Just then, a ribboned hand settled on his shoulder, and Alucard turned to find a woman in a white dress, though the words did little justice to the woman or the dress. She was exquisite, long-limbed and pale, her ash-blond hair swept up atop her head, held in place with a dozen long silver pins, their handles sculpted into thornlike tips. The dress was a single length of white silk bound around her body like a ribbon round a parcel, cinching here and there until every vital curve was drawn in sharp detail.
Most knew her as the White Rose.
Few also knew her as the owner of the Silken Thread, its proprietor as well as its most desired host.
Alucard knew her as Ciara.
“Master Emery,” she purred, smooth as the silk itself. “It has been too long.”
The air around her warmed a little as she spoke, and he knew it was only her magic—could see the yellow threads of it dancing just over her skin—and yet he flushed and felt himself lean in toward her, like a flower to the sun.
“It has,” he said, taking her hand, and pressing the knuckles to his lips. “And yet, somehow, I doubt your bed is ever cold.”
She shrugged. “All bodies warm, but few have truly burned my sheets.”
Alucard stifled a laugh as she led him through the salon to the bar, whose marble surface curled like a single piece of ribbon through the room. She tapped one perfect nail on the counter and soon two short crystal glasses appeared, their contents amber. They each took up the glass—the brothel’s way of sealing a deal between a patron and their chosen host.
“Vas ir,” she said in Arnesian.
“Glad’och,” he replied in Veskan.
A shadow crossed Ciara’s face—the briefest cloud—before she tapped his drink with her own and downed the contents. Alucard followed. The liquor tasted of sunlight and sugar, but he knew it was strong enough to make an unsuspecting patron feel as if they’d gone to bed on land, and woken up at sea. Thankfully his years captaining the Spire had given him steady legs and a very high tolerance for spirits.
He took the empty glasses in one hand, and let her lead him with the other, up the stairs, and down a corridor, and into a room that smelled less like the brothel’s careful perfume and more like the woods at night. Wild.
By the time the door closed, and locked, she was already guiding him up against the wall, pressing playful kisses to his collar.
“Ciara,” he said gently, and then, when she did not withdraw, more firmly. “Ciara.”
Her lips drew into a perfect pout. “You really are no fun,” she said, rapping her nails against his chest. “Does the king alone still hold your heart?”
Alucard smiled. “He does.”
“What a waste,” she said, retreating. As she did, she pulled the end of the white silk that wrapped around her, and it unraveled, and fell away. She stood there, naked, the full length of her body shining like moonlight, but his eyes were drawn less to her curves, and more to her scars. Silver traced the hollow of her throat, the curves of her breasts, the crooks of her elbows, the insides of her wrists. A relic of the Tide that fell on London seven years before. The cursed magic that spilled the Isle’s banks.
Few people knew that the magic had a name, and it was Osaron.
Osaron, the destroyer of Black London.
Osaron, the darkness that believed itself a god.
Osaron, who corrupted everything and everyone he touched.
Most who survived did so by succumbing to his will. Those who fought largely perished, burned alive by the fever raging in their veins. The few who did not fall, who fought the magic and the fever and lived, they alone were marked by the battle, their veins scorched silver in the curse’s wake.
Alucard handed Ciara a lush white robe, his gaze flicking briefly to his own hand, and the molten silver mottling his wrist.
He shed his rich blue coat and cast it over a chair, unbuttoning the clasp at his throat, the closest he would come to undressing. They left the bed untouched, as they always did, and turned instead to the small table that held the Rasch board.
It was already laid, pieces huddled on the six-sided board, black gathered on one side, white on the other. Three taller figures—priest, king, and queen—surrounded by twelve soldiers. Ciara’s board had been a gift from a generous patron who happened to prefer her insight to her body, and the pieces were carved from marble instead of wood, ribbons of gold ore running through the stone.
“May I?” he asked, nodding to the bottle on the sill.
“This night is costing you a fortune. You might as well enjoy it.”
“I always do,” he said, pouring them each a second glass of the golden liquor. He lifted his, dragging an old saying up from memory. “Och ans, is farr—”
“Don’t,” she snapped, as if the sound offended her.
Alucard hesitated. He knew he lacked the king’s fluency. He spoke Arnesian and High Royal, what Lila Bard called English, and could recite a handful of sayings in other tongues, enough to manage niceties at court. But his Veskan was stilted and gruff, learned from a sailor on his ship. That said, he didn’t think it was the accent that bothered Ciara.
“You know,” he said, “it is not a bad thing, to be from more than one place.”
“It is,” she countered, “when those places are at war.”
Alucard raised a brow. “I didn’t know we were,” he said, taking his seat. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“I’d wager I know many things.” She poured herself into the opposite chair as if she too were liquid. “But we both know that Arnes and Vesk are wolves snapping at each other’s throats. It’s only a matter of time before one of them draws blood.”
But of course, one of them already had.
Seven years ago, two of Vesk’s heirs had arrived at the palace, ostensibly to celebrate the Essen Tasch and solidify the bonds between empires. But they’d come with their own plans—to cripple the crown, and seed the ground for war. They’d succeeded, in part, slaughtering Rhy’s mother, Emira. They would have succeeded in killing Rhy too, if such a thing were still possible. The only thing that kept Arnes from declaring outright war was the more immediate danger of Osaron’s attack and then, in its wake, the Veskans’ disavowal of the offending son and daughter.
They’d gone so far as to offer up their youngest heir, Hok, as penance, but Rhy had seen too much blood in too short a time, had lost his mother to another prince’s ambition and his father to the darkness at the palace doors, had watched the Tide sweep through his capital, and been forced to fight against the darkness that ended an entire world. In a matter of days, he had been orphaned and crowned, left to pick up the pieces of London. And if he sought retribution, it wouldn’t be with the life of a child.
And so what should have been the first trumpets of war had been allowed to quiet once again back into the whispers of strategy.
Still, seven years later, tensions remained high, the veil of diplomacy shroud-thin, and Alucard didn’t blame Ciara for downplaying her heritage when she made her livelihood in the shadow of the royal palace. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before war came to London, in one form or another.
They drained their glasses, and took their seats, and the game began.
Alucard moved three of his soldiers, a bold opening.
Unlike Sanct, there was no way to cheat in Rasch. It was pure strategy. When a player swept a piece from the other side, they could take it off the board, or turn it into one of theirs, depending on the endgame. Some played to eviscerate their enemies. Others to make them allies. As long as one of the prime three pieces was still standing, there was a chance to win.
“Anesh,” he said as he waited for her to make her move. “Have you had any interesting guests?”
Ciara considered. “All of my guests are interesting.” She moved her priest to the back of the board, where it would be safe. “They sometimes talk in their sleep.”
“Do they?” asked Alucard, waiving his turn.
When it came to Rasch, she was far better than him, so he rarely bothered trying to win, preferring instead to find new ways to vex his opponent.
“There are rumors,” Ciara went on, having finished her next move, “of a pirate fleet off the coast of Hal. One almost as big as the Rebel Army.”