Wrath and Bones (34 page)

“House Prost nominates Remy Dreppenstedt,” Aristoxenus said unhappily.

I felt a rush of baffled relief.
House Prost on our side?
Or did he just send a spy to find out where we were and what we were up to? Beside me, Batten nudged me; he was looking around the room for Jeremiah and not finding him. Neither could I.

The third nomination stalled House Sarokhanian effectively, knocked Harry out of the running, and provided Remy her nomination.

“Do we have a visitor? Show yourself.” He clapped sharply twice, and the ground shuddered hard enough to send the rowan wood stakes overhead clattering together like the deadliest wind chimes ever.

THE GROUND GAVE A TREMOR
of warning before the heavy oak doors thumped once, hard. The urns at the gallery rattled as if startled. Something beneath my feet groaned, like the force of gravity itself was shifting. Batten looked down at his boots unhappily and took a step closer to Harry’s statue. I might have considered that both cute and ridiculous, but every pore on my body was distracted, prickling like an invisible hand was yanking me up by the individual follicles as the unseen thing approached. Another pace, and another, it moved through passageways of space
. It, Marnie? Not a thing, remember? Careful.
Another pace, under great duress, expending massive effort, slipping into our proximity with a wriggle and a shove, shadow-stepping into our reality. Closer now.

It had escaped my notice that both Declan had drifted to Batten’s side with me, and I had been steadily shrinking closer to the vampire hunter. I felt my shoulder bump into his warm and sturdy presence. I glanced up at him and his jaw did its clench-unclench dance, but his eyes revealed far more alarm than usual. Batten didn’t enjoy not knowing what to expect, and he had more than enough experience with creatures that had unmanned him; he wasn’t looking forward to being tromped, and while sometimes I could offer an expert word of comfort or advise, there wasn’t much I could do to set his mind at ease this time. I couldn’t even keep from thinking the word
creatures
.

A sharp
snap-crack
of wood splintering and the doors blew open, shattering in a whirlwind of fragments and spinning chunks that clattered to the floor. The dust from the explosion did not fall straight down, disobeying physics in front of my eyes. It twisted on crazy currents to scatter into forked tornadoes blowing straight across the marble slabs, curling like the necks of agitated asps, heads rearing to strike as tiny flashes of lightning surged throughout. When they drifted into a fine dust and settled, the visitor glided in through the wreckage as though oblivious to it.

“Why can’t I make a fuckin’ entrance like that?” I whispered out the side of my mouth at Batten. His hand was patting his side in a futile attempt to grip a rowan wood stake that wasn’t there. His Adam’s apple bobbed and I felt his attention, but he didn’t dare look away from the doors.  

The thing that formed in the middle of the throne room was a crystalline bubble that began to coil like blown glass from a pipe, spiraling clear. It stretched up, a waterspout forming in a storm’s eye, until it reached nearly to the ceiling, frothing at the base, pulling more water up its core in swirling rivers and wild eddies. My brain spat out
primordial chaos monster
as it grew in strength, lumbering closer to the throne, though I Felt it was using every ounce of its strength to appear and would not have been able to attack or defend itself.
Again, you’re calling this an it?
This was no
it.

Remy. Lichlady. The water began to part, becoming a green-tinted sheath, and within it, a pale woman with dark curls that matched Declan’s, unruly around her, drifting in midair like silken strands underwater. Even as a weak, naked, starving phantasm, bilocating from a great distance, her voice was a sultry curl that demanded attention.

 With my heart in my throat, I thought,
Declan’s mother. What must he think of her, at long last?
The only female revenant in existence, possessed of all nine immortal Talents, banished from the
Falskaar Vouras
to be Duchess of the Darkest Corner, did not look in Declan’s direction. She uncoiled from her squat to stretch tall, all the while drifting closer to the empty throne, settling to hover in the middle of the revenant houses, three feet off the ground, her hair swaying midair like it was caught in a soft breeze or a strong undertow.

