Empire of Night (14 page)

And those circumstances, as conveyed to the warlord? Simply that the bandits had, with a larger troop, invaded both Edgewood and Fairview, decimating the towns for reasons not yet known.

Next Tyrus assigned positions to the warriors. When he did not include Moria, she presumed it was because her position was clear. At his side. She said as much as they walked away from the others afterward.

“No,” he said. “You'll be here.”

She stopped walking. “Where?”

“Here.”

He pointed to the hillock where they'd spent most of the night. He didn't look at her. Nor did he stop walking, and she had to run to catch up.

“You're keeping me out of battle?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Was it something the warlord said when you conferred with him? I know he cannot have an issue with women wielding blades. One of his warriors is a woman. I saw her.”

“He has no issue with you on a battlefield. I do.” He stopped her protest with a raised hand. “I did not tell you sooner because if I had, I'd never have heard the end of it. You've no time to argue now.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't force words past
the boiling rage. Beside her, Daigo snarled, his tail lashing.

“Watch over her,” Tyrus said to the wildcat.

“And who'll watch over you?” she said. “That is what I planned to do, Tyrus. Not pretend I am a warrior. Not get in anyone's way. I am no trained fighter. But I can fight—for you. That's all I wanted.”

“And that is exactly what you'll do. From here. With your throwing daggers and your wildcat.”

“Then why am I wearing . . .” She plucked angrily at her armor.

“Because I want you to be safe.”

He pulled her closer, leaning in to kiss her forehead, but she squirmed away. He sighed and released her.

“If you think I'm doing it because you're a girl, and you hate me for it, then that is your prerogative. But it has nothing to do with your sex, and I'd hope by now you'd realize that has no import with me. You have no experience on a battlefield. And yes, neither have I, but I have trained for it my whole life. Also you are a Keeper. If I was to allow you out there, fodder for a bandit's blade . . . ?” He shook his head. “I'd not be fit to lead battle hounds. I'd like you to keep an eye out for your sister, in case she returns early with Ronan. If you can also watch over me, I would appreciate that.” A wry smile. “I fear I'll need the help.”

He leaned in again, as if to kiss her cheek, but again she would not let him. With another soft sigh, he squeezed her shoulder and went to join the others.

As she watched him go, her stomach twisted. Daigo's tail whipped against her.

He's right. You know that. If you expected anything else, you do not know him very well. Call him back. Give him a kiss. Wish him luck. Tell him you'll watch over him.

“Tyrus?” she whispered as loud as she dared.

He didn't hear her. She took a few running steps. “Tyrus?”

Jorojumo strode over to greet him, and Moria knew she'd lost her chance. She hovered there, waiting for Tyrus to turn, to look her way, so she could mouth an apology, smile, and tell him all was fine. He spoke to the warlord. Then they took their men and walked their separate ways, and Tyrus never looked back.

W
hen Tyrus claimed she had no experience, it had taken all Moria's self-restraint not to snarl back. Had
he
fought shadow stalkers? Thunder hawks? She'd even battled a slaver's mercenaries. How dare he say she'd no experience.

But as the battle unfolded, she realized he was right. She had envisioned herself fighting alongside Tyrus as she had with Gavril. That showed how little she knew of a true battlefield. Even watching Tyrus's back from a distance was a challenge. If she'd been immersed in that chaos . . .

And it
was
chaos. There was no other word for it. Perhaps that shocked her most of all. When bards told tales of clashing armies, she envisioned rows of warriors, fighting as if they were in a festival demonstration, paired off and maintaining position.

This
was madness. Bloody, thunderous, stinking madness.
The clang of swords and the grunts and screams of hits. Blood arcing through the air. Blood spattering over the tents and the grass. Clouds of dust and dirt obscuring the fighters. The warriors themselves were blurs of armor and steel, fighting this bandit only to be hit from behind by that one.

With the warlord's men, they'd expected to outnumber the mercenaries. Not by enough to make it a quick and bloodless routing, but enough to make it an easy battle. Except another twenty bandits had arrived almost immediately. They fought with blades and whips and cudgels, ignoring the warrior code.

It was a treacherous, filthy, backstabbing brawl. And Tyrus was caught in the middle of it.

He may have never fought on a battlefield either, but Moria would wager anyone seeing him would not believe it. She had worried about how he would do, after his response to the deaths in Fairview proved that battle training did not equate with battle readiness.

