Page 32

Chapter 32

I CHANGE INTO LOOSE BLACK pants and a fitted top with a hood I can pull up to hide my hair. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll find once I activate the Syphon Glass. My plan tonight is mostly to see if it even works and where it links if it does. I doubt I’ll port anywhere, but I want to be prepared just in case I stumble across something that might be worth the gamble.

I tie my hair into a chaotic pile on top of my head and move toward the bed to pluck a shard of glass from under one of the pillows. I accidentally broke a vase earlier, and this piece should be sharp enough for what I need.

My heart is beating fast but steady in my chest. Adrenaline warms my veins and magnifies an anxious urge to get going already. My gaze darts to the two doors that lead into my room, and I pull in a fortifying breath as I weigh my options. The main entry is a revolving door of random checks from Aeson’s Wing. It does lock, but the Wing has a key, and I learned early on that locking the door isn’t a deterrent when it comes to them ensuring I haven’t flown the coop.

The question I’m wrestling with now is, do I lock it tonight?

If I do, it may give me the few seconds I need to shut down the Port and cover my tracks if someone tries to walk in. However, if I lock it and Ogdan or Gatlin hear it, that might make them suspicious. If I pique their interest, they’ll no doubt switch up their schedule and check in on me at all kinds of random times, and I’ll be screwed.

I weigh the pros and cons and then decide not to take a chance locking the door. With their advanced hearing, I’m sure it would tip the Wing off, and I think that’s more likely to get me caught than the off chance Gatlin wanders in here unexpectedly while he’s on watch tonight. Hopefully, my emotionally tortured, red-eyed performance will keep the Wing at bay and give me a little extra privacy for the night.

Before I can change my mind and convince myself to wait a few more days to do this, I step up to the big mirror and slice open the pad of my thumb. Blood fills the tiny gash, and I crouch down and press the bloody digit to the floral crest etched in the bottom right-hand corner of the mirror.

I close my eyes in silent plea for the Port to work, and to stave off the memory that’s trying to surge. I can hear the faint rumble of my father’s voice in my mind as he tells me and Ens about magic mirrors.

“Do you see that symbol right there, my girls?” Dad asks as he points to a flower with six petals sitting in the middle of six circles that all intertwine until they look like an even bigger flower surrounding the first.

Enslee and I both nod our heads.

“That is what connects all the Vitric Ports and that also keeps anyone who isn’t a Tenebrae from using them,” he explains, and I marvel as I take in the symbol and the big mirror in front of us. “As long as two mirrors have this symbol, you can use them like a spy glass, or you can communicate back and forth with them like a com, but my favorite way to use the Syphon Glass is to travel from one Port to another.”

“Like the gate we used to come here?” Enslee asks excitedly.

Dad smiles down at her and smooths the hair on the top of her head. “Exactly like that, only the Syphon Glass doesn’t let you go as far as a gate does, but you don’t need a sorcai to use the Port, you only need your blood.”

I shake off the memory, hastily closing the door on our little girl giggles and the games we played with our dad as he taught us how to use the Syphon Glass and then showed us all kinds of things around the keep with them. I press my bloody finger harder against the symbol that was created and keyed specifically to the Tenebrae bloodline thanks to a favor owed to a long dead ancestor by a long dead powerful sorcerer.

Pulling in a deep breath, I open my eyes to see if the blood and the symbol are doing what I need them to. A gasp escapes me when the surface of the glass ripples.

Bloody stars, it worked!

Awe and a zap of excitement replace my trepidation. A blurry image starts to fill the surface of the rolling glass, slowly coming into focus with each second that passes. It takes me a moment to realize what I’m looking at. It’s some kind of cover, a dusty drop cloth maybe. I try to see if I can make out any details beyond the white expanse taking up the entire frame, but I can’t tell where this Port might be or what’s blocking it.

I move my bloody finger from the center flower and trace one of the concentric circles surrounding it. Suddenly the image floating on the surface of the rippling glass flicks from the white drop cloth to something else as though I just changed the channel. Which, I suppose in a way, I did.

A dark office with a desk and empty bookshelves now fills the bronze frame. I study the space for a moment and then change the channel again and again. I connect to several more random Ports, located who knows where, before I land on one that shows people.

I fight the urge to duck and hide when I find myself staring at three women. My pulse thunders in my ears, and I go completely still, worried that they’ll somehow be able to see me.

But when they don’t start screaming or freaking out and just keep talking like they were before, I blow out a careful breath and tamp down on the smile that wants to take over my face.

