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  “Husband,” she announced him warmly, “come, come. Tonight we set your demons to rights, and settle this blood-letting.”

  Joseph, it was said, had burst into flames from a fire that had no right to be. Molin died with him, choking, it would seem, on his fear. His father’s chancellor had drowned, when there were nearly a dozen men on hand to save him. There was no denying something dark hunted his family. Even Bertold, skeptical as the foreign sorcerer could be, had spoken to him of a gloom over the castle—a pall, he said, of eyes and ears and bitter flames. Ersili often found her own ways of dealing with such things.

  She wore the fire like a mask. Its warm light smoothed the already soft lines of her cheeks, accentuated the golden allure of her eyes. Their children were not there. Smoke issued from a censer the witch had set to dangling over the table. Her hand parted it, reaching for him, and he went to it as a man wanting. Around him, the circlets and artifices of his holy office lay in shadow, comforted by empty goblets and discarded bits of food.

  Gods were not the sum of their possessions. Lines far deeper than the realms of men guided the paths of life, and while many of the robed men saw fire and brimstone in the avenues of the unexplained, Leopold was not bound by such mundane fears.

  Gods knew there was more to the world than mere men. There were angels and there were demons and all the myriad powers that walked the earth between them. Gods saw beyond, and they took precautions where they might.

  “This is Elfi. She will draw out the spirit and banish it.”

  Bertold, stepping soundlessly from the doorway, let out an uncertain wheeze from behind his mask. “Were you seen?”

  Ersili met him blandly. “It does not matter who bears witness to a god’s desires. Men can but let them come to pass.”

  Yes, he told himself, men worry. Gods take. Leopold took his wife’s hand and stepped into the ring of smoke. His legs wobbled against the soothing texture of it, sleeked as they were with the sweat of his walk. Behind him, he could hear the silence of Bertold’s condemnation, feel the pitched numbness of his song. Somewhere far away, there was an energy crackling, and not for the first time, Leopold found himself asking if he did not have a touch of the tingles Bertold spoke of. Rare, the man said they were, and rarer every day, yet it seemed only right for one such as he to have something so old, so indescribably unique.

  Its blasphemy only added edges to the pleasure no other power could caress. Church men burned those creatures out—but then, it was the nature of men to fear that which they did not understand. Childish reasoning, really. Yet he had bandied to their games in Ravonno and he would do the same here. Bertold was most valuable for his discretion. He never entered into the light. It would have damned them all.

  “My sweet,” her voice beckoned in the dark.

  Blue eyes glimpsed them both from across the table. Bound in simple cloth, the dark curls of their guide spilt before them as she offered her hands across the oaken altar. Leopold’s eyes flicked across her sizeable bust, and the delicacy of her fingertips, and he caught himself plumbing the hedonistic depths of the other motivations his wife may have held. The crescent of the woman’s teeth opened to them in beckoning, and he knew this was the way.

  She would break the shackles of his earthly fears and set him truly free.

  He kissed his wife’s hand and delivered himself into the old magicks. From the corner of the room, his wife’s body servants watched and cowed away, whispering as frightened children might, when one asks devils into the room. Bertold snorted, whispering the enrapture of his wards about them, in the thrum of white, as the witch, turning up her palms to them, touched their skin and sank away into her spirits, calling on Assal to guide them.

  Chapter 5

  Leverage was one of those precious things no man could teach. It had to be taken. Yet in so doing it had to be delicately handled, for its art, blackmail, was as a double-edged sword. Improperly wielded, one might lop off their own arm.

  Which made a child’s role in the affair ever so tedious.

  The cells of Vissering Castle were quiet in the night, in that manner of graveyards. Silhouettes danced along the walls where her accompaniment’s torches flicked them. Dartrek kept his quiet, and the others mimicked him. Only little Kana, hand clutched tight in Charlotte’s own, would break the monotony of boots on stone. They were sobering, her tears.

