Page 44 of Mistress of Bones

Ahead of them, the door of the house started to open. Esparza took two fast steps and kicked it the rest of the way. Cries rose, a scramble. Esparza produced a dagger in his free hand and went in.

“By the gods’ Anchor bones!” he exclaimed with savage relish, “I will make short work of you lot, for I’ve got someone waiting for me.”

Opening his cloak and unsheathing Valiente, De Anví followed.

THE PRESENT

No smile, no mischief, graced Nereida de Guzmán’s features when she appeared at the entrance of the small storage room.

De Anví drank in the sight—the black hair artfully gathered in a braid around her head, the dark blue waistcoat, the embroidered cream-colored breeches, the polished ankle boots.

She was the hardest, most bitter liquor he had ever tasted: burning all the way down to his chest, grabbing an instant hold of his mind.

He didn’t move from his place by the lamp, his back against the wall, and he watched her gaze take in the room, take in the Witch sitting on a crate, then widen as it found him.

Nereida despised surprises as much as he did, and the tightening of her mouth told De Anví he would pay for this at some point. A price he was eager to pay for catching her fleeting, unguarded shock.

She had worn her expressions in the form of a mask for too long, and he was desperate to see it gone.

“My heart!” exclaimed the Faceless Witch, still wearing Sío de Guzmán. “What a surprise! Nereida de Guzmán, back in Cienpé.”

De Anví dragged his gaze to the Witch. Her expression—what he could see of it under the mask—appeared fascinated.

Nereida entered the room properly, stopping a few paces away. She wore no mask, her green eyes hard and cold in the lamplight. “Blessed night, Witch.” A slight nod toward De Anví. “Count de Anví.”

Call me Emiré , De Anví had wanted to ask in their last dance, before the queen interrupted it. He had never gotten his wish. Uncrossing his arms, he took a side step to stand by the Witch’s left shoulder. The move did not go unnoticed, and Nereida’s chin rose ever so slightly at the display.

“Last I heard,” said the Witch in a good-humored voice, “you were well on your way to Valanje. Did the envoy get turned around in the sea?”

“The envoy had no trouble getting passage across,” Nereida answered in clipped tones.

“Ah, Valanjian food, then. Was it not to your liking and you had no choice but to return?”

“The food was not a problem.”

The Witch let out a short laugh. “You missed me, then, is that it?”

De Anví felt a muscle in his jaw jump at the same time Nereida furrowed her nose with distaste. She recovered fast, smoothing her expression.

The Witch hopped off the crate and stretched her arms. “Or perhaps,” she said cunningly, “you’ve come back out of concern for De Anví’s attempted kidnapping?”

She gave De Anví a fast glance. “Kidnapping?”

Damn the Void if he wasn’t shocked at the hint of concern in her voice. Words left his throat before he could stop them. “It was nothing of concern.”

She remained silent, so the Witch spoke instead: “Did you at least gather what I need?”

De Anví had suspected that Nereida wasn’t in the envoy for the sake of the court’s interest in Valanjian dealings. Now he had his proof.

“I didn’t have the time, no.” Nereida took a step closer. Something morphed in her expression, in her posture. Her hatred for the Witch shone through.

The Witch huffed. “If concern for His Honor did not force your hand, and you didn’t bother with my inquiries, why are you here?

We had a deal, did we not, Nereida de Guzmán?

” She patted her chest. “Do you not care about your brother’s body any longer?

I’d have thought you still did, having lost one sister already. ”

Nereida smiled, a slow curving of her lips that sent De Anví’s heart pounding. This was his Nereida. The Nereida of the dances, the fearless sword fighter, the one whose eyes kindled and sparkled with all kinds of mischief.

He was back in the ballrooms, back in his dreams, back in his hopes. He was undone.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Nereida said, full of mockery. Her mask was gone, her feelings out in the world.

The Witch cocked her head. “Changed your mind? Well, you are young enough to think things can go as easily as that.”

