Storm's Heart

NINE

Niniane squeezed Tiago’s power-corded hand and then released him as they stepped into the quiet, cool luxury of the penthouse.

Carling’s attendant Rhoswen appeared in the foyer, blonde hair pulled back in a sleek chignon and face smooth, serene. In profile she resembled a perfect cameo. The Vampyre had been young when she had been turned, perhaps eighteen or twenty. What had been so compelling at that age to make her seek out vampyrism, and what had convinced the Vampyre that had made her? Young humans were much like any other species, Niniane had found. They were all sure they would live forever. Whereas when she had been eighteen, she had been sure she would not live out the year.

A weight settled on her chest as Rhoswen walked toward her across a polished parquet floor. The problem with forging ahead with the Niniane of the future, she realized, was that she still loved reading Elle, still loved every shade of those damn pink lipsticks in her purse every bit as much as her old persona, Tricks, had, and she felt woefully inadequate for the challenges she faced.

She had to come up with a better coping strategy and fast. Why was she struggling with the thought of meeting again with the Dark Fae delegation and Carling? Tiago towered behind her, a menacing black-clad figure that promised death to anyone who dared to threaten her.

Not that anybody would threaten her to her face. If the attacks weren’t two separate incidents, if there was an actual mastermind behind both of them, that someone would wait until she was alone and vulnerable before trying again. And besides, when she had worked for Dragos she used to have meetings all the time with heads of state and senior government officials, from both the human domain and the Elder demesnes. She’d had no problem dealing with them, even when her life had been in danger from her uncle Urien.

She tilted her head and pursed her lips. Maybe that was it. She should just pretend she worked for someone else. She would work for the real Niniane, who read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal; who also read works of literature with deathless prose and haunting, tear-jerking endings (bleck); and who managed her own portfolio of stock options. That chick was a well-dressed bitch in a strand of pearls you didn’t want to cross.

The fake silly Niniane smiled. “Hi, Rhoswen,” she said. “Are all of you except Cowan settling in all right downstairs?”

For a brief moment the Vampyre looked disconcerted. It was a good strategy to keep Vampyres off balance whenever possible. “Thank you, your highness,” said Rhoswen. She had a lovely speaking voice, a low, pure contralto. “We are doing well. We regret any distress Cowan’s actions may have caused earlier.”

Niniane lifted one shoulder. “Well, he did lose his head over it.”

“As he should have,” said Rhoswen.

Just as Carling had stopped the scene earlier from escalating to further violence, she could have stopped Cowan with one Power-filled command, but no Vampyre master would tolerate anything but complete obedience from her children. The stance was a harsh but necessary one. A Vampyre who lost control in public was a menace to everyone.

Rhoswen’s brief disconcertment had smoothed away as if it had never existed. The Vampyre said, “Chancellor Riordan, Justice Trevenan, Commander Shiron and Councillor Severan are all awaiting you in the library.”

Ooh, that sounded like a game of Clue. Somebody was going to get bashed in the head with a lead pipe or a candlestick. Not that the real Niniane would notice something like that. The real Niniane already had a clue; she wouldn’t play a game of Clue.

She said, “Lead on, Macduff.”

Rhoswen inclined her head and turned to lead the way. “I was in theatre before my transformation,” said the blonde, as her heels tapped on the hard wood floor. “Did you know, the real phrase is not ‘Lead on, Macduff’ but actually ‘Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him that first cries, Hold, enough!’?”

Sometimes Vampyres got pedantic when they got older, which was a function of how their once human brains coped with their unnatural age. And the real Niniane would never stoop to squabbling with an attendant.

The fake silly Niniane told Rhoswen, “Yes, but I was not quoting the play. I was quoting the quote. Nobody says ‘Lay on, Macduff’ when they invite somebody to go ahead of them. That would sound stupid. Everybody says ‘Lead on, Macduff.’”

She grinned over her shoulder at Tiago, who strolled behind them. He wore his harsh assassin’s face, but his dark gaze contained a fugitive twinkle.

They came to the library’s double doors, which had been propped open. The library was a spacious room with quality neutral-toned overstuffed furniture arranged around an Oriental rug, bookshelves stocked with a collection of hardcover classics and current New York Times bestselling paperbacks and a fireplace at one end.