Elation bursts through me like fireworks, and I bite back the excited squeal that tries to slip out.

I can see these women, but they can’t see me.

The magic mirrors really fucking work. I’m connected to the Port hanging in this room, and they’re none the wiser.

“Don’t worry, Jess. You two have had an agreement in place for forever. The king isn’t going to dishonor that. Whoever she was, it’s probably not what you think,” a pretty black woman with waist-long braids assures either the small blonde or the woman with bright candy-apple red hair. Both are sitting in comfy chairs across from her.

“Maybe, but this surprise Naming and the way the royal family has been acting has my father worried. He hasn’t said anything, but I can tell,” a voice declares, but it must be coming from someone I can’t see, because none of the women framed in the mirror are talking.

“My mother thinks something weird is going on too,” the pale woman with bright red makeup and matching hair agrees. “She said the king and scions have been cancelling meetings and seem especially tense about something. And my stylist swears up and down that Aeson Noctis has a female staying in his rookery with him.”

Her bright red eyebrows almost reach her hairline, and she gives the other females a knowing look. The other person I can see, the one with the platinum blonde hair, suddenly scoots to the edge of her seat and leans in conspiratorially.

“I heard the same thing as Dasha,” the blonde tells the others. “But my uncle saw a woman being escorted through Thrasher Keep by the scion’s Wing. He said she didn’t smell like anything he’d ever scented before.” She leans in a little more and drops her voice dramatically, but I can still hear her. “He thinks she’s fae.”

Silence fills the room for a beat and then another. Laughter suddenly rips through the quiet as everyone but the blonde starts to cackle and guffaw. I almost join them. The blonde scowls at the others, clearly not pleased at being the focus of their tittering.

“Blair, even if there were fae sneaking around Drameric—which there aren’t, I’d like to point out—they wouldn’t be escorted around the keeps by the scion’s men. They’d be dead and in pieces. Or in the scion’s case, ash on the wind. Your uncle was just trying to freak you out,” the beautiful black woman dismisses.

I listen for a little longer, but when the conversation turns to what the females are wearing to tomorrow’s gathering, I change the channel again.

I note that there are more active Ports than I thought there’d be. Lorn mentioned that King Noctis kept some of my father’s collection around. From the look of things, I probably have him to thank for the larger than expected network. It’s hard to tell if all of the mirrors are in King’s Keep, as it’s night time and many of the channels only show darkness at the moment. I’ll need to scry through them during the day and catalogue what I find and where.

The night I used the one in my father’s room, Enslee and I jumped to the first place that looked empty and quiet. We got incredibly lucky when, just a few halls down on the lower decks of the keep, we ran into the group of other Syphon kids and the wyvern guards with them from The Wells. I remember my father telling me and Ens that the longest recorded jump by our ancestors between Vitric Ports was just under five miles. So while the Syphon Glass won’t let me sneak out of Four Tiers altogether, it will let me slip in and out of my room and possibly the keep undetected, which is all I need.

I flip through a few more places I can’t identify, and then, to my surprise, Aeson Noctis ripples into existence across the surface of the Syphon Glass.

Stunned, I reel back and land on my ass. My eyes dart frantically to the door between our rooms, expecting it to be open and for Aeson to have used it to be standing right in front of me, but the white wood door is still firmly closed. Which means wherever the commander is, there’s a Vitric Port in the room with him.

I cover my mouth with my hand, afraid to breathe or make a noise even though he can’t see me.

“What on your com is so interesting that you’ve been ignoring me since you got here?” Aeson asks as he claims a chair that’s positioned in front of a fireplace, judging by the way the light is flickering over his features. “Sit down at least. You’re making me jumpy.”

Lorn steps into the frame, his eyes fixed on a screen floating above a portable com resting in his palm. He leans against the desk behind him for a long moment, and then the com screen disappears and he tucks the device in his pocket.

“He’ll get on you about sitting on his desk if you’re doing it when he gets here,” Aeson chastises his brother.

Lorn rolls his eyes, but he gets up and moves to sit in a seat across from the commander.

“She got a call from her stylist. I was reading the transcript,” Lorn tells his brother.

“Anything good?” Aeson asks, sounding disinterested.

“Something about lasers and dancing, but you interrupted me with your whining, so I have no idea what it means,” Lorn huffs, but it’s more playful than annoyed.

My mouth drops open when I realize they’re talking about me. I lean closer to the mirror, hanging on every word.

“Is Chastain any closer to figuring out what was interfering with his affinity in the wyvern’s studio?” Lorn queries, and my stomach drops.

