The Blackest Heart Read online

  Krista never minded when her master denigrated King Aevrett. Gault had left her with the king and queen when he’d first gone off to war in Adin Wyte. She had lived with King Aevrett and Queen Natalia many years and knew firsthand that they were not kind people. Whether Aevrett was a liar in regard to his kin seemed immaterial to his other various cruel faults. She wished her father had never gone to war and left her with Aevrett Raijael. It had ruined so much of her.

  Dugal beckoned her forward. She complied, stepping with caution.

  “Are you Krista Aulbrek?” he asked once she stood before him.

  “I know not that name.”

  He bowed to her in confirmation. “When you hide yourself, you are bound to hurt the ones you most love, perhaps even destroy them. But you must have no sympathy, Crystalwood. No empathy can come into play, ever again. Nor conscience. Nor compassion. You cannot even remotely care.”

  It was almost as if he knew what she was thinking at all times. She had to keep all thoughts of her father free of her mind. She said, “The cause of the Bloodwoods is my only care now.”

  Dugal dipped his head to her and turned to Hans to come forward. “Are you Hans Rake?”

  Hans bowed to him. “I am, my master.”

  “Not anymore,” Dugal said. “You are now named Shadowwood.”

  Krista detected a huge smile sparkling in Hans’ eyes as Dugal continued. “As my shadow, you will be even more deviously loyal than the Spider. I have foreseen it.”

  Hans bent his knee to his master. “I pledge my blades to you.”

  “Stand,” Dugal ordered. And Hans did as his master bade him do.

  Dugal pulled forth a glass vial of red liquid from his cloak, uncorked the top, and swallowed. Blood of the Dragon! Krista watched with some envy as her master offered the vial to Hans, who drank the remainder down. His eyes immediately clouded red.

  Dugal took back the empty vial. “Part of your test is to abstain from the Blood from here forward, my Shadow. You are to partake of it only upon my offering.”

  Krista recalled how she’d been asked to taste the sap of the Bloodwood tree, and then commanded to never partake again, even at his offering. It was with these strange inconsistencies that Krista knew she was being kept on edge.

  “With the new name, Shadowwood, you must forsake your past,” Dugal went on, his frosty dark gaze on Hans. “Rid yourself of whatever heritage you still hold dear. There is no room for tenderness of heart. No room for the longings of the past. No room for love. You are now called fatherless and motherless before me.”

  There was a fervency in Hans’ red eyes. “I gladly piss on the memory of my kin.”

  “No,” Dugal said. “Simply remember them no more. Anger does not suit you. For you are as devious and deadly as a shadow. You must become as unfeeling as one too.”

  Hans bowed.

  Dugal turned to Krista. “And you as keen and sharp as a crystal, my Crystalwood.” It was the first time Hans had heard her name. Hans bent his knee to her. She dipped her head to him. Dugal seemed to regard their interaction with approval as he said, “Together you are now Crystal and the Shadow.”

  Hans’ horse, Kill, nickered in the mist behind them. Dugal’s eyes ranged the surrounding rocks and boulders. “This is as good a place as any for making your bones and tying yourself to my Caste.” He looked at Hans first. “Are you ready?” Hans nodded.

  “And you?” He turned to Krista. She nodded affirmation. His red-veined gaze lingered. “You have a killer’s eyes. Like your mother.”

  “You knew my mother?” His comment surprised her in a million different ways.

  “I was there when she died.” It was barely detectable, but a look came over him she had never seen before. Sadness? She couldn’t quite place it. Disappointment?

  He had never mentioned that he’d known her mother. And suddenly she felt lonely standing here on this foggy outcrop. Deep sorrow engulfed her as she thought of a mother she’d never known. A mother Dugal now claimed had a killer’s eyes like her own. Was she a Bloodwood? Is this why I desire to belong to him? With her father going off to war, she’d always wanted to belong. Belong to a cause. Especially as a young girl before meeting Dugal, she’d wanted to fight for her country like Gault Aulbrek, to honor her Lord Aeros in her own way. So she could rise up into the heavens to dwell among the stars. Gault had told her things of the stars and crescent moons, secrets of the skies and the cold lights of the borealis, ideas and concepts she only half remembered. He’d spoken of Laijon and the other Warrior Angels, and of all fighters who had died in the service of Raijael and how they were raised up into the heavens, into the stars. She’d desired to be part of something beyond her, something grand. But King Aevrett Raijael had crushed those dreams. And the crushing loneliness of her time in Jö Reviens affected her still.