  Charlotte was the first in when the keys rattled open the appropriate cage. Her phantom sat huddled on the floor. No chains bound him. Only stone and memories. Once, his father had sat as he, just beyond those walls.

  If only stones could speak. Then again, they probably wouldn’t have anything kind to say about her or her dear family. But then again, people never did, so why should stones?

  Isaak Matair’s eyes had fixed her long before the irons rattled shut. A smile broke his lips as he beckoned, “Good eventide, whore.” She met his gaze, and his words, in stony silence. For all that was whispered of this one, she had never met the gentleman others claimed in him. Only his steely remains.

  She liked to think of it as their game—the absence of all life’s little formalities. Its little lies. It was nice not to have to act for once.

  “Does it ever sleep?” she countered. Never once had she beheld his dark eyes shut. “Or are my visits just so enticing?”

  He ignored her jibes. “I believe I heard dear Witold in the yard today, just as I believe she comes to jest at my good wife’s departure?”

  “To the contrary. I come with a proposal. It seems you will be able to join her, soon.”

  Not a shred of interest broke his mask. Charlotte might have admired it, if it didn’t so remind her of Boyce, her father’s spider. At a time, she had dared hope he would break himself. Some men deprived themselves, hoping their sacrifice might make some grand statement of defiance. Yet it was the men who took and ate, and drank, and said nothing of, which lasted. Starvation destroyed captives, not their captors.

  The only thing she found that turned this particular creature’s head were the whimpers beyond the door. In those fleeting glances, she thought she caught the scent of uncertainty. So she went after it as a bloodhound.

  Dartrek brought the child at her beck and call. Five name days to the mark, and weeping like a newborn. But Charlotte had eyes only for Isaak. She almost smiled at the twitch of anger when it slipped.

  “Papa!” the little one squealed. Her hands reached for him as she sprang, but Dartrek had her by the scruff and yanked her right back.

  Isaak started, but held himself at that last crossroads of reaction and reason. Ever the impressive specimen. His face was a war on a battlefield she knew well.

  Whoever said the world was won in steel had apparently never mastered the graces of Jurti.

  “Witold did not take her,” Isaak softly spoke.

  She would keep the one in his place, as she would keep the other.

  “He did not, for all your wife’s objections. His own granddaughter. Do not think too harshly of him—it was our whims that stayed her. We felt her safer here, with her father. And she has playmates of an age. Why, my own brother—”

  Isaak’s dark eyes pinioned on her. “I have little doubt. And how would the House Cullick desire me to express my gratitude?”

  My, how quick we are. “Oh come now, do not be like that.” She even pouted, enjoying a flare of showmanship. The middle brother Matair’s eyes never moved, though. “In truth, we want the same thing. Or at least, things that lead to the same ends. You wish for your family,” she said, reaching a hand to fuss with Kana’s hair. The girl flinched away from her, scowling. “Undoubtedly for your lands, as well. Well, this isn’t the time to have so many unknowns scrambling for your scraps. It promotes chaos. People like their familiarity.

  “So we would like you to have those things, too. Nearly all your relatives have now gone, save your pair. Yet you see, there are still some…uncertainties that need to be dealt with. Your brother Ivon, for example. As I understand it
, he is still afield with the Emperor’s bastard, with an army at his back. Now that’s a fine thing, for a fine soldier. Yet we fear the rumors he may have heard. The…whispers. Things like that are like to drive a man to rashness, and that would benefit no one. We would like for you to explain things to him. Help him see how things truly are. Then take him home—back where he belongs.”

  “An awful long leash,” Isaak snorted. “Particularly given the duke’s own words: we have no land. What’s to keep me from returning with that same army at my back?”

  He was direct. Charlotte had to give him that. “Nothing, I suppose. Save little Kana here. And that drakkon Anelie above.” This time, she did not hold back her smile. “All you need do is help your brother see reason.”