The room’s real claim to fame was the sumptuous original Tiffany stained-glass opalescent window that dominated one wall. The window depicted a sunlit pond in a forest populated with brilliant fantastic fish and birds that had never been seen on this side of Earth. Art scholars argued that Louis Comfort must have traveled to an Other land and seen the wildlife at some point in his life to have created such beautiful detailed representations, but the argument was not substantiated as the strange species were not documented in any of the Elder records about Other lands.

Niniane sighed as she thought of Scott Hughes’s white, horrorstricken face from earlier when he had looked at the damaged floor downstairs. The Tiffany window sparkled with a strong anti-breakage spell, but such spells had a limited veracity. If a force greater than the strength of the spell hit the window, both window and spell would still shatter. At least a couple of the people in this room had that kind of Power. Poor Scott probably wouldn’t be resting easily until the Dark Fae concluded their hotel stay.

Perhaps she should nudge that conclusion along. Urien had built a sprawling mansion on a gated, extensive tract of land that covered eighty acres in one of the most expensive urban areas in the country. The grounds encompassed the main crossover point for the Dark Fae’s Other land. Originally she had been uneasy about going straight to the mansion from New York. She had wanted to take a more cautious route, to meet and talk with the Dark Fae delegation on more neutral ground, from which she might have some hope of escape if needed. The mansion on its gated property had seemed as if it could be too easily turned into a prison.

As it turned out, her impulse to caution had had some validity.

The four occupants in the room turned at her arrival. As one, their attention went to the silent menace that stalked behind her, and their faces grew cold and still. All, that is, except for the tall black-haired Dark Fae male with high cheekbones and crow’s-feet at his eyes that deepened when he smiled at her. Aubrey Riordan, Chancellor of the Dark Fae government, strode toward her with his hands outstretched. She put her hands out as he reached her, and he brought them up to kiss them.

Aubrey said, “I cannot tell you how angry and distressed I was to hear of the attack made on you by Geril and his partners, or how relieved and glad I am that you are back to us safe and well.”

Niniane searched the older Dark Fae male’s face as he spoke. According to her truthsense, every word he spoke was sincere. But she, and even Dragos, had believed that Geril and the others had spoken the truth too. As Dragos’s mate Pia in New York had argued just a week ago, there were ways to get around truthsense if someone had a talent with words and misdirection. That had been how Pia had survived a potentially deadly encounter with Urien when he had kidnapped her. But Aubrey’s eyes were kind, and Niniane so badly wanted to believe him. She squeezed his fingers before she let him go.

Carling moved with silent ghostly grace to sink into an armchair. The Vampyre was still barefoot, but she had changed out of the black Chanel suit. She now wore a loose plain caftan of undyed Egyptian cotton. Somehow she made the simple garment look like haute couture. She had pinned up her long, shining dark hair with two slender stilettos. The knives and the caftan appeared to be the only things she wore. The Vampyre watched the scene with interest, but unless there was a gross violation of demesne law or someone’s life was threatened, as Councillor from the Elder tribunal, she would do nothing to interfere.

Commander Arethusa stood ramrod-straight behind one couch. The powerfully built Dark Fae woman glared at Tiago. “The Wyr is not allowed here,” Arethusa gritted. “He must leave. Now.”

Without warning Niniane’s temper leaped from the cool green side of her shit-o-meter into the red zone. Her fists clenched. It was actually a good thing she didn’t have either a lead pipe or a candlestick.

“Hey, you know what, Arethusa?” she said. “I am going to be your sovereign. You can’t speak to me like that. EVER. I don’t care how valid you think your point is or how strongly you may feel about it. Let’s pause there for a minute. While we’re on the subject of what you can’t do, you can’t EVER treat me again like I am a pawn to be maneuvered. If any of you EVER again deny me any necessity, like, oh, say, my clothes or toiletries or a goddamn blanket, just to set yourself up for some kind of legal precedent, I don’t care how many years of service you have given to the Dark Fae or what you think may be owed to you. I will have you strung up on the nearest tree, and you should count yourself lucky that that’s all I will do, because I know my uncle would have gutted you for such an offense. You may be too old for me to teach you any real decency. But that does not mean I will allow you to treat me with anything but the utmost care and respect. Are we quite clear?”

