Prince and the Throne (Fedosian Wars #2)

25. Define Gone

twenty-five

Define Gone

The libraries of all houses were mostly collections of the various volumes of light codices. It was almost as though their simple alchemy could be summarized in a single book, but they wanted to appear well read. Literature existed. Lev liked poetry, but every library he’d been to had the same old codices the church produced, and the library at Raven was no different. But for the section on herbology and elixir which he might look at later, the two floors of shelves were stacked with the same books Lev had seen at the White Palace. He’d brought his own reading though, and had simply sought a quieter place to sit alone, away from the druzhina bombarding him with questions he didn’t have the answers to.

They wanted to see the miracle again, but Lev only ever had one true lover, and his heart was spent. Necromancy was a tempting thing when you missed those who had departed, but it was his good fortune he’d seen what the dark art had done to Vasily. It hadn’t been Vasily, but something strewn together from his corpse. He’d died a lord and returned a serf, and that was offensive.

Not wanting to sit in darkness, Lev lit all the candelabras, placed his bottle of wine on the reading table, moved aside the bust that had been there, which showed how little the Shields used their library, and settled behind it with the fascinating thing he’d found—the human skin book.

Aleksei of all people had it and he’d tried translating from the language of spells. Lev had gone through his notes, and he hadn’t even been close. The very first line was ‘To conjure a darkling,’ and he’d translated it as, ‘To cast a dark spell.’

It was his lack of understanding of basic alchemy. There was no ‘dark’ spell as all spells were cast with light. There was ‘dark’ alchemy, which was probably his confusion, but dark in that case simply meant forbidden, not implying void of light. All known alchemy used light, even the so called ‘dark’ alchemy, and the shadow magic the serf Vasily played with wasn’t of this world. It came from the other side of the dver.

Also, the symbol for ‘light’ could mean soul, life, energy, sunlight, purity, even gold in some instances, and Aleksei had jumbled them all. The mages would write things like ‘a woman of light’ when they just meant a virgin.

The book began with her confessing her light (heart) to someone only referred to as ‘he’. She gifted her light (chastity), received his light (devotion), conceived light (love, not pregnancy) something, something happened, illegible because the skin had warped and chewed the ink, lost her light (she died), he gifted her life (without the soul, because necromancy), the church found out and robbed him of his light (killed him). In all these instances, Aleksei had interpreted ‘light’ simply as ‘magic’, and that had been as far as he got. Also, he’d confused faith the person (mage), faith the establishment (church), and faith plural (synod), funny how none of those was the congregation.

The trinity or three faith symbols stacked meant archmage, not many mages, and Lev smiled because Semyon had made the same mistake when they were children and had asked how one person could be many mages. The blond bear had tried learning the spell language to impress Lev, but sadly, that was not how that worked. You had to be a Guard to understand this shit and that was the point. The whole thing was one long inside joke, a nod to the Guard mindset, not a way to communicate. So, not really a language.

The book had pages and pages of torture the ‘he’ suffered, and the extent of the viciousness made Lev think he had been a mage. It was incredibly easy to slip from light to dark as they were the two faces of the same coin, and if necromancy in general was deemed the cardinal sin, a mage turning dark was the absolute sin for which he must suffer hell to atone.

Not understanding what this had to do with conjuring a darkling, Lev had been subjugating himself to the story of a man whose testicles were torn off, and grimacing, when Isidor found him. He closed the book with a groan not knowing which was worse, enduring the druzhina or reading about torture.

“May I trouble you for a moment, Your Grace?” he asked, pulling a chair to sit down and troubling him already.

“Only if it’s important.” Lev took a long drink from his wine cup. It was good to be back in Krakova. If nothing else, the wine was better.

“I hope you don’t think it too forward, but I find Lady Sofia exquisite.” The captain’s breath was warm and sour. He’d eaten or drunk something that didn’t agree with his gut. None of the Pulyazin men had been to the capital and they were being overwhelmed by the ‘luxuries’ of life.

“Keep in mind she’s my sister.” Lev frowned, finding the company, the smell, and the conversation distasteful.

“I know, Your Grace. That’s why I’m asking for your permission to have her.”

Lev’s right eye twitched. “She’s not a horse. I can’t give her to you.”

“But she is a woman.”

“Really?” asked Lev, and heard the sarcasm whistle as it flew over the dirty brown crown of the druzhina. “The way it works here,” he tapped the table, “is that you can ask for my permission to court her but whether she accepts, that’s up to her.” He hadn’t been thrilled when Uncle married her off to some old bastard and didn’t mean to do it again.

“Court…” Isidor twisted his neck side to side, releasing the cricks, then cracked his knuckles. “In Bone Country, we just marry.”

“You want to marry Sofia?” Lev didn’t know why he was still entertaining this conversation other than that he was trapped. “Let it be known she murdered her last husband.”

“I can handle her.” He grinned.