  As for Ivon, Charlotte’s father might have used that one’s own wife and child to blackmail him, if he could have. Unfortunately, when Duke Rusthöffen departed in the wake of the trial, he took that pair with him, as well as the eldest daughter, Liesa. To protect the heirs of House Matair, he said. A noble’s duty. He never said aloud that it was House Cullick he sought to shield them from.

  That Lotte—Ivon’s wife—had been eventually released to the custody of her own father was a fact they knew too well, however. Lord Urill Insley was as sly as he was decrepit, and one of the many men that had benefited from the Cullicks’ generosity in the wake of the Matairs’ downfall. It was in a terribly humbling letter that he had sought to thank Charlotte’s family for their kindnesses—the silver nature of which was of course not put to writing, and she hoped he choked on it—and for the good conduct in returning his daughter to him.

  Its mockery had been enough to pucker an entire room of Cullicks up like sour lemons. It was rare one managed to so effectively undermine one of her father’s plans. It was even less advisable. The black fury it had put her father into would be revenged a hundredfold. Of that, there could be no doubt. The feud was a custom old and dear to Idasia, and for Walthere Cullick, it took far less than blood to invoke. Nothing less would sate it.

  The rest of the Matair brood was secured through equal parts threat and bribery, and Walthere gave up Isaak’s dear wife only as a kindness from one nobleman to another. Some gentile show of honor. Or, more accurately, to make himself the better man, and indebt his rival to him. After all, the Empress herself had practically perched upon Walthere’s shoulder at the trial. She may have never said a word in favor of their present course, but she did not have to. Threat of presence was evidence enough to most.

  Such scheming was the only reason Charlotte had come here again. Why she had brought this offer, when good sense told her otherwise. Isaak’s use only lessened here, in this cell. Though his name bore trouble with it, and he stood a dangerous man besides, out there he could strike where their own blades yet found no purchase. And they still had the bargaining power.

  Kana made little sounds, occasionally squirming against her fleshy bonds. Her father gave a solemn shake of his head.

  “Tessel is not likely to just let one of the banners walk away. The Emperor called them. It would take the Emperor to draw them back.” His hard gaze flicked to his daughter and his lips tightened just so. “Or lack of coin.”

  She batted a hand at him dismissively. “Worry not for the Bastard, ser. That one has his own travails. And it is Lord Marshall Othmann that has the command. We shall give you a letter to him, from our own hand. Its seal will give you both leave enough. The rest is your own matter.”

  Long legs twisted under Isaak’s deceptively huddled frame, twisting until he had a footing on which to stand. Kana tried to jerk forward again, but Dartrek’s grip was firm. He drifted a few steps closer to Charlotte, and though his left hand did not touch the hilt of his sword, the fingers tensed. She pretended not to notice. It was an expected gesture, but she didn’t rightly fear anything from Isaak. He was no fool.

  He answered Dartrek’s bluff, though, drawing himself forward several paces until he was carefully within the man’s own bubble of space. Dark eyes stared her towering shieldman down, though neither blinked. Kana caught her father’s hand with a squeal. Charlotte only rolled her eyes. Men and their displays. But for Isaak, she knew it was more. Bravado had little to do with it. Distraction lay in those motions. Perhaps he thought she wouldn’t see him squeeze his daughter’s hand. Surely he knew neither would care in such a moment. All they saw was defiance.

  At least, that was all they should have seen. A lion’s eyes miss nothing.

  “Is that all?” Isaak asked coolly.

  “Not by half. For there is another, more…” She tapped at her chin, baiting him. “Delicate matter we would ask that you—”

  Hard eyes snapped back on her. “No,” he said. Dartrek started forward and Isaak’s hand loosed his daughter’s as he gave ground.

  Charlotte parted with an annoyed huff. “You did not even hear what I had to say.”

  “You mean Rurik of course,” he returned, not missing a beat.

  That actually took her aback. She hadn’t expected that, but then, he was a clever sort. If they wanted one brother dealt with, surely they would not leave the other scurrying about.