Though her attention was focused on the Dark Fae Commander, she happened to catch a glimpse of Carling out of the corner of her eye. Was that a glimmer of approval in the old Vampyre’s gaze?

Arethusa’s expression underwent a change so rapid Niniane would have sworn her look of shocked contrition was sincere. “Your highness,” said the Commander. “My most profound apologies. I did not mean any lack of respect to you—my comment was meant to be directed at him.”

“It is my decision to have Tiago here,” she said. “He volunteered to come to Chicago and to help and protect me. He hasn’t hesitated to provide generously for my every need without being asked, without trying to maneuver for political gain and without asking for repayment. In fact, every item of clothing I have on right now is because of him. It is certainly not because of any of you. So what you say to him, you are saying to me.”

It was clear the Dark Fae Commander didn’t care to hear that, for her face tightened and she shot another glare at Tiago, but she remained silent. It was Justice Kellen who cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. The aged Dark Fae male was one of the finest legal minds of any Elder demesne, the elegant bones of his face covered in a fine tracery of wrinkles, his long white hair pulled back in a queue. Niniane remembered him from when she was a child, but then she remembered all of them, just as she remembered her uncle Urien’s cool, clever charm that had, to the happy undiscriminating child she had been, seemed so affectionate.

“Our decision to refuse to cooperate with sentinel Black Eagle was not well done of us,” Kellen said to her in his gentle, cultured voice. “And for that, your highness, I do most sincerely apologize. The only thing I will say in our defense is we did not conceive of the possibility that your needs would go unmet.”

Okay, so that stopped her shit-o-meter from boiling over. Kellen had always been a superb diplomat, and his nonaggressive approach was famous for cooling hotter heads than hers. She bit her lip and after a moment managed to give him a curt nod.

The Justice said, “We also have had deep misgivings at the Wyrkind’s participation in recent events. As Commander Shiron has indicated, we feel it is imperative to distance ourselves immediately from any further involvement with them.”

If that didn’t sound like an opening to a litany of complaints, she didn’t know what did. Niniane sighed as she walked over to sit in an armchair opposite Carling. She gestured for the others to be seated as well, and they arranged themselves in a rough circle, with Kellen and Arethusa on a couch and Aubrey in the last chair.

Tiago moved silently to take a standing position behind her. As she glanced at him, she saw the massive muscles of his biceps and chest bulge as he crossed his arms. She remembered his favorite position leaning against the wall during conferences with Dragos and the other sentinels in Cuelebre Tower, and a wave of homesickness washed over her. She shoved it aside. She had no time to indulge in memories or maudlin feelings.

As far as the general public was concerned, Urien had died in a riding accident, but there were a few individuals throughout the Elder Races who had enough Power to scry for the truth. The governing bodies of the different demesnes knew very well that Dragos had really killed the Dark Fae King.

“If you are referring to how Urien was killed, he had just kidnapped and attacked Dragos’s pregnant mate,” she said point-blank. “He got what he deserved, and everybody in this room knows it. And that’s without even discussing any of his older crimes, which include slaughtering my family and his King.”

“Regardless of Urien’s crimes and how anyone may feel about his death, the fact remains that the Lord of the Wyr killed the Dark Fae King,” said Kellen. “And regicide is a very serious matter. But that event is not to which I refer, at least not on its own.” The Justice’s gaze shifted to Tiago. “We must wonder at the deep game the Wyr are playing, and why after sheltering you for so many years they would make an attempt on your life.”

“What are you talking about?” she said. Even as she spoke the words, Tiago shifted with a sudden muttered curse.

Tiago’s broad hand came down hard on her shoulder. He said, quiet and urgent, “Niniane, I need to talk to you for a moment.”

She glanced at him with a puzzled, impatient frown. He wanted to talk to her now, of all times? She shook her head at him then said to Kellen and the others, “You’ve mixed something up badly. There’ve been two Dark Fae attempts, but there’s been no Wyr attempt on my life. That’s ridiculous.”

