Page 77 of House of the Beast

Chapter

T he sky was still dark when the knock came at my door.

“Come in,” I called quietly, not wanting to wake the other residents of the hotel we were staying in. We had been given our own set of suites with assurances of its privacy, courtesy of the court—but the hour was late, and I did not wish to alert anyone to my current enterprise.

The door creaked open and Sevelie tottered in. Despite all her complaints about how uncomfortable it was to walk with crutches, she somehow managed to make it look easy. She smiled at me, though there was an edge to it when she caught sight of the suitcase open on my bed.

“Almost done packing?” she asked.

I looked over my meager belongings. “Almost.”

The collapse of Sevelie’s house had meant that there wasn’t actually all that much for me to pack.

I had brought few belongings to Sorrowsend in the first place; now everything had been buried under rubble, save my sword and the clothes I had on my back.

Not that I managed to spare all that much concern for my material possessions.

I had thought Sevelie and her household were dead, and was overjoyed to find them battered but alive, pulling each other out of the ruins of her home.

It had all been thanks to Six, Sevelie told me.

Everyone had holed up in the parlor, taking comfort in each other’s presence when the screaming started up outside.

When the walls collapsed, Six had somehow managed to hold up a section of it all by himself, which saved them from being crushed.

Those who were able had quickly cleared out an opening large enough for them to squeeze through one by one, though it had been a harrowing affair.

The debris had caved in the rib cage of one of Sevelie’s maids, Liesa, and she had had to be pulled out by the others.

My cousin herself had gotten her leg crushed by part of the ceiling.

In the chaos that had ensued after, there had been no Disciples to offer their healing—and now there wouldn’t be any healing at all. Liesa had not made it through the night, and the damage to Sevelie’s leg meant she was confined to a cast for at least two months.

That didn’t stop her from springing back up, ready to tackle all the new problems that arose in the aftermath of such an event.

She was the one who had purchased all my new clothes for me, now all packed into the equally new suitcase.

I hadn’t even protested the addition of some color in my wardrobe.

I looked over my work. “It took a while, but I’m pretty much done. How’s Six?”

“Oh, he’s having a wonderful time. He’s very excited—but also trying to act grown-up about it all, so he keeps doing these little jumps when he thinks I’m not looking—but I digress. That’s not what I’m here to talk about! There’s someone here to see you, Alma.”

I made a face. Who could be visiting at this hour? “It’s not her, is it?”

She snorted. “I thought you and Euphina would be more comfortable around each other by now—but no. It’s Fion.”

My attention, which had been a little hazy in the early hour, immediately sharpened. I had not had a chance to speak to Kaim’s former aide since the last time I saw him in the umbral plane. I hadn’t even seen him again until my uncle’s funeral yesterday.

Maximus Avera had awoken as the umbral plane descended upon Sorrowsend and taken up his sword to protect it once more.

He had given himself over to his elder god in one last blazing charge of glory, and at the end, after the gate had shattered and left his mind quiet, had sat down drooling and empty-eyed upon the ruined steps to the court and waited for the knights to grant him mercy.

Darantha had been beside herself. I had almost felt sorry for her, the way she wept at my uncle’s coffin.

But then she’d fixed me with a glare that left no doubt of what she wanted to do to me, and I had remembered my verdict at the hands of the court and the role she had played in condemning me to it.

The funeral had been my last sortie as a free woman. A courtesy for saving the city. My father, the traitor, had not been granted the same ceremony as my uncle had, his body instead burned the way they had done in the old days, and his ashes discarded like a bad memory.

Now, because he was dead and no longer around to receive the court’s ire, many of the remaining members had shifted the blame onto me. It was only by the grace of Kaim and—surprisingly enough—Euphina testifying on my behalf that I wasn’t thrown immediately behind bars.

I had expected this kind of treatment. The umbral gate, the doorway that allowed Kugara to commune with the elder gods, had been destroyed.

The Four’s voices receded to feeble whispers, their miracles no longer capable of manifesting upon the mortal realm, and the High Houses suddenly found themselves on the brink of losing everything they had built over the centuries.