  “An astute observation. But I do ask that you reconsider your stance.” She paused there, waiting, but he offered no further interruption. Hatred broiled in that stare, but there was something, still—some glimmer that bid her on. Not entirely unreasonable, perhaps. “He is kin, it is true. Yet in that same regard, is he not kinslayer?”

  “He did not take an axe to my father’s neck.”

  “But you are a logical man. He may as well have. He knew what would come of returning home. What it would mean. He led us to your father’s door and fled before the punishment.” Charlotte shook her head with a small sigh. “As he has escaped so many things. A small man, growing ever smaller.

  “Tell me, do you ever sit here at night wondering why? Why your house? Why your family? The answer should be plain. It is him. He wronged me, tis true, but nothing so stark as what he has wrought on you and yours. Wantonly. Unnecessarily. Would you—”

  Again he cut her off, saying, “I will go, if that is what you need.”

  She stumbled, hesitant. An eyebrow rose in question. Another game? “And you know what we ask? Of you? Of…him?”

  Rurik’s brother nodded, not turning away from it. There was a chill there even she had not expected to see. Hatred, yes but—not for her. Not all of it. It was the chill portents of a creature more shadow than man. Logical, not emotional. She might have shuddered, if he weren’t watching. As it were, she only smiled anew.

  “If such is the case, I shall return to you on the morrow, and at that, you may go. Let the guards know what you need and it will be so.”

  “And the child will be released to my wife when it is done.” He said “the child” like one would say “the horse,” or “the gold,” and Isaak was careful not to look at her.

  Charlotte might have smiled for the misplaced effort, but she did not bother, for “the child’s” hurt sucks of air were sound enough of her victory. “And the child will be released when it is done.”

  The shade bowed its head in a farce of respect, and Charlotte twisted back for the door. She waved at her guardian and Dartrek began to back after her, yanking Kana away from her loitering father. A hollow gaze stalked them to the entrance. She could feel it boring into her back.

  All men were tools, as she saw it. Dangerous tools, when roused, but that was why one took care in efforts of control. It all came back to leverage. It wasn’t enough to ask a man if he would kill his brother. One had to make him see the consequences if he did not. Then one could only ask, which would he choose: brother or daughter? For all that kin might mean, most would choose the daughter.

  Of course, if her own father met the question, she had little doubt which he would choose. Some men had different priorities, and an extra child to spare.

  Behind them, Charlotte heard Isaak rattling something around. “Lady whore, you forgot something,
” he called. She half-turned, letting his tone glance off her. There was nothing to break her now. She had won, and for all his petty words there was no sight sweeter to her eyes than a man destroyed.

  Yet he had scooped a bowl off the floor, its contents rotting in the flickers of the light. Isaak offered it to her with an empty face. “The slop, if you would be so kind? It is that hour.”

  There was no escaping the Empress’s moods. Not for Charlotte. Not for anyone, she had found, save her father.

  By afternoon’s pallid light, they moved through Fürlangen’s bustling streets, hoping to indulge one of the woman’s “last remaining pleasures,” as she put them. One of many, to be sure. Today it was jewelry. Tomorrow it could be embroidery. Spinning or song. Or stitching. The very thought gave Charlotte a shudder. Her governess was gone—it would have looked poor for a grown woman to require one in the presence of such high nobility—but she could still feel her cold presence lurking in this. The woman had always tried to make her appreciate such—though she hesitated to name them so—arts.

  Charlotte had never quite managed to convince her that her interests lay in other arts. That creature was of the traditional school, wherein women dared not touch politick or theology, and the height of feminine grace was to bewitch some simple, noble man with equally simple smiles, and to spread one’s chaste legs for him as wife and do the bed duty that would bring the children, and the grandchildren, and all the while never saying a word that did not do them all the best.

  However, she did learn to play along. To indulge others.

  In truth, that was probably why the Empress looked so fondly on her. Though others appeased, Charlotte engaged, even when the very thought of doing so sickened her. Yet it was the fondness her father saw, and he trusted delicacy more to her than to his wife.