Nereida looked at De Anví. “Will you stop me?”

Unnecessary question, for he would never. He thought of Esparza and his desperate wait for the Lord Death. Well, De Anví had always known he would win that race. “No.”

“Hold her for me, then.”

He grabbed the Witch’s arms, immobilizing them.

Stilling after an initial struggle, the Witch asked, “What’s this? A betrayal by my closest allies? I am impressed, it must be said.” She craned her neck to glance at De Anví. “You are aware of the consequences of this, yes?”

De Anví allowed nothing to show on his face. “Yes.”

Then Nereida brought out a dagger, and the Witch pressed into his chest. The renewed struggle didn’t last long, and her body relaxed. De Anví had no doubt that her infuriatingly smug smile was back on her face.

“Now, put that away, child,” the Witch said. “You want me to believe you’ll hurt your own brother?”

Nereida came closer, the smile broadening, the Witch stiffening. “Ah,” she said, “but you are not my brother, are you?”

She plunged the blade into the Witch’s gut, and De Anví felt the body jerk in his arms, felt his own limbs stiffen in response and sweat gather at the back of his neck. Disbelief and relief warred inside him—that she had dared, and that it was over.

“I wonder what happens now,” Nereida said smoothly, her hand pushing the dagger farther in. “Will you die along with your host, Witch?”

The Witch hissed, and her body went lax in De Anví’s arms. He grunted and lowered her to the floor, propping her back against the crate.

Blood pooled from the wound when Nereida yanked the blade out.

She made no move to stop the flow, and neither did De Anví.

He simply looked at her, waiting for a cue.

Would she turn the dagger on him now? He almost welcomed it.

A much better way to die than what lay in wait for him—one did not cross the Witch, and one did not get rid of the Witch quite so easily.

“Nereida?” The rough words came out of the injured body, laced with pain, with shock, with regret—and warmth. Feelings the Witch was incapable of.

The Witch was gone.

Nereida knelt by the man’s side and grasped his hand. “Si-so.”

Sío de Guzmán looked down, blinked, then looked back at her, at the bloody dagger abandoned to the side. “Someone stabbed me?”

“It’s only temporary,” she assured him, and for the first time, De Anví wondered if he had done right in helping her. There was no coming back from this type of wound.

“No,” De Guzmán pleaded. He coughed and blood spattered on the beautiful white cravat, the cream-and-gold waistcoat, chosen by the Witch, no doubt, to mock the count. “No, Nida, let me die here.”

Nereida’s grip tightened. “It sounds impossible, but I promise you, you will come back to me soon enough.”

“I don’t doubt you,” De Guzmán answered after another bloody cough. He grimaced in pain when he tried to sit straighter, his free hand pressing against the wound. “You and Edine—you always got what you went after. But not this time, Nida. Let me die, finally.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Nereida told him roughly. “The Witch won’t have the opportunity to get her claws into you again. We’ll leave, and she will never force you into being her toy again.”

“I wasn’t a toy.”

“Of course you were. She stole your conscience and your body just to play one of her games.”

“I was willing.”

“What?”

Her brother’s pained gaze sought hers. “I entered the contract willingly, Nida. The Witch didn’t force me.”

Nereida dropped his hand like it was a red-hot coal. Sío tried to take hers back, but she wouldn’t let him.

“Explain,” she demanded, her face taking on a deathly pallor.

“Understand me, Sister, I beg of you. I had to find a way to forget.”

“Forget? Forget Edine?” she asked in disbelief. “Why would you want that?”

“No!” he exclaimed, and spat more blood onto his waistcoat.

“I would never want to forget Edine.” He straightened, his eyes bright with urgency.

“Don’t you see? She died because of me. It was my fault.

I knew where she was going that night, Nereida.

She came to me, worried Iriana was involved in treason against the king.

I stood by, too scared to act. I chose to believe she was imagining things, and then I was too late to find her.

They cut her down not three streets from me, and I could’ve stopped them!