He was magnificent. More skilled with a blade than any warrior on the field. The first mercenary who rushed him was nearly cleaved in two before he could even swing, and that early victory seemed to add fuel to Tyrus's flame. He cut down one opponent after another. As he did, though, he was drawn deeper into battle. Farther out of range of her daggers.

“We need to get closer,” she whispered to Daigo as two fighters blocked Tyrus from view.

Daigo grunted but did not move.

“I know he's handling himself well, but he told me to watch over him. I can't do that from here.”

She could feel Daigo's gaze on her, and in that moment, she had no doubt there was a warrior's spirit inside him, and that it was considering, assessing. She might have a duty to watch over Tyrus, but Daigo's was to watch over her.

“I won't join the battle,” she said. “I'm not ready. I see that now. I just want to be ready for
him
—in case he needs me.”

Daigo chuffed and rose. He peered out at the field. Then he snorted, his yellow eyes narrowing. Moria turned to look and—

“Tyrus?” She scrambled up.
“Tyrus.
”

He was gone. She started forward. Daigo caught her trouser leg and growled, telling her to pause and consider. Tyrus had not vanished from the field but simply from her sight. The battlefield was an amorphous thing, always contracting and expanding, and it had constricted again. Where Tyrus had stood, there was a knot of flashing swords, so dense Moria could not tell who was fighting whom, let alone pick out one warrior in the seething mass. She looked for his helmet. Surely she'd see that red dragon helmet. Yet she could not.

Tyrus was there. He had to be.

She crept through the long grass and around the sparse trees. She had her cloak on, hood pulled tight to cover her light hair. It did not, however, mask her face, and she'd gone about half the distance when one of the warlord's men—a young warrior—looked her way. As he did, his opponent lifted his sword, taking advantage of the momentary distraction. Without thinking, Moria flung her dagger square at the man's chest, as she'd been taught, and it was only as the dagger left her hand that she realized what she'd done.

The dagger hit its target. It pierced the simple leather tunic
the bandit wore and drove squarely into his heart. His eyes widened. She saw the realization in those eyes. The horror and the fear. And she saw him fall.

She stumbled to a halt, staring at the downed bandit. He lay ten paces away, his mouth working, his fingers fumbling blindly for the dagger. He pulled it free, and the blood gushed, soaking his tunic, running off him in torrents. His life blood. Spilling on the ground, unstoppered by that dagger.

No, by
her
dagger.

I've killed a man.

She had fought her father's corpse and banished the shadow stalker within. She'd helped bring down the thunder hawk. With the slavers they'd fought on the road, while she'd injured two, the only man who'd died had not been by her hand. The scene flashed in her mind, Gavril's blade cleaving through a man, his look of shock as he realized he'd killed him. Shock and, yes, horror, and now that's what she felt, watching this bandit die.

I've killed a man.

Moria looked out over the battlefield. At the men on the ground. Dead and dying. Some bandits. Some the warlord's men. A couple of their own—warriors she'd traveled with for days now. There lay Kinuye, who'd recently married and carried a lock of his new wife's hair. There lay Reynard, whose young son just won his first riding tournament.

“My lady.”

It was the young man she'd saved. He was rushing to her side, awkwardly bowing as he hurried over.

“Thank you, my lady.”

She looked at him, her gaze struggling to focus. Then she
glanced at the bandit, lying still on the ground, her dagger at his side.

I regret that I had to do it. But I do not regret what I've done. I cannot.

Her gaze swept the battlefield. Her ears rang with the clang of swords, but they did not miss the softer sounds—the gasps and the grunts and the cries of pain.

I regret that all of this had to happen. But it did. They die and a town is saved. That is the warrior's duty. To die so that others may live.

She took a deep breath and clutched her remaining dagger. Daigo sprinted off to retrieve her other blade.

Moria turned to the warlord's man. “I apologize for distracting you in battle. I'm watching over Prince Tyrus, and I lost sight of him, so I was getting closer.” She peered into the melee. “I still do not see him.”

“He was beset, my lady.”

“What?”

“Three men went after him at once. On a signal, I think. I was going to his aid—”

She lunged toward the battlefield. The young warrior caught her arm.

“They did not cut him down, my lady. They surrounded him, and they were driving him off in that direction—” He pointed. “They mean to take him hostage. I'm certain of it.”

“Then we'll make sure they do not succeed.”