Shit.

“He thinks it was some kind of bastardized magi-tech, but he still isn’t sure what. We’ve been watching Fenox Lael and everyone she employs, but nothing has been flagged as a concern. No calls. No money in any accounts that’s unaccounted for. No one that has any family with ties to the insurrectionists. No questionable dealings with anyone. Even her mail is tidy. Everything looks clean,” Aeson declares.

“Which probably means it isn’t,” Lorn adds, and Aeson chuckles.

“My thoughts exactly,” Aeson agrees. “But the tech could have been used by someone else to spy on that excursion. My Wing confirmed that they picked up on a strange scent there, the same one the others mentioned in Lairwood with that ambush. Farrow’s looking into it.”

Lorn nods and rubs his thumb across his lower lip, his gaze thoughtful.

“How’d today go?” Aeson inquires.

Lorn shrugs. “She fought it at first, but I got her there eventually. She wasn’t interested in much, which I thought was odd. Every dragoness we know would have tried on every piece of jewelry in those vaults or at least started to reorganize things to their liking.”

Aeson looks thoughtful. “Did you talk to her about Novak’s secret? Tell her about our suspicions that there might be other survivors?”

Lorn nods solemnly.

“And?” Aeson’s hard stare roves over his brother’s face, looking for clues.

Lorn’s brow furrows. “She lied to me,” he answers, but he sounds more perplexed than pissed.

“Selik pick something up?” Aeson queries.

“No. She used my name,” Lorn explains, and I freeze. “She said something about Novak misunderstanding things, but then she called me Lorn. She doesn’t do that. She calls me Heir, or Scion, or some other derivative, not my name.”

Flustered by his words, I think back to what happened in the vault and start to comb through it, searching for the part of the conversation he’s talking about. My heart starts to hammer even harder in my chest until all I can hear is the resonant clang of it in my ears.

Double shit.

He’s right. I did. I used his name when I was trying to redirect him around the sister conversation.

Stupid fucking mistake, Ever.

And here I was thinking I was in the clear.

“What do you think it means?” Aeson asks as he runs the back of his fingers against the scruff lining his jaw.

Lorn blows out a contemplative breath. “I think she knows there are others out there. I think she’s protecting them.”

Slowly Aeson nods his agreement. “She doesn’t feel safe here or trust us. She’s not going to risk anyone else until that changes. Can’t say I blame her. We’d do the same thing in her shoes.”

“How many do you think are out there?” Lorn wonders.

Aeson grunts and rubs his cheek. “Can’t be that many. If all the Syphon males were able to sire at least one child, we’d be looking at less than forty. But I doubt that’s the case. If I had to guess, I’d say no more than twenty, maybe twenty-five if we’re lucky.”

Fifteen , I correct in my head.

Fifteen of us survived that night.

Lorn nods, his gaze considering. “Anything new on the Oric?”

Aeson lets loose a frustrated sigh. “Nothing. No sign of a struggle anywhere. Her quarters show she left the following morning and never made it home that night. Nothing on any of her devices shows any calls, messages, or anything else even remotely suspicious. Nothing has moved in any of her accounts. She’s just…gone.”

“Running?” Lorn theorizes.

My brow furrows and a foreboding prickle settles over me.

“Maybe, but why? As long as she kept her mouth shut about Ever, she wasn’t in any danger, and everything up until her disappearance indicates that she didn’t tell a soul. I think she’s dead, but if that’s true, we have a massive security breach. My best guys can’t find anything that would indicate even a whisper of that though, and if it were there, they’d find it.”

A cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck. They’re not talking about some random Oric. They’re talking about the one that tested me my first night here. Tahir. She confirmed that I was a Syphon, and now she’s missing?

Somewhere out of frame I hear a door open and close. Both Aeson and Lorn stop talking and look over at whoever just joined them.

“Sorry I’m late,” a commanding voice declares. “Damian Cesarini cornered me after the cabinet meeting.” The voice grows louder as the owner moves closer to where the two scions are sitting.

“What did he want?” Aeson enquires with a derisive snort.

“Funny you should ask. He made a fine offer for your hand.”

And with that, King Noctis strides into frame, an amused smile on his face while his lined blue eyes survey his youngest son.

My heart can’t decide if it wants to stop altogether or kick into overdrive, because, holy fuck, I’m pretty sure the Syphon Glass I’m currently connected to is located in the king’s tower.

I have direct access to the King of The Dragon Horde, and nobody knows.

This. Changes. Everything.