Worm forge,
my memory teased, but I couldn’t sort that out while visions of her long, pale throat were assaulting me. My mouth watered, but it wasn’t
my
thirst that caused it; every revenant in the cavernous room was, as Wes would say, totally vamping out inside their alabaster prisons. I could taste the cold, salty mist of her aura and felt my face getting damp even from a distance.

Speaker Aristoxenus consulted the shadow form behind him, and then spoke. “It has come to this, lichlady. You are twice nominated, and your house represented.”

She laughed angrily, and my heart slammed up into my throat. I snuck my left hand sideways, seeking until I found Batten’s. It was in a tense fist, but at my touch, he opened it, scooped mine, and gripped it tight.

“
My
house,” she scoffed. “I have no house. There is no home beyond the Bitter Pass for the likes of me, no bloodline to secure my peace, no brood to comfort me in my never-ending night, no master to guide my path. I am exiled, forever alone.”

“That quarrel is not with this court,” Aristoxenus said sternly. “End this disruption and have your say with Prince Dreppenstedt and
le vicomte de Brisbois
on your own time.”

“Oh, no,” she said smugly, swaying closer to the dais within her bubble. “Your time is my time, little flame-spit. I am called and I have arrived. Let all the musty houses of the
Falskaar Vouras
hear me. I will not be silenced by the craven shade of a lesser demon. You have no power over me. You are a mote of dust in the eye of a god, an annoyance and nothing more. Now…” She drew herself to full height and glared at the revenant thrones expectantly. “Where is the creature who calls himself my king? Show me the First Turned. I would have his attention.”

“You will not,” Aristoxenus said. “And you will guard your tongue when you speak of your liege, or the Overlord will know the reason for your defiance.”

“My reasons are obvious. I am shunned from all things by the very creatures who tore the babe from my breast and made me what I am. But no more. I will be represented at this court or I will…” Here, her fury got the best of her and she faltered, her mouth working around a thousand unspoken threats.

Aristoxenus sat back, and the shadow form behind him leaned forward to take center stage.  “Or you’ll
what?
” Asmodeus asked.

When the Overlord chose to appear a second time, He did so in the form of the fallen angel He had been when He hit the Earth after being swept from the heavens alongside Lucifer, the Morningstar. I had only seen Him in this form once, but it had stuck with me, haunting my most terrible, lascivious dreams. He rested a lean elbow on the shoulder of the Speaker, and propped His narrow chin there, looking greatly amused. A shot of anxiety rocked up through me, followed by a naked pump of loin-shaking lust. It took all I had to look away, forcing my focus onto Remy Dreppenstedt.

“All your pretty words have flown,” Asmodeus observed. “Rage will only get you so far, my lovely. Stand behind your words or they are but the cold, stinking breath of the dead, and nothing more.”

She stammered and pouted; for a moment, she looked like a spoiled child in the face of her doting daddy. “Do not forget that I am more than just your exiled. I am the Afterdark. The Brightslip. You said so.” She pointed. “
You
did. I will cast a light upon their race and in my wake, ashes will fall—”

“But not today,” Asmodeus interrupted. “You are dismissed from this court, Remy Dreppenstedt, unless…” He cocked his head. “Unless, of course, you are offering to accept your nomination and assist your bloodkin and your king?”

She jerked her head back in surprise, as though the thought had not occurred to her. Help us? Help them? Help
him?
Her rage surged to the surface again, rocking through the empaths in the room. Several DaySitters swooned, others groaned, but me… my guts jittered hard, urging me to speak. My tongue shook against the roof of my mouth like it had a mind of its own. Declan choked and reached for me, but my feet were already in motion. Under the heavy dress, my Keds padded marble.

She felt me coming with the effortless, preternatural senses of the undead, but I was not important, and I made it almost to her side before she tossed me an irritated glance across her shoulder.

Her dark beauty was stunning and stole away my first attempts to speak. My second attempt, I manage to blurt out, “Fnrf.”

Smooth, Marnie.