The young warrior led Moria around the battlefield. Some of the men noticed her, but only a few and thankfully none of them was distracted.

As they hurried around the camp, Moria searched the
fighters for Tyrus, in case the young warrior was mistaken. But there was no sign of him.

“They led him behind these tents,” the warlord's man said. “But it seems quiet now.”

They've taken him.

If someone had suggested before the battle began that a prince could be kidnapped in front of his own men, she'd have laughed. Surely someone would see. Surely
she
would see. But each warrior was locked in his own fight for survival and could ill afford a moment's distraction.

The warlord's man led her to the largest tent. All was quiet and still behind it.

“Blast it,” the young warrior said. “We're too late. Can your wildcat follow a trail?”

“He's no hound, but he—”

She caught a blur on the battlefield. A plait of long, black hair whipping as a warrior spun.

“Tyrus,” she breathed.

If it had been difficult to pick out men on the field from afar, it was even harder now that she was right beside it. They truly were a seething mass of flashing swords and whirling bodies. But she knew that hair—and the dragon helmet atop it. He was in the thick of the fight, with Jorojumo at his side. Tyrus said something, grinning, and the warlord replied with a smile.

“He's there,” Moria said. “The prince is there.”

The young warrior exhaled. “Thank the ancestors. Lord Jorojumo must have helped him drive off his attackers. Let us get you to safety, my lady. This is no place for you.”

While she followed him around the large tent, she kept
glancing back at Tyrus, assuring herself he was fine. He had blood on one arm and cuts in his breastplate, but none seemed to have penetrated.

The battle had slowed enough that the remaining bandits seemed in no hurry to take on both the young prince and the warlord at once. The two had a moment to catch their breath on the sidelines. Then Lord Jorojumo pointed at someone in the fray. Tyrus started forward, attention fixed on his target. Behind him, the warlord raised his sword.

Why? There is no one close enough to strike except—

Daigo let out a snarl and ran. Moria stood frozen, certain she was mistaken, that the warlord was only hefting his blade.

Lord Jorojumo swung. At Tyrus. At his back.

“Tyrus!” Moria screamed, lunging forward as Daigo flew from the long grass beside him and—

Something hit Moria's head. Pain flashed. Then darkness.

M
oria awoke to darkness. Complete black, as if she hadn't opened her eyes. It was bitterly cold, too, like stumbling from the house on a winter's night, forgetting to pull on her cloak, that first step a shock that sent sleep scattering. She leaped up, only to fall face-first to the dirt as something around her leg stopped her short.

I'm bound. I'm in the dark, and I'm bound. Why—?

She remembered and lunged again with Tyrus's name on her lips. Then she realized she was alone. Completely alone, that chill coming not only from the air, but from deep inside her.

“Daigo?”

She scrambled onto all fours and frantically patted the ground.

“Daigo!”

Even as she felt about wildly, she knew in her gut he wasn't there.

“Is anyone . . . ?” She choked on the word, on her panic, and had to restart. “Is anyone here?”

Her voice echoed in the silence. She squeezed her eyes shut and remembered the warlord swinging his sword at Tyrus, Daigo leaping in, and the last thing she saw . . .

That
was the last thing she saw. Not a moment more. She lay there, straining and searching her memory, as if by concentrating harder she could catch a glimpse of what happened next. When her memory failed, her imagination filled in the hole, sending images of the sword cutting through Tyrus or deflecting at the last moment to cut down Daigo instead. Of the warlord's men turning on them both, Daigo and Tyrus dead on a blood-soaked field and—

Bile filled her mouth, and she spat. The movement made her head pound as if it were about to crack open, and she fell to the dirt floor, heaving breath.

Tyrus. Daigo.

And Ashyn. Where was Ashyn? Safe. Moria had to trust in that. Whatever she thought of Ronan, he was clever and he was cautious. He would not have let Ashyn come to danger.

Ashyn would be safe.

And Tyrus? Daigo?

Her stomach lurched again as her fingers dug into the cold dirt.

She closed her eyes and tried to speak to the spirits. Any spirits. She tried and she tried and she tried. Not so much as a whisper answered.

She gave up then, shivering and instinctively reaching to pull her cloak tighter. Like her armor, it was gone, and at that, her throat tightened. After everything she'd lost, the cloak should seem inconsequential. It was not. Her father's last gifts to the girls were Ashyn's ring and Moria's cloak. Now it was gone forever, and in her despair, it felt like losing him again.