  But now here she was. Part of a cause. Silk and the Rose, the two Vallè princesses who had trained with her and Hans, had made her feel like she belonged. It was then that a chilling thought struck her. I just failed. . . .

  You knew my mother? she’d just asked Dugal. She’d just been caught caring. Her heart plunged to the bottom of her feet. Can he see the conflict in me now? As calmly as she could, she met Dugal’s gaze. Does he know of the blue ribbon I still wear around my ankle, the one my father gifted me as he left for Wyn Darrè? Does he know all my secrets? Does he know I am not as unfeeling as I let on?

  Do I know?

  Dugal’s wintry glance shifted from her to Hans. “You brought the drawing as instructed?” he asked. Hans nodded. “And you?” he asked her next. Krista nodded. Dugal knelt and began picking small twigs from the ground. “Gather your drawings,” he ordered.

  Hans strolled back to his Bloodeye mount. Krista lingered, eyes on her master, trying to detect anything in him as he worked. Is he going to fail me, turn me away? He looked up from his twig gathering. She could read nothing in his eyes. After a moment, she too whirled and strode toward her horse.

  She nervously dug through Dread’s saddlebag, pulling forth the parchment she sought. She returned to Dugal and handed it to him, as did Hans. Dugal appraised their work. They were portraits, charcoal drawings they’d both done of one of the Five Warrior Angels of lore: Dashiell Dugal, the Warrior Angel known as the Assassin, the patron god of the Bloodwoods.

  As part of Dugal’s training, she and Hans had read The Book of the Betrayer, memorized it even. A dark, unholy book that had rendered everything she knew about The Chivalric Illuminations of Raijael and the church in Amadon’s Way and Truth of Laijon as nonsense in her eyes. And she supposed that was the book’s purpose. To make her see that everything she’d previously known about the gods Laijon, Mia, and Raijael was utterly false. After she discovered the truths within The Book of the Betrayer, her previously held notion of a god to pay homage to seemed stupid. And according to The Book of the Betrayer, the worst of all falsehoods were found in something called The Moon Scrolls of Mia. Dashiell Dugal, one of the Five Warrior Angels, known as the Assassin, was thought to have died with Laijon under the Atonement Tree in Amadon when the fiery demons were banished to the underworld. But as all Bloodwoods knew, the real truth of the Assassin’s fate, and the fate of the ancient race of Demon Lords, lay within the pages of The Book of the Betrayer.

  Krista had spent months on her drawing of Dashiell Dugal until it was perfect, an exact replica of the image they’d used as a reference, an image Dugal himself had painted for them. Krista knew her portrait was markedly better than Hans’. She had a natural talent for art, where he had none. But Dugal didn’t make mention of their talents here, or critique whose drawing was the better. He merely took one quick look at both portraits, then handed them back.

  He produced a white powder from his cloak and waved it in the air, then clapped. Flame appeared at his fingertips. Krista had seen both Seita and Breita strike similar powder to flame before. ’Twas a Vallè trick that she and Hans had never been taught. Dugal knelt and set the flame to a small
pile of spindly twigs and kindling he’d gathered. “Place your drawings over the fire and set them alight,” he instructed, standing.

  Hans knelt and held his parchment in the flame until it caught fire, then let it drop. Krista did likewise.

  “Repeat after me,” Dugal commanded. “I am now part of the unbreakable knot of Black Dugal’s Caste. And if I betray my Bloodwood family, I will suffer my heart to be torn from my chest, my bowels ripped asunder, and my blood spilled unto the dirt. From this day forward, I live and die by the knife, I exist only for the return of the Skulls, and my blade always thirsts.”

  Krista repeated the words with Hans, watching the flame claw at her portrait of Dashiell Dugal, patron god of the Bloodwoods, the Warrior Angel also known as the Betrayer, the burning parchment slowly turning to black.