Arethusa took a deep quick breath. Kellen and Aubrey gave her a keen, searching look. Carling regarded Tiago with her eyes narrowed and eyebrows raised, her strong, lovely mouth pursed.

Tiago’s hand tightened on her to the point of bruising. He said in her head, I need to talk to you right now.

Aubrey spoke. “Your highness, please forgive me for contradicting you. The first attempt on your life was made by Dark Fae individuals, for which we cannot express enough our chagrin and outrage—”

NINIANE, Tiago thundered telepathically. She gave her head a quick shake, as if to dislodge his mental shout along with the other formless roar that had begun to fill her mind like white noise.

Despite the cacophony between her ears, she could hear Aubrey perfectly as he continued. “But preliminary police reports on the second attempt are quite unequivocal. It was made by three individuals who were disguised to look like a Dark Fae triad, but they were, in fact, Wyr.”

Were, in fact.

The white noise took over her mind. She couldn’t think, couldn’t hear any more. Several people in the room were talking at once.

Were. In fact.

Wyr.

She turned to Tiago with a look of such utter incomprehension, his expression turned savage and he started swearing.

She did not even bother to ask him. His reaction was all she needed to know for sure. Aubrey spoke the truth. The Wyr had tried to kill her. A jagged landscape opened up inside her. It cut at her vital organs and made it difficult to breathe. Her longtime friends? The people she had hugged with such love when she said good-bye, who even now she missed so much, the people who were—

Her adopted family?

Well, didn’t that sound a little too familiar.

Tiago knelt in front of her. His mental voice was sharp and urgent. Goddammit, don’t look at me like that. I was going to tell you but you were hurt. Then we ran out of time and I forgot, that’s all, I just fucking forgot. Niniane—

He reached for her hands. She cringed away from him. He froze and looked as if she had knifed him.

“Thank you for everything you have done on our behalf,” said the future Queen of the Dark Fae in a still, cold voice. Her face was polite and as blank as a doll’s. “We will see that you are fully compensated for all of your expenditures. You will leave us now.”

For one pulsating moment she was sure he would refuse. Absolute anarchy flashed across his face, and she knew in that moment he was capable of doing anything at all. She huddled back in her seat, unblinking.

She did not know what checked him. Something changed in his expression, an awful pained sadness. Then a barrier slammed into place, like a granite slab covering an open wound in the earth. He stood quietly and left.

She talked with Carling and the Dark Fae delegation for another hour. The group laid plans. Since Dark Fae had been involved in one assassination attempt, Carling and her Vampyres would provide security for Niniane while both attacks were under investigation. Then assuming it could be established for a certainty that none of the senior officials in the room had been involved, Carling and her Vampyres would phase out on security and Arethusa and her forces would take over.

In the morning the party would leave the hotel. They would move into the mansion where Aubrey’s wife, Naida, was preparing for their crossover journey. From there they would finalize preparations for crossing over to the Other land. Once they crossed, it would take several days of travel by horseback to reach the palace at Adriyel. Niniane’s coronation would be held a few days later.

She agreed to everything they requested.

After the meeting, Niniane went to her room in the penthouse. There wasn’t any reason not to. She had left the bedroom in a mess after showering and getting ready for dinner with her new cousin and his attendants. Geril had flirted with her on the flight out from New York, which she had not exactly welcomed. They had gone out to eat at a Greek restaurant, and he had persisted over saganaki and stuffed grape leaves until she was forced to politely but firmly shut him down.

A second cousin flirting with the heir to the throne. I mean, come on. She hadn’t considered it exactly subtle, but she had slogged through the rest of the meal determined to keep an open mind and try to find something likeable about the man.

Yeah, well.

Her bedroom was the largest and most sumptuous of the six in the penthouse, and it was now immaculate. She lay down on the bed. When she closed her eyes, she saw Tiago’s tight, angry face, the sadness in his eyes as he looked at her, the muscle jumping in his jaw.

They were in fact Wyr who had attacked her?

Now, just wait a minute.