When the cold ground beneath her vibrated, she prayed it was a sign from the spirits. But as she pressed her hands against the floor, she heard footsteps. She scrambled up and raked her fingers through her hair and wiped her sleeve over her mouth. She'd not be found lying in the dirt, broken and crying. She would not.

She heard the clang of a bolt being swung free. Then the creak of a wooden door. Light rushed in and the suddenness of it made her head throb. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes.

A man walked in, temporarily blocking the light, so that all she saw was a figure. Tall. Dark-skinned. His hair cut so short the light reflected off his scalp. She could make out nothing more, as hard as she blinked. Then he moved aside, and the light hit again, blinding her.

“I do not see what purpose it serves to show me wretches in the dungeon,” a voice said. “I know they're here. I do not enjoy their plight. Nor am I particularly unnerved by it, if that's what you fear. I am supposed to be meeting an ambassador from Umeweil, and I do not think keeping him waiting is wise.”

That voice. I know that . . .

The second man appeared. She saw his braids, his bright green eyes, the black-inked sleeves tattooed on his dark
forearms, and suddenly she was lying by a campfire, studying those tattoos.

“It's beautiful work.”

“I'll remember that when they're doing the inking, and I'm trying very hard not to cry out.”

She laughed. “If you fell from a thunder hawk without so much as a gasp, I think you can handle inked needles.”

She rolled onto her back, staring up at the dark sky. He reached over and moved her hair away from the fire.

“Before it catches alight,” he said.

She'd told herself that if she ever saw Gavril Kitsune again, she'd kill him. Without hesitation. She'd leap up and strangle him with her bare hands if need be. But here he was, standing close enough that she might indeed be able to grab him, yet she did nothing.

Tyrus was right. She remembered the boy who'd fought by her side, the boy who'd confided in her, the boy who'd lain by the fire with her, and no matter what he seemed to have done since, she could not truly believe it.

As she moved, the chain on her leg whispered across the dirt, and Gavril looked her way for the first time. He stopped mid-step and stared, and in his eyes, she saw . . . She couldn't name what she saw. She was afraid to.

“Moria?”

The other man chuckled. “You don't even consider for a moment that it might be her sister? You do know her well.”

Moria looked at the man. He was wide-shouldered, shorter and broader than Gavril. His skin tone was lighter. His features were rougher, coarser. But there was no doubt who he was.

Alvar Kitsune. Gavril's father.

The man who killed my father.

Just the other day, she had told Ashyn that she blamed the emperor for their mother's death. That conviction paled against this one. Emperor Tatsu had failed to amend old traditions that had caused their mother to take her life. Yet Alvar Kitsune had murdered their father as surely as if he'd wielded the blade himself. No, worse than that, because he hadn't wielded any blade. He'd hidden in the shadows and let monsters do it for him.

Rage boiled up in Moria, and if she'd been close enough to spring, she would have. For Alvar Kitsune, she would have.

“I lived in Edgewood for nearly two summers,” Gavril said. “Of course I can tell them apart.”

His tone was clipped and cool, as it'd been when he'd objected to this excursion into the dungeons. An odd tone for a son to use with his father, but that was Gavril. Blunt-spoken. Ill-tempered. Coldly polite to everyone except those he honored with the sharp side of his tongue. Good humor with Gavril was a droll comment, a quick-witted exchange, a teasing insult, a half smile. He was as mercurial and unpredictable as a summer storm. And as invigorating. To weather the storm and catch the flashes of sunlight no one else saw had made her feel . . .

She inhaled softly, air hissing through her teeth.

“What's she doing here?” Gavril said.

“A gift,” his father said. “For you.”

Confusion crinkled Gavril's forehead. Then something flitted through his gaze. A moment of unguarded expression, as when he'd first seen her. He hid it just as quickly.

“I don't understand,” he said, his words brittle. “Why would I want—?”

“I'm asking myself the same thing,” his father cut in. “It's not as if there are a lack of women here. Beautiful women, eager to catch the eye of my son. But you pay them no heed.”

“Because I have no time for such frivolities. We are preparing for war.”

“All the more reason to indulge in pretty distractions. Yet you snap and you snarl and you send the poor girls scattering. That's hardly the behavior of a healthy young man.”