That was it. Lev closed the book, gathered Aleksei’s notes, and got up from the table. It had proved too much to hope Isidor would know his place and leave. He wished Konstantin was here to put the fucken druzhina in his place so Lev didn’t have to be rude himself. He was rude but didn’t want to appear it.

“So, may I court her?” Isidor rose as well.

“By court, if you mean ram her, absolutely fucken not. I’ll feed your pecker to the dogs while it’s still attached to you.”

Things like this made him feel unsafe, demanding a spectacle as though he was an exotic animal from the Paradise Islands, and threatening his sister. This was why the archmage used to perform light shows, to fool buffoons like him, but Lev didn’t have the patience for the horseshit.

Grumbling to himself because Semyon wasn’t here to listen to him whine, he meandered through the dim corridors holding a single lantern and the cursed book till he realized he was lost. He’d ended up on the Shield side of Raven, dark as doom and black as hell.

He wandered through a hallway with an entire watchman stuck inside a wall. They’d left him there, Lev guessed, because they couldn’t pry apart the armor to scrape out the corpse. Blackened and dried, it’d been months since he died. What did this? The walls glittered as the darksteel caught the passing light of the lamp.

He’d been complaining in his head to the ghost of his lover about the awful extensions the Shields had attached to what once was a Guard palace when he heard the distinctive click of a sentinel crossbow, threw the lamp, and ducked as the bolt whispered by and punched into the wall at the end of the hallway. He curled behind a thick stone candlestand as a plume flew into his face from another bolt, took cover behind a pillar, retreating still, more bolts each with a click that announced it. He couldn’t see the bastard but could fry the whole corridor, and tossed…

No fire, nothing came out, but he’d opened himself by peeking out and flicking his wrist like a fool, and was rewarded by a bolt to the shoulder, the darksteel missing his heart by inches and tearing through the front and back as it passed clear through him.

Lev rolled and dashed into the only open door, a bedchamber without any windows, and cornered himself. The gold he had on wasn’t gold, he just noticed—the perils of being a drunk asshole. Soful probably didn’t know, but now he had a vendetta against the swindler luminary.

Lev drew his blade, held his single-handed weapon in guard, and pressed his back against the wall. Ideally, the free hand would produce magic but not only he didn’t have the gold to pay for it, he couldn’t even lift his left arm, and blood soaked through his sleeve and trickled down his fingers.

He thought it may be Aleksei and had been worried because there wasn’t a way to counteract the lash without any alchemy or a long range weapon. But it wasn’t him, and the sentinel blocked Lev’s strike with his vambrace, and there was a penalty for that. The Apraksin saber slashed through the gold on the vambrace. Get enough strikes and it would damage the symbols and disturb the alchemy.

Lev didn’t know if the sentinel was alone, didn’t wish to find out in a room without a way out, attacked, flurried, and escaped.

Without a lamp or a single window, the corridor was as dark as an asshole, he was knocking unknown shit over, making loud clangs while dodging whizzing bolts, and ran to where he saw a sliver of light. Another fucken dead end, the throne room of the mad queen, and there was a tall window behind the darksteel throne, the moonlight spilling through it. Thank the saints the skies had been clear, and Lev could see semblances of shapes.

He hid behind a pillar and held his breath, waiting for his sight to adjust to the dimness. Lev heard the sentinel looking around for him, someone with an uneven gait, an old injury perhaps, and there was a penalty for that. Lev blitzed him, they crossed steel, and back and forth they danced.

Darksteel’s superiority was in its adaptability to Shield alchemy, not durability or strength, and though Lev wasn’t a hard hitter like Semyon, the sentinel couldn’t block without damaging his weapon.

“You started too old.” Lev slashed across his thigh and kicked him in the throat when he took a knee. “And you’re blind in the left eye.”

Getting up, the sentinel blocked with his vambrace—penalty.

“And you’re too cocky.” Hoarse as though he smoked all day, the voice wasn’t anyone Lev recognized.

Sidestepping a spear thrust—another thing he kept doing, needlessly alternating between weapons, and it meant he couldn’t figure Lev out—Lev caught the sentinel’s hand with a strike, gushing red. Contact with the vambrace, another penalty, and now that one was useless.

“So what? I’m Lev of White Guard.” He flurried. He liked doing it, and Semyon would call him a show-off. “It’s not conceit when I’m better than you.”

Lev circled left, to the sentinel’s blind side, and swept his legs, his blade clanging against the face plate as he just missed his neck. The sentinel rolled away, crawling into the dark, and Lev pursued him, but he stepped on something that gave way under his feet. There was a fucken hole in the ground. He caught himself with his sword and scampered to climb out as flames chased him up. Fire licked at his boot heels as Lev pulled himself up, his sword gone, tumbling down the hell hole.

“Too cocky, kid. Told you so.”

Knee to the face and star exploded. Half dazed, Lev kicked to get away. Another thing opened under his hand, nearly plunging him face first into another hole, and flames shot out and singed his lashes and hair.

“What the fuck is this place?” Columns of fire erupted, and the sudden bright flashes meant now he couldn’t see shit.