Now that she was no longer dealing with the Dark Fae delegation, the cacophony in her head had a chance to subside. The quiet opened up the way for all the memories she shared with the sentinels to come rushing back to the surface.

The hours upon hours they had spent drilling her on self-defense techniques, repeating each thing until she had mastered it. Despite her lack of aptitude, they wouldn’t quit and they wouldn’t let her quit when she got discouraged.

The outlandish rambling faerie-to-harpy heart-to-hearts she had shared with Aryal over the years.

The times when the gryphons had teased and flirted with her as they patiently put up with “babysitting duty,” when they had been pulled from their regular responsibilities to act as her bodyguard.

The gargoyle Grym’s quiet, undemanding companionship as he provided guard duty on her walks through neighborhoods during the holiday season, and the Christmas presents of handcarved wooden puzzles he had created just for her.

Dragos’s loyal support of her sometimes controversial choices on how to handle knotty PR issues, and his smiles of fierce satisfaction when she was proven right.

Tiago’s protectiveness, the gentleness with which he handled her, the way he had removed the stitches from her side and then pressed his lips to the scar.

She pushed upright as a rock-solid certainty settled back into its rightful place. The people who had attacked her and Tiago might have been Wyr, but Dragos and his sentinels had nothing to do with it. Of course they hadn’t.

Oh, Tiago.

She started to look around for her cell phone before she remembered it was still in her evening bag in the suite two floors down. Using the phone by the bed, she asked the hotel switchboard to dial the suite. She listened to it ring. Disappointment bowed her shoulders as no one picked up. When the voicemail system clicked on, she said, “Tiago, it’s me. I’m sorry I sent you away like that. It—the whole thing—just came as such a shock, that’s all. Please call me back if you get this, okay?”

She hung up slowly. He might have already gone back to the suite to collect his things and leave. It certainly wouldn’t have taken him long to get his things. He traveled light. She picked up the phone again and dialed the front desk. When a pleasantvoiced woman answered, she said, “Hello, this is Niniane Lorelle.”

“Your highness! Good afternoon, what can I do for you?”

“I’m trying to get a hold of sentinel Black Eagle and he isn’t picking up in the downstairs suite,” she said. “Have you, by any chance, seen him recently?”

“Yes, he left about fifteen minutes ago,” said the woman.

This time the disappointment was crushing. She covered her eyes. “I see.”

“Would you like to leave him a message?”

Would he even come back to the hotel or was he already on his way back to New York? “Yes,” she said, her voice leaden. “If you see him, please tell him I need to speak with him. It’s very important.”

After the woman promised to do so, Niniane hung up. And why wouldn’t he return to New York? He had seen her to safety, just as he had promised. After everything he had done for her, she had pretty much kicked him in the teeth.

She couldn’t think and didn’t want to feel, so she curled up on the bed again and closed her eyes instead. She must have slept because the next thing she heard was a soft knock. Rhoswen’s pure voice asked if Niniane would like a supper tray brought to her.

“No,” she said.

She closed her eyes again. She heard quiet, grotesque footsteps echoing in the shadowed, silent palace halls. She stumbled in the pools of blood from her brothers’ small bodies. Blood had a raw-meaty smell and a consistency that was impossible to mistake, a slippery stickiness that coated her hands and knees as she fell. She scrambled to her feet and ran from a chill Power that hunted for her. It tightened the air like an invisible boa constrictor as she hid in the dark and smothered in her own panic.

The bedroom was fully dark when she next awakened. Disoriented, she fumbled to turn on a light and dig for her wristwatch. She hadn’t worn her watch to dinner because it hadn’t gone with her pretty red halter dress.

9:30 P.M. Gah. Sleeping through the day was a stupid thing to do. Now she would be up all night. She sat up and stared at the floor, feeling thick and slow, like molasses moved in her veins or she was only half alive because a vital artery had been cut and she had been bleeding out while she slept.

She looked at the silent bedside phone, and her eyes filled with tears.

Oh no. No, she didn’t. She swore under her breath and pushed off the bed, grabbed a bottle of water from the small fridge and left the bedroom. There had to be something in that damn library that she could lose herself in. If she could not find a book, then she could by god find something to drink. Or maybe both.

