their position from that of the Citadel.

“Stop! Don’t waste your power!” Vibora fell to the ground behind him, wrapping her arms around his middle, her face pressed into the curve of his neck.

“The barrier is falling! Can’t you feel it?”

The barrier is falling.
Pira lurched to the far side of the cart, trying to get a better look at whatever had drawn Sapo’s interest
. If the barrier is falling, then Jacaré failed. If Jacaré failed, then this line of carts, all those unused collars . . . this is the beginning. Without the barrier for protection, who can stop him from recruiting new members of the Nata from Olinda and using them to destroy Santarem?

“It doesn’t matter! You have enough power now, and when we get to Performers’ Camp, you’ll have so much more.” Vibora tried to smooth down his rumpled hair, but he smacked her hand away.

“This wouldn’t have happened if you’d found the heir.” He threw an elbow to break her grip around his stomach, and stood up. For once, he towered over her. “This is your fault.”

“Sapo, I tried—”

He struck her across the face with the back of his hand, and she tumbled to the ground at his feet.

Vibora pressed her palm to her cheek, her expression wounded. “Sapo,” she whimpered.

He held up a hand, silencing her. “Miserable wench. No wonder Jacaré left you to die—” He cut off suddenly and pointed into the distance, somewhere northeast of their position. “What . . . what is that?”

Pira’s attention was torn between the scene on the hill and the sustained column of lightning glowing in the distance. The beacon of blue stretched from the sky to touch the mountain’s feet. It reminded her of the time when Leão had touched the glass that was connected with Johanna’s pendant. A blue glow had emanated from his fingers. This lightning was precisely the same color.

“Oh! Oh!” Sapo beat his fists against his temples in a sudden fit of childlike glee. “It’s so
perfect
!”

“What is that?”

He seized Vibora’s wrists and hauled her to her feet, hugging her close, oblivious to her rigid posture.

“The barrier didn’t fall,” Sapo continued. “The lines of power didn’t collapse and disperse. They condensed. It has all been absorbed by someone.”

“Barrata? Did he succeed?” Vibora asked, arching away from his grip.

“Barrata, the heir. It doesn’t particularly matter,” he said, kissing her soundly. “Once that person is collared, I’ll control it all.”

Vibora nodded but didn’t speak. Her gaze caught Pira’s for a moment, and the woman’s composure broke. A flicker of despair passed over her features.

Pira turned away, unwilling to share in her captor’s desperation.

The window opened easily under Dom’s palm. He wasn’t surprised; it wasn’t the first time he’d climbed from the roof into this particular room, just the first time that the room was occupied by this particular lady.

Raindrops dripped onto the desk that hugged the wall under the window, splattering the letters stacked neatly in the center.

He didn’t bother to rifle through them. All Maribelle’s correspondences were undoubtedly in code, and he didn’t have time to decipher anything now. The meeting with his mother and the soldiers had run late, and the rest of the house had gone to dinner without them. Maribelle and her attendants would return in less than ten minutes, and he didn’t know what he was looking for exactly.

Something incriminating. Something that would put her firmly on his list of enemies. Maribelle had ulterior motives. Even if she was leading a rebellion against her father—and Dom was sure there was more to that story than she was letting on—it didn’t mean her loyalties lay with Santiago.