  * * *

  For the sake of their new religion, the Last Warrior Angels narrowed Laijon down into the simplest of terms. First, Laijon alone banished the nameless beasts of the underworld into oblivion by destroying the Fifth Warrior Angel, the Assassin, also known as the Betrayer, or the Last Demon Lord. Second, Laijon succeeded in his task with five divine weapons and five angel stones, all translated into heaven after his death, for the remaining Warrior Angels knew Laijon’s feats would glow even brighter with the passage of time.

  —THE WAY AND TRUTH OF LAIJON

  * * *

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  TALA BRONACHELL

  11TH DAY OF THE ETHIC MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON

  AMADON, GUL KANA

  The argument started with a loud thump and a huge clatter.

  “Again you lose!” Glade shouted triumphantly, venom in his words.

  Tala and Lawri turned, as did their six Silver Guard escorts. Lindholf lay flat on his back in the center of the granite-tiled hall, helm flung aside. He swiped a smear of blood from his brow with the back of his hand. Lawri sighed in exasperation, holding her left arm gingerly at her side. Again Tala’s cousin wore a long dress, the white bandage around her injured arm hidden under the long sleeve. Tala did not know who had wrapped Lawri’s arm. That fact that Jovan had cut Lawri so severely during the struggle for his dagger was still horrifying, even though it had been an accident.

  “Stand up!” Glade ordered Lindholf. “Stand up and try to pick my pocket again!” He pointed his sackcloth-wrapped sword at Lindholf.

  “Leave me alone,” Lindholf muttered as he stood and gathered his gear.

  Glade took a fighter’s stance, readying himself. Both boys were still dressed in their practice gear: light armor, half-helms, and sackcloth-wrapped Silver Guard swords. Earlier they had been practicing swordsmanship with King Jovan in Greengrass Courtyard, their tutelage under Val-Draekin and Seita at an end. Everyone at court did as Jovan Bronachell bade them do now. Both Tala and Lawri wore dresses, neither wanting to incite any anger in their king. Lawri wore a rose-colored gown with sleeves long enough to cover the wound on her arm.

  “Come at me!” Glade taunted, tearing the sackcloth from his sword. “I dare you!”

  Lindholf brushed himself off, digging behind his chest plate with one bony hand, adjusting his armor. He suddenly ripped the hand free and sniffed at it hungrily.

  “You’re barking mad,” Glade growled. Lindholf stripped the cloth from his sword and brandished it before Glade.

  One of the Silver Guards chuckled, “Looks like our two little lordlings are finally gonna go at it. Let’s place a wager. I say two swings and both these clodpoles go ass over teapot and the fight’s done.” The laughter of the other five guards disgusted Tala. Lazy dullards! They weren’t going to do anything.

  Lawri placed herself between the two combative boys. “Put your swords down and cease this nonsense.”

  “Out of my way, stupid bitch!” With his free hand, Glade shoved Lawri to the ground. Lindholf swung. Glade whirled, his blade blocking Lindholf’s blow, their naked blades creating a hollow thunk that echoed through corridor. Glade held his sword at the ready, both hands wrapped tightly around the hilt. “Coward,” he snarled, swinging at Lindholf’s head.

  Lindholf parried. “I will cow to you no more,” he said. “And you will not touch my sister like that again.”

  Glade remained relaxed, shifted his weight, sword poised as he moved to the side. Lindholf’s sword point followed the other boy’s movement. They began to circle each other, neither flinching. Lindholf feinted to the right with a sudden shift of the shoulder. Glade read the feint and forced him away with a lunge, cutting into his exposed wrist, drawing blood. Lindholf struggled back, nearly falling. Tala’s heart sank. But Lindholf collected himself swiftly, stepped forward, and brought his blade up in a neat slice, breaking past Glade’s guard, grazing his armor. Glade lunged at Lindholf with murder in his eyes, sword humming through the air.

  A cloud of white chalk suddenly appeared between the two combatants. There was a loud clap and a sudden burst of flame flashed before Glade’s startled face. He stumbled back in fear. The fireball vanished.

  Vallè sorcery! Tala’s body stiffened in panic. She’d seen Val-Draekin conjure up flame with the white powder before. But there were no Vallè in the corridor with them.

  Lindholf pressed his advantage with vigor. Glade retreated, flailing away, somehow blocking each blow, legs wobbly, eyes wide with confusion. He rammed the hilt of his sword up under Lindholf’s guard, and Lindholf fell to his knees.

  There was another clap. A burst of flame sent Glade reeling back again.