When she opened the door, two Vampyres stood in the shadowed hall, the male that Tiago had thrown into the stairwell and Rhoswen. With her sensitive Fae hearing, she could hear people moving quietly about in other rooms in the penthouse. It sounded for the most part like people were spending the evening in their rooms. She imagined a quiet night was a welcome respite to everyone after the drama of the last couple of days.

“Do you require anything?” Rhoswen asked. “Perhaps some sustenance?”

Niniane shook her head. “I’m going to the library.”

The blonde Vampyre inclined her head. Niniane walked to the library, which was dimly lit by a small table lamp and the jeweled glow of moonlight shining through the stained-glass window.

At first she thought she was alone in the room. Then she saw the still, silent figure in the armchair. She paused and almost left again, because she wasn’t sure she could handle more of Carling that day. But something about that entirely still figure drew her forward.

Carling still wore the Egyptian-cotton caftan from earlier. She had removed the stilettos from her hair. The slender knives lay on the side table by the armchair.

“Carling?” Niniane said.

The Vampyre showed no response. Niniane took a step toward Carling then another, watching the incredible perfection of that profile against the jeweled backdrop of sapphire, ruby, gold and emerald in the stained-glass window behind her. Carling’s stillness was complete. Those long, dark eyes were fixed and blank, her lush lips slightly parted.

Ice slithered down Niniane’s spine. All Vampyres could be eerie in their stillness, since they did not need to breathe. Rhoswen and the male Vampyre had been unmoving when Niniane had walked out of her room, but still they had retained a quality of alertness. She could sense they were aware of her.

Carling seemed to be in a different condition altogether. She looked like she was a mannequin or like she was some kind of Stepford Vampyre waiting for someone to flip a switch and turn her on.

Stepford Vampyre. Ew, actually.

Niniane cleared her throat and said in a louder voice, “Carling?”

“Macbeth was on to something,” said Carling.

Niniane almost leaped out of her skin then felt like a fool. Carling had spoken in a quiet, absentminded voice and had made no sudden moves. Get a grip already, doofus.

She asked, “What do you mean?”

“In his soliloquy. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow really does creep in its petty pace from day to day,” said Carling. “What will the last syllable of recorded time be, and who will be the one to write it? No matter how long we live, we still wonder when our world will end and how.”

Niniane’s unease increased. Carling had appeared to respond to her name, but she still seemed absent, her expression unchanging. She referenced Macbeth as if she were responding to the conversation that had occurred between Niniane and Rhoswen in the hall, but that had happened hours ago. Something was wrong, perhaps badly so. Niniane’s stomach clenched.

She said in a quiet neutral voice, “Would you like for me to get Rhoswen for you?”

Carling’s dark gaze snapped up to Niniane’s face, and in an instant the sense of wrongness was erased. “Gods, no,” said the Vampyre with a weary amusement. “Her frantic devotion is so tiring.”

Niniane regarded her. She had a feeling she shouldn’t ask, but she couldn’t help herself. “Are you all right?”

Carling smiled. “I am not doing too badly for an old, diseased woman. We Vampyres are the lepers of the Elder Races, you know, since we were human until we were infected, and of course all of the Elder Races are immune to the disease. I’ve always felt a somewhat irrational connection with the Wyr because of it. As the lepers and the beasts of the Elder society, neither of us are quite as acceptable as the rest of you.”

Niniane quirked an eyebrow. “None of us are that acceptable, Carling.”

The Vampyre chuckled. “Too true. Sit, little Niniane. We did not have a chance to finish our earlier conversation when your Wyr so rudely interrupted us.”

He’s not my Wyr.

A vicious surge of pain came out of nowhere. She took a deep breath and managed to keep the words from tumbling out of her mouth. Then the memory of Carling twisting the head off her own Vampyre and staring at its eyes as it crumbled to dust flashed through her mind, but Niniane stepped forward anyway to sit in the chair Carling indicated.

“I don’t understand you,” Carling said, as she tilted her head and regarded Niniane.

Niniane blinked. “You don’t understand me?”