Gavril's eyes flashed. “Whatever you are implying—”

“I'm implying that they do not distract you because you are already distracted. By thoughts of a girl you left behind.”

“Moria?” Gavril looked at her as one might gaze on a pile of offal. “I ignore the women in camp because I am focused on my goal—on
our
goal. To decide I'm mooning over some mewling chit of a Keeper? Believe me, Father, after our five days in the Wastes together, I'd be quite happy if I never saw her again.”

“Is that right?” His father's voice was deceptively soft.

Gavril looked his father in the eye. “Yes. Now, if you'll excuse me. I have an appointment with—”

“You reject my gift?”

Gavril went still then. When he spoke, a veneer of courtesy coated his words. “I apologize if you thought I wished such a gift, though I am at a loss to understand why you would. However, I concede that you no longer know me as well as we'd both like. Perhaps you presume that, after my many days alone with the Keeper, something transpired between us. I can
assure you, it did not. I have little patience for such
distractions
, but even if I made an exception, my tastes would run . . .” A curl of his lip as he looked at Moria. “Elsewhere. She's uncultured and headstrong. Not terribly bright either. The empire should exempt Northerners from holding such high positions.”

His father laughed. “Agreed. But a lack of intelligence isn't a bad thing in a bedmate, my son. Your mother may be one of the loveliest women in the empire, but she's as empty-headed as her dolls.”

Gavril stiffened.

His father patted him on the back. “Don't take offense, boy. You may have gotten your handsome face from her, but the mind behind it comes from me, ancestors be praised. As for the girl, she's your responsibility now. Take her to your bedchamber. You cannot have spent all those nights in her company and never wondered what it would be like to have her.”

“No,” Gavril said sharply. “Perhaps we do not share the same opinions on such matters, but I'll not soil myself in such a way.”

“Oh-ho.” His father laughed and turned to Moria. “Did you hear that, child? Are you not offended?”

She was too shocked to take offense. Not shocked by the insults, but by Alvar's words. She wasn't Ashyn, blushing at any mention of relations between men and women. That was a natural part of life. But telling Gavril to bed her as if . . . Well, as if to say, “You're hungry; here's food.” She'd grown up in a garrisoned village where girls were raised to understand that no man should lay a hand on you without your permission and the penalties for transgressions were severe.

As a captive, she lost her rights and privileges. She understood that. But to treat her as spoils of war . . . ? Was that something men did?

But Alvar Kitsune was no mere man. He had set shadow stalkers on two villages to slaughter every woman and enslave every man. He was a monster. Did she truly need more proof of that?

She'd still hoped . . . She did not know what she'd hoped. To learn that Alvar Kitsune had been . . . duped? Enslaved? Betrayed by someone he trusted and forced to raise shadow stalkers against his will?

Moria and Ashyn had thought they'd been spared because whoever raised those shadow stalkers was a pious man who didn't dare harm a Seeker and Keeper. She saw their mistake now. They'd been spared because they'd been useful.

You are a child and a fool, Keeper.

As she looked at Gavril's face, she swore she could hear those words. She turned her face away so he wouldn't catch the pain and the grief there.

“What shall I do with your gift, then?” Alvar asked his son. “Kill her?”

Gavril's face remained blank, his eyes empty. “You could, but I can't see how that would help our cause. She's a Keeper and little more than a child. The people would be outraged.”

“True. But since I brought her here for you, she is your responsibility. If you don't take her, then she stays here. In the dungeon.”

“All right.”

A moment of silence. Then, Alvar said, “You'll leave her
here, in the dark and the cold?”

“Certainly.” Gavril turned to go.

“Daigo?” Moria said. The name came unbidden, and she hated herself for her weakness. Yet that did not stop her from following with, “My wildcat. Is he . . . ?”

Gavril did not turn. He kept his back to her, stiff and still.

“Well?” Alvar said. “The girl asks after her bond-beast.”

“Then tell her,” Gavril said.

“She's your responsibility. Any question she asks is for you.”

“I don't have time to chase down answers, so she'll have to do without.”

Gavril walked out without a backward glance. His father paused there, watching him go, studying him with that hawkish stare Moria knew well from his son. Then he turned it on Moria.

“You don't look surprised, girl.”

“I'm not. If you were expecting anything different from your son, then I'd suggest that you do not know him very well.”

“Oh, we'll see about that.”

He gave a humorless smile and the door clanged shut behind him, pitching her into darkness.