“Funny,” said Alucard, “my spies say it is only four ships, and they cannot seem to settle on a course of sail, let alone a captain.” He pushed a soldier forward. “And in Vesk?”
“The crown prince has not been seen at court in weeks. Some think he is at sea. Others, that he has docked somewhere in Arnes, and travels southward in disguise to save his youngest brother, Hok.”
Alucard drew the soldier back again. “Save him from what? Stiff beds and long-winded metaphors?” Rhy had placed the Veskan heir in the hands of the priests at the London Sanctuary, and all reports were that he was proving a bright and exceedingly polite pupil.
As Ciara considered her move, he sat back, rubbing absently at one wrist.
It was a habit born years before the Tide, when the worst scar he wore came from the iron he’d been forced into as a prisoner, the metal heated until it burned a cuff into his skin. A painful reminder of a life he’d left behind. Now the darkened band was little more than a backdrop to the molten silver running up his arms, tracing his collar, his throat, his temples.
Most, like Ciara, saw the silver as a badge of honor, a sign of strength, but for a long time, he’d hated the marks. They hadn’t been a reminder of his might, only a testament to his weakness.
For months, every time he caught the glint of silver, he saw was his little sister, Anisa, hollowed out in death, felt his own body collapsing to his cabin floor, remembered the fever, burning his worst memories into his mind as Osaron turned his whole spirit from a fire to a candle flame. And Alucard knew that his life would have been snuffed out if Rhy Maresh hadn’t found him there, dying on the floor of his ship. If Rhy hadn’t lain down beside him on the sweat-stained board, and tangled his hands through his, and refused to let go.
For months, every time he crossed a mirror, he’d stop and stare, unable to look at himself. Unable to look away.
It was only a matter of time before Rhy caught him staring.
“You know,” said the king, “I’ve heard humility is an attractive trait.”
Alucard had managed a smile, and parried, with a shadow of his usual charm. “I know,” he’d said, “but it’s hard when you’re this striking.” And Rhy must have heard the sadness in his voice, because he’d draped himself over Alucard, and pressed a kiss into the silver-creased hollow of his throat.
“Your scars are my favorite part of you,” said the king, running a finger from the molten lines all the way to the brands at his wrists. “I love them all. Do you know why?”
“Because you were jealous of my looks?” he quipped.
For once, Rhy didn’t laugh. He brought his hand to Alucard’s cheek, and turned his gaze away from the mirror. “Because they brought you back to me.”
“Your move,” said Ciara. Alucard forced his attention back to the board.
“What of Faro?” he asked, moving the same soldier. “They claim to be our ally.”
“Ambassadors have silver tongues. You and I both know that Faro wants a war with Vesk.”
“They do not stand to win.”
“They might, if Arnes goes to battle with them first.”
Alucard sacrificed his pieces one by one as she spoke.
“You’re not even trying,” she hissed, but he was. Just not trying to win.
Sadly, Ciara could not seem to play for pretense, cutting a swathe through his pieces. In three more moves, it was done. She flicked her fingers, and a tiny gust of air swept through, tipping over the last of his pieces.
“Again?” she asked, and he nodded.
As she reset the board, he refilled their glasses.
“Well then?” he said. “What about the Hand?”
At the mention of the rebels, Ciara leaned back in her chair. “You pay me to listen for valid threats. The Hand are nothing but a petty nuisance.”
“So are moths,” he said. “Until they eat your finest coat.”
Ciara drew out a pipe and lit it with her fingers. A thin tendril of blue-grey smoke curled around her. “The crown is truly worried, then?”
“The crown is watchful. Especially when a group roams the city, calling for its head.”
Ciara hummed, running a finger around her glass. “Well, either its members are very chaste, or very good at holding their tongues. As far as I know, I’ve never had one in my bed.”
“You’re sure?”
“Is it true they all bear the mark somewhere on their skin?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Then I’m quite sure,” she said with a small, wicked grin. Alucard rose, suddenly restless. It had been several years since the first appearance of the Hand, and at the time, the sect had seemed merely an annoyance, a pebble in the kingdom’s shoe. But over the course of the past year, they’d grown into something more. There was no obvious leader, no mouthpiece, no face to the movement, nothing but a symbol, and a message: magic was failing, and it was Rhy Maresh’s fault.
It was ridiculous. Unfounded. A battle cry for the discontent, an excuse to cause chaos and call it change. But there were people—bitter, angry, powerless people—who were beginning to listen.
Alucard stretched, and went to the windowsill. The Silken Thread sat on the northern bank of the city. Beyond the glass, he could see the crimson glow of the Isle, and the vaulting palace, doubled gold against the river’s surface in the dark.
He didn’t hear Ciara stand, but he saw her in the glass, felt her arms drape lazily around him.
“I should go,” he said, weariness leaking into his voice.
“So soon?” she asked. “We haven’t finished playing.”
“You’ve already won.”
“Perhaps. But still, I wouldn’t want anyone to doubt your … capacity.”
He turned in her embrace. “Is it my reputation you’re worried about, or your own?”
She laughed, and he plucked the pipe from her fingers, and inhaled, letting the heady smoke coil in his chest. Then he leaned in and kissed her lightly, sighing the smoke into her lungs.
“Goodnight, Ciara,” he said, smiling against her lips.
Her eyelids fluttered, and drifted open. “Tease,” she said, blowing out the word in a puff of smoke.
Alucard only laughed, and slipped past her, shrugging on his coat.
* * *
He stepped out into the dark and started down the street.
Only the roads nearest the river were lined with pubs and gaming halls and inns. Beyond those, the northern bank gave way to pleasure gardens and galleries, and then to walled estates with well-groomed land, where most of the city’s nobles made their homes.
It had been a fair and sun-warm day, but now, as he left the Silken Thread, the night hovered on a knife’s edge between cool and cold. Winter was on its way. Alucard had always been partial to the winter months, with their hearth fires and spiced wines and endless parties meant to rage against the chill and lack of light.
But tonight, he found the sudden cold disconcerting.
As he walked, he turned over Ciara’s words, wearing them smooth.
The rumors of Faro and Vesk were disturbing, but not unexpected. It was the lack of intel on the rebels he found maddening. He had been counting on the White Rose’s intelligence, her capacity to gather threads of gossip and spin them into more. She was a popular and beautiful host, with the kind of liquid grace that loosened tongues. It wasn’t only the patrons who spoke to her. The other hosts did, too, carrying her secrets and confidences the way a blackbird carried offerings, unable to tell the difference between crystal and glass.
A cold rain started to fall. Alucard turned one hand palm up, the air over his head arcing into a canopy, sheltering him from the downpour. It would be a bad look, he reasoned, the victor of the final Essen Tasch, trudging through London like a sodden cat. Around him, people rushed through the bad weather, heads down as they hurried for the nearest awning.
It didn’t take Alucard long to realize he was being followed.