“Is that so difficult to believe? You don’t maneuver for power around me, and yes, sometimes you are afraid, but underneath it all sometimes it seems that you . . . like me. Even though that isn’t wise or safe. And you are sad at the same time. I find that puzzling.”

Funny, how accurate Carling was at describing Niniane’s reaction to her. Niniane gave the Vampyre a lopsided smile then looked at her hands. She couldn’t possibly tell Carling that she thought the Vampyre was something precious and horrific, an enigmatic tragedy like the ruins of a historic battlefield.

She settled for a small truth. “I do like you, even if maybe I shouldn’t. And sometimes I get sad when I think about all the friends or associates that you must have outlived. I don’t just mean humans. Losing human companions is painful enough. I’m talking about people who have our kind of life expectancy, I guess.”

“You have already lost more than enough people in your own time,” Carling said, her voice gentle.

Was that gentleness an illusion? Did Carling mimic human behavior, to manipulate or to be social, or were there tattered remnants of humanity still left inside that exquisite exterior? Niniane sighed. Whatever the ultimate truth was about Carling, Niniane would not be the one to discover it. “I wanted to ask you something, if you don’t mind.”

Carling gestured with a few fingers.

“Why do you hate Tiago?” The words dropped like stones thrown in a pond, causing a ripple of reaction that moved outward to an unseen shore. Carling never moved, but Niniane’s chest grew tight. She forced herself to breathe evenly as the silence stretched taut between them. She said, “I just want to understand.”

The tension splintered as Carling exhaled an angry laugh. “The reason is so old it hardly holds any meaning, and he doesn’t even remember, which makes me even angrier. I met him once in Memphis.”

“Memphis,” Niniane said, taken aback.

Just as she was going to ask what Carling and Tiago were both doing in Tennessee of all places, Carling said, “Of course it wasn’t called Memphis then. That came much later. Then it was called Ineb Hedj. It was the capital of the entire world, and at dawn the sun would shimmer on the Nile like a sheet of hammered silver overlaid on jade and lapis lazuli.”

Niniane caught her breath. “You met him in Egypt.”

“Yes, a very, very long time ago. Tiago was a god, and I was a commodity. I was young and still human, taken out of poverty and the river mud because of my looks. I was given to a god to entice him to stay with our people. I was entirely desperate, but he did not even look at me. He left and I was punished for it.”

Niniane had gripped her hands together at the small, dry telling of the ancient story. She said, “That’s horrible.”

“It’s ludicrous,” said Carling. “I didn’t want him. I was just a child with a pretty mouth, and he terrified me. I was glad he left.”

Niniane forced her hands to relax. “What happened after that?”

Carling’s lush lips pulled into a smile, as if she were the Mona Lisa of demons and had just swallowed a soul. “I clawed my way to a better life,” the Vampyre said. “I learned poisons and warfare and sorcery, how to rule over others, how to destroy my enemies, and how to hold a grudge with all of my heart. Then I discovered the serpent’s kiss that turned me into a god as well, and no one ever took a lash to me again.”

Serpent’s kiss. Niniane stared at her. “You’re talking about the time when you became a Vampyre.” Carling inclined her head, and Niniane saw in the gracious, imperial gesture how much Rhoswen imitated her mistress. Niniane asked, “And Tiago never realized what happened or who you were?”

“No.” Carling’s expression turned wry. “But when I look at him, I want to strangle him all the same.”

“I’m so sorry,” Niniane said.

“Child,” Carling said. The Vampyre’s dark gaze was quizzical, somewhat bored.

“I don’t care if it did happen eons ago,” Niniane told her on a flash of ferocity. “I don’t care if there’s a more sophisticated way to respond or if it doesn’t matter to you anymore. I am sorry for what that girl went through. I’m sorry for what the girl I was went through. We may not be those girls anymore, but their ghosts live on somewhere inside us, if only in the memory of what happened, and someone ought to say it: those children deserved better.”

Carling’s gaze dropped. The graceful wings of her eyebrows pulled together. She said, “You are right, of course. They did.”

Niniane had slept too long, and none of it had been refreshing. Her eyes felt dry and scratchy. She dug the heels of her hands into them and rubbed. “It happened so long ago, and Tiago didn’t mean to do anything wrong. You do realize that, don’t you?”