Asmodeus perked right up, making a delighted noise. “And here is one of your champions, lichlady. Behold, the DaySitter of Guy Harrick Dreppenstedt, Marnie Baranuik.” He was warming to the task, like a game show announcer running down a big prize to be won. “You other advocate is the DaySitter of Malas Nazaire, Declan Edgar.” He rocked forward, drawing each word out like taffy. “A man
yoooouuu
might know as Jean-Etienne Auguste Dufort Dreppenstedt-Nazaire. Your son.”

Remy’s eyes dropped to the marble to dart around as if watching mice scramble. Declan didn’t move a hair, watching the side of his mother’s pale, bloodless face to judge her reaction.

I tried to break the tension, but again, my mouth only wanted to go, “Fnrf.” I wrestled with my tongue, balled my gloved fists, and insisted, “
Fnrf!
”

Remy cut her eyes at me, then demandingly to Asmodeus. “This is my champion?”

“And now you know the true heartbreak of House Dreppenstedt,” Asmodeus acknowledged with a sad smile. “In the end, she summons the most power in Wilhelm’s bloodline, and she’s but a bit of fluff with a foul tongue, a sour disposition, and a reluctant temperament.”

I opened my mouth to defend myself, but again, the only thing my mouth was capable of was a loud and bleating, “
Fnargleflurf!
” At least my lips parted to make vowel sounds that time, but the effort caused stars to swirl in my vision. I had never wanted to flip someone the bird so hard in my entire life.

Remy rolled her eyes so profoundly it rocked her head back, and she snapped her fingers in my face, once, hard. It felt like getting belted with a hockey stick to the forehead but succeeded in loosening my tongue. Unfortunately, my words betrayed me, and now I found I couldn’t imagine what I could possibly say. I knew her history, but only the stripped-down bullet points; quiz me on the dates and times and shallow details, and I could nail it. I was always a good student on paper. But we weren't on paper here. I didn’t know the lichlady’s heart. I didn’t know a mother’s pain. I didn’t know the horror of a forced turn. I had never been exiled to the cold by the same creatures who made me inhuman in the first place.

I knew what little Declan had shared when the phantasm of Malas Nazaire challenged him with the truth of his birth, saw the
dhampir’s
lonesome agony and his yearning, but even this was an outsider’s understanding. I hadn’t walked in her shoes, not one step, or even beside her. How could I begin to understand? And if I couldn’t understand, how could I speak to her with any true sympathy? How could I inspire her to rise to the great challenge like I needed her to? And who was I to make that decision for her? My nomination suddenly seemed utterly ignorant and unthinking.

Her gaze slid sideways at me and I remembered in an ashamed rush: all nine talents. Including telepathy.
Duh, Marnie
.

“Okay, I’ll address the elephant in the room, since no one else is going to,” I said, relieved to have my faculties back. “The king is on the last train to Bonkersville and there are, according to an orc mystic, a mess of angry trolls about to spill out of a portal that I’m guessing you folks already know about. I’m taking a wild stab at this being related to the fog and Stormbringers and such. If there’s no king on the unhallowed throne, no united front, no major Talent to stop them, those trolls are going to waltz right past Svikheimslending and ravage mankind. We need a strong leader on the throne, and most of these guys only have one or two Talents. Some of them don’t even want the throne, so I figured, uh…” I shifted in my Keds uncomfortably. It sounded like a long shot, now that I heard it out loud. “How about
you
give it a try?”

Remy mulled it over, ignoring everyone in the throne room except for me. “I want release.”

“Hey, sister, don’t we all,” I agreed.

“I want your warmth.” She slithered closer, wrapped in her misty aura. Her silver-shot green eyes were those of a predator scenting prey. “I want to slide under your skin and wrap myself in the heat of your soul.”

“Oh hey, you can do that?” I showed her my
I’m-impressed
face, and then gave a short, nervous laugh. “Oh right. All nine Talents. Must be a function of the Soul Leach stuff. Sounds mega-creepy for the original owner of the body.”

She ignored that. “I want to walk