I could’ve stopped them but…” He slumped back, the sudden burst of energy gone.

“I did nothing, Nida. Nothing. I stood there, a coward. I did nothing. I didn’t even have the guts to face her body. I let Iriana deal with it all.”

“No.” Nereida wiped tears from her cheeks, leaving a smear of blood across her skin.

“Be quiet!” she cried when Sío tried to speak again.

“It was not your hand that killed her. You were being used yourself. It’s what you like doing best, isn’t it?

” she asked with fury. “Being used by others? Iriana, the Guard, the Witch?” Her mouth compressed into a thin line.

Then, “It ends now. Now you get to live and undo your wrongs. Not by being someone’s toy and forgetting, but by living on. ”

She raised her dagger and stabbed him in the chest. A slight miscalculation, a crack of a rib. De Anví slapped a panicked hand on Sío’s mouth, muffling his scream. Then Nereida leaned into the hilt and slid the blade all the way into her brother’s heart.

Sío went limp, head lolling to the side. De Anví removed his hand and wiped the red palm on Sío’s shirtsleeve.

“Why?” Nereida said in a shaky voice. “Why are you here?”

De Anví looked at her bowed head, yearned to take her face in his hands and tilt it upward—the position did not suit her.

“Why?” she demanded again, this time looking at him. “Why would you help me like this? Do you enjoy being a murderer too?”

De Anví sat back on his heels. “I trust your judgment. Of all of Sancia, of all of Luciente, you’re the one I trust.”

“Why?” she shouted. “If you trust me so much, why wouldn’t you help me before I was forced to do all this?”

“I did help you,” he pointed out. “I kept an eye on him, did I not?”

“That’s not… Why? We have barely talked in over a year, and now…

what? What would make you trust me like that?

Are you so daft you cannot trust yourself and you need someone else to guide you through life on a leash?

Do you think you know me so well from some worthless conversation and a few dances?

How weak you are! You had no trouble letting me go to the queen; you had no trouble staying away.

Is that what you enjoy? Watching, knowing you’ll never be good enough to partake? ”

De Anví leaned over her brother’s body and took her shaking hands in his. His gaze held hers, his voice steady. “Do not doubt, Nereida. Whatever it is you came here to do, whatever it is that made you scare the Witch away and end your brother’s life, see it through.”

Her eyes were a kind of witchery in themselves, a raging storm one moment, a calm sea the next. The agitation in her face ebbed; her breathing eased. With her hands still within his grip, she took a few deep breaths.

The familiar sharpness returned an instant later.

“What did the Witch mean,” she asked, freeing her hands and standing, “by asking if you were aware of the consequences?”

De Anví straightened up along with her. “It has been in my mind for a while now, the possibility that she might use her dreams to gain the ability to harm her clients. The possibility for blackmail is too high to pass up.”

“You mean something like poison?” Nereida asked, taken aback. “You think using her dreams gives her the chance to poison you?”

“Careful, De Guzmán,” he chided her, “your worry for my person is showing.”

“Not worry, De Anví, only shock that you would be fool enough to take her dreams.”

De Anví went to the door and peered outside the room. “It was the only way I had to reach you.”

“Even after suspecting she might poison you?”

A shrug was his answer.

“But even then, why help me tonight,” she insisted, “if you suspected this might happen?”

He gave her a small half smile. “I wished to be of real help, for once.” Opening the door wider, he stepped outside into the corridor connecting the room with a high bridge between buildings. “Grab the lamp. It’s time for us to leave.”

Nereida didn’t move. “How long do you think you have?”

“I do not know, so we better go ahead with the rest of your plan before I am forced to pay my due.”

“If you insist,” she said, kneeling again by her brother and pulling her dagger out of his body. “But I can only hope your willingness to help will remain after what must be done.”

Then, to De Anví’s shock, she proceeded to dig the dagger into one of Sío de Guzmán’s fingers and make an awful mess of cutting it off.