And yet I still had the use of my arm. A final gift. One that soon had everyone seething with envy and suspicion.

I could not deny being curious about what was in store for House Avera now—Kaim and Fion included. I nodded at Sevelie.

“I’ll talk to him.”

I was directed to the sitting room, down a short corridor away from our bedrooms. More lavishly furnished than Sevelie’s home—though she had spent some time pointing out how her own decor had been far more tasteful—its grandeur was softened by the darkness.

I closed the door quietly behind me as I entered.

Fion stood by the windows looking over the view of the city. At my approach, he turned and smiled in greeting. The empty socket of his left eye was hidden behind a layer of gauze taped to his skin.

“It’s a nice view,” he commented, gesturing outside. “Are you enjoying your stay here?”

I shrugged. Despite his unfailingly friendly demeanor, a part of me was still wary. “It’s comfortable enough.”

“They have the best wine cellar here, apparently,” he said absently. “Not that I’ve ever had any. But Kaim says so.”

I had very little patience for this sort of small talk. “You knew about Aster,” I said bluntly. “You knew what he was.”

It was the first time I had said his name since he had gone. The shape of it in my mouth sent a sharp pang through my heart. I doubted that would ever go away.

“Your umbral prince? I did.”

I squared my shoulders and straightened my spine. “Why didn’t you say anything to me?”

Fion blinked his one wide eye at me. “He was your companion. I thought you already knew.”

“Cut the bullshit. I know you’re lying.”

A sheepish grin stretched across his face.

“All right,” he agreed readily. “I did suspect that you weren’t fully aware.

I only figured it out myself after the Pilgrimage began, after Kaim hopped us both up on some ichor.

I could see him more clearly then—Sorrowsend’s vengeful ghost, hanging around you.

You seemed—well. He seemed to care for you.

I’d hoped that would be enough to quell his rage.

I’m sad to see that it didn’t, but you made the right decision in the end. ”

The comment cut me at the same time as it soothed some of my guilt. “You don’t know me.”

“I knew enough to decide that I could trust you,” he said, his sincerity disarming.

“I never got to say thank you properly, so I’ll do it now: thank you for freeing me, and for freeing Kaim.

I’m a big enough person to admit that I wouldn’t have told you about your companion until I achieved my goals, but I figured you’d be up for killing two birds with one stone.

I am glad that you’re safe, and that you managed to stop him. You’re a hero, you know?”

“That’s not what the court thinks.” It wasn’t what I thought either. I was no hero. I had only righted a wrong that had, in a way, come from my own actions.

But I had been trying harder to do as Ephrem had instructed me.

It helped to think of his gentle scolding whenever I was inclined to go down a path of self-flagellation.

Frankly, there were a million ways I could have blamed myself over the Descent of the Umbral City, as people were now calling it.

Sometimes I still did, but my brother’s words had helped, as had the company of Sevelie and Six.

I had done my best. I had managed to save some people. That was enough.

“Yes, unfortunately they’re a bunch of hardheaded morons,” Fion said mildly. His eyes flickered to my metal hand. “Ones accustomed to jealousy. I assume that’s why you’re running away.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering how he had found this out.

He grinned at me. “No magic tricks, don’t worry. I doubt I can do them anymore, since you closed the gate and all. It was just a hunch. I’m about to do the same.”

This came as news to me. I could not help but wonder at his reasons for leaving. “Are you, now?”

“Yep,” he responded cheerfully. “Always wanted to get away from Kugara, even if just for a little while. I plan to go to Coltrand, to see how the people there live without our holy Four looming over them. That’s why I came here, actually: I wanted to extend an invitation for you to join me.”

I had certainly not been expecting that.

I had entertained my own thoughts about Coltrand in the past, with its radio and its electric lights and all the things it had that didn’t exist in Kugara.

But there was a difference between idle daydreaming and having a plan, and the invitation caught me off guard.

I blurted the first thing that came to my mind, which was “Why?”