  With lightning quickness, Lindholf was again afoot, swinging. The two boys exchanged a flurry of blows and then backed off, Glade panting, Lindholf watching with a stony coldness Tala had never before seen in her cousin.

  “You fight with Vallè tricks!” Glade spat.

  Lindholf pointed his blade at Glade’s chest. With a flicker of his free hand came another puff of white powder, sliding down his blade this time. With a blow of air from his pursed lips, the base of Lindholf’s blade lit afire, the flame racing down toward the tip and Glade’s startled face. The fire blazed toward him and launched from the point of the sword to his chest.

  “Rotted angels!” Glade stumbled back, batting at the flames on his chest-plate armor. “What in the holy bloody fuck!”

  “Enough!” Jovan Bronachell shouted, his tone commanding and deep, shoulder-length hair rippling in dark waves as he stormed toward them. The king and his retinue of black-armored Dayknights swept down the corridor, steel-toed boots thundering.

  Lindholf backed away from Glade, sword no longer aflame, but smoke could be seen licking from the blade. Glade spat on the ground, breathing heavily.

  Tala’s older brother stepped between the two boys with authority. He wore a fur-trimmed cloak fastened with a brooch of Vallè-worked silver over a vest of decorative ring mail. “Put away your swords!” he commanded.

  Both Glade and Lindholf sheathed their swords, Glade’s expression bitter as he glared at Lindholf. “He used Vallè magic, Your Excellency. He overtook me with Vallè tricks.”

  Undaunted, Lindholf glared right back at him, his expression hard and focused.

  “You’re spoiled little brats, all of you!” Jovan raged, his face a rash of red. “I aim to split you up, send all you troublemakers to separate corners of the kingdom!” His fiery eyes fell on Tala. “Let you rot out your days as far away from me as possible!”

  “It’s Lindholf’s fault,” Glade snarled. “He started it. The bloodsucking oghul, I ought to thrash hi—”

  “Rot out your days until Sterling Prentiss is found!” Jovan cut him off, still enraged. “Don’t think I have any illusions it isn’t you idiots responsible for the disappearance of my Dayknight captain!”

  Glade wasn’t done shouting either. “It’s Lindholf and those damnable Vallè who are teaching him—”

  “Shut up!” Lawri roared, finger in Glade’s face. “Just shut your fucking mouth!”

  Jovan backed away from Lawri, eyes widening, hand on the hilt of the dagger at his
belt. He had not forgotten his previous encounter with his cousin. “Bloody mother,” he muttered between clenched teeth. “You’re all crazy.”

  Anger simmered behind Glade’s eyes as they flew from the king to Lawri, then Lindholf. His face had always borne a peevish, conceited expression, but now his eyes, nose, and lips, all of it combined, appeared to be puckered into a vacant grimace as he pointed at Lindholf and sneered, “I won’t forget this.”

  Three Silver Guards rushed up the hall toward Jovan, red-faced and winded, steel-toed boots clicking. “Pardon, my lord.” The first Silver Guard bent his knee to Jovan upon arrival. “I’ve urgent news from Ser Castlegrail, if it please Your Excellency.”

  “Go on,” Jovan said.

  “Leif Chaparral has returned from Lord’s Point. With him are two Sør Sevier captives and the princess, Jondralyn.”

  Jovan stiffened and drew in a deep breath. Tala did likewise.

  The Silver Guard continued in a rushed tone. “Leif and the captives await you in Sunbird Hall, Your Excellency. As does the princess.” The guardsman gulped as tears glistened in his eyes. “They say, my lord . . . They say Jondralyn has suffered grievous injury and lies upon a litter near death.”

  †  †  †  †  †

  Tala’s tutor, Dame Mairgrid, could be heard wailing in the midst of the clamor and commotion swirling at the far end of Sunbird Hall. The two grand staircases that swept up both sides of the massive chamber to the balcony were jammed with onlookers—nobles, ladies, Silver Guards, Dayknights, kitchen help—horror fixed on every face. Ser Tomas Vorkink, steward of Amadon Castle, and the king’s chamberlain, Ser Landon Galloway, stood together directly under the balcony. A host of knights and nobles crowded the floor of the hall. Some were perched atop the long tables for a better view; others stood on the cushioned benches between the black pillars lining the chamber.