Again Carling gestured with a few fingers. She made poetry of the movement through a couple inches of space.

“Do you think you could try to set aside your grudge?” Niniane asked. “I’m asking that you do this as a favor to me, in the interests of building an alliance between us.”

“You care about him.” Carling spoke as if she savored the words, even as she stared at Niniane with intense curiosity.

There wasn’t any point in denying it. She said, “Yes.”

“Even after he withheld the truth from you about the second attack?”

She sighed. “Yes.”

A shadow of a scowl crossed Carling’s face. The youthful, impetuous expression was a startling incongruity amid such disciplined, mature perfection. The Vampyre said grumpily, “Oh fine. I won’t do anything to him as long as he doesn’t try to do anything to me.”

Niniane sagged in her chair. “Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot to me.”

Carling gave her a hard look and said, “Perhaps it means too much to you. You should be careful where you step next, Niniane, and in whom you place your trust. You are in a fragile place right now.”

Niniane’s spine stiffened. “I am well aware of the place I am in.”

The Vampyre’s expression softened. “I know you don’t want to believe that Dragos had anything to do with the assassination attempt. I could feel the struggle in you earlier.”

She was startled by the context of the conversation. “You can . . . feel my emotions?”

“Yes, of course. As Vampyres grow older our senses become more acute. The eldest of us eventually lose our taste for blood and we feed on the emotions of those around us. I have not partaken of human blood for several centuries now.”

Good grief, Carling was a succubus. Niniane said, “You sense what other people are feeling.”

Carling shrugged. “I sense the feelings of those who are alive, at any rate. Other Vampyres are of no use to me when it comes to sustenance.”

What an intrusive ability. Niniane’s forehead wrinkled. Well, that explained how glossy the Vampyre had looked at various times today. Niniane wondered what the jagged landscape inside of her tasted like to a succubus. Could it taste as bitter to Carling as it did to her?

If she asked, would Carling tell her what Tiago felt about her? Would the Vampyre tell her if that sadness she thought she had seen in his eyes just before he left had been real or feigned? She clenched her fists and jaw so tight her teeth ached, in order to keep herself from asking the pathetic question.

It wasn’t as if knowing could change what had happened or bring Tiago back.

Carling said into the small silence that had fallen, “After two hundred years’ sanctuary with the Wyr, you may want to believe that you have forged an unbreakable bond with them. But remember, what was almost your entire lifetime is not so very long a time to those of us who have lived so much longer.”

Niniane’s mouth tightened. “I’m also well aware of my relative youth and inexperience, thank you.”

“It is not my intention to point out your inexperience or to make you feel inadequate,” said Carling. “And I don’t have answers for the challenges you face. I merely wish to caution you and give you food for thought. Stronger and longer alliances have certainly been broken, and the Great Beast is older than all of us. He is old and wily. His first priority will always be the Wyr, and you are not Wyr.”

Did Carling really mean to provide food for thought, or was she trying to sow distrust between Niniane and Dragos? Niniane shook her head. “Everything you said is technically correct. Old alliances can be broken, and of course Dragos’s first priority is the Wyr. But I don’t buy that as an argument for Dragos’s possible involvement in the attack against me. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would Wyr who were disguised as Dark Fae attack me, while another Wyr kills them to defend me?”

“I do not know.” Carling pursed her lips.

Niniane said, “If for some unfathomable reason Dragos wanted me dead, it would have been much more simple and efficient for Tiago to have killed me himself.”

“We do not have enough information,” Carling said. “Perhaps there is a schism within the Wyr of which we are only now becoming aware. Perhaps the Great Beast is playing a much deeper game than any of us can understand right now. I have always liked and respected Dragos, but I never completely trust him.”

Niniane took a careful breath. Could Dragos have played such a deep game that even Tiago did not know what it was? Dragos was certainly capable of it, but she would not believe that of him in this case, not unless she was faced with indisputable proof.

After a moment she forced herself to speak out loud again. “Thank you, Councillor. I’m glad we got this chance to chat, and I will think carefully on all that you have said.”

“Be sure that you do,” said Carling.