“Red queen’s throne room. She used to execute people here. Put them in the incinerator,” the hoarse voice said.

The exoskeleton connected with his jaw, and Lev bit his tongue and tasted blood. Light danced in his vision, the remnant of glaring fire an inch from his face, and he couldn’t see the way out or the sentinel.

By instinct alone, he caught the darksteel blade with a naked hand, and it sliced through his palm as he slapped the blade away from his heart and it pierced into his shoulder. To not let him slice through his entire torso, Lev pushed into the blade and grabbed it with both hands. Now he moved with the sentinel, finding himself at the end of a shit stick.

The sentinel kicked him back to free his sword, and the steel made a sucking noise as it exited his flesh. Lev twisted to miss a strike, the blade passing by close enough to hear the hiss but caught a wicked knee to the ribs, knocking his breath out completely.

Lev scooted till his back was against the wall and sat there grimacing with blood mist in his exhales.

“Go see your family, kid.”

No alchemy, no weapon, the darksteel caught the silver moonlight as it swooped down like a diving goshawk, magnificent creatures. In his mind, the sun got in his eyes, spilling gold through the branches overhead. Semyon was on top of him. Do you remember that, Syoma?

The grating of a sword striking a shield jolted Lev out of the daze.

“What the fuck are you doing?” A bark, and the sentinel tumbled.

“Move out of the way, kid.” He was getting up, and Lev frowned, trying to focus his eyes. Why were they so bad, suddenly? Did he get hit in the face? He wiped his eyes and saw blood. He had a cut on the forehead, that was all.

“Not a kid. I’m your fucken captain and you had orders, Eugene.” Aleksei shoved his sentinel back.

Trying to get his bearings, Lev leaned against the wall and pushed himself up. The sentinel lunged at Aleksei and discovered the reason why Lev didn’t like fighting Aleksei, that fucken lash. It was damn long, had no predictable geometry of motion, and had nasty teeth when it got you—he remembered the steeplechase.

Lev spat blood while the sentinel got schooled by his captain. He’d been shot, his left shoulder was chewed, and his palms pulsed hot from catching a blade with his bare hands—he’d had better days.

He’d been looking down when his breath steamed. It hadn’t been that cold. He looked up and a spray of ice got in his eyes. More fighting, the Pulyazin arrived. Thanks for nothing, that took far too long considering they had Raven ‘under control’.

Worse than nothing, all they did was occupy Aleksei, and now the lunatic sentinel came at him again. He’d lost his face plate, and Lev saw he had a scar along the left side of his face.

What was his problem, Lev would ask, had he been not too busy dodging swings, wide and slow now because the old man was tired. Out of form, blind, and didn’t obey orders, what kind of sentinel was this?

Lev ran around the room, because he couldn’t see the exit in the dark, while being chased by the one-eyed sentinel. Then there was light, bright and red, as flames erupted from the hell holes the room was rigged with, and Lev turned to see Aleksei kick a druzhina into the fire. Then the lash hissed by Lev’s face and took a bite out of the wall between him and the lunatic.

“Stand down, Eugene! What the fuck!” Aleksei grabbed his sentinel while Lev fled, or tried to… Did this room not have a door? Then how did he get in?

“I knew you’d do this,” said the sentinel, on his ass and on the floor when Lev looked over his shoulder. “You’re not thinking with your thinking organ, kid.” That got him a boot heel to the face.

Carefully, Lev peeked down the hole the druzhina had fallen into. It was too dark for a beat, then he saw charred black bones at the bottom of the glowing pit and jumped back as the flames erupted again.

Druzhina limbs were sprawled on the floor, and Lev stepped on something he assumed was a gut by the squelch it made. He spotted the door, finally, but now there were more sentinels in his face. Finding his throat at the tip of a darksteel blade, he raised his hands which were still bleeding. In the back, Aleksei and the lunatic fought—with words.

“Hello, Ruslan,” Lev said. He knew a couple of the sentinels who’d joined the shitty party.

“Good evening, Lord Lev.”

“Captain,” one called, stepping over the dead druzhina.

“What are you doing here?” Aleksei cleaned and sheathed his sword.

“The prince and Lady Sofia are gone.”

“Define gone,” Aleksei turned, frowning.

“Not in Raven, Captain.”

Aleksei looked at Lev for answers. Lev shrugged with his good shoulder. “Fuck if I know.”

“Where is Fedya?” Aleksei came over, and now the gathering had turned into a shitty dinner party with men standing around and holding their dicks—well, that actually sounded like a good party—while Lev was losing blood and about to swoon.

“You probably shouldn’t seek him out, Aleksei,” Lev said. “You just killed his druzhina. Fedya likes men.”

“I don’t care what Fedya likes. Where’s Sofia?”

Where was Sofia? Lev thought he was saying something, but no, he passed out. Hit his head on the floor and everything.

I was outclassed by a blind old man, Syoma. Without you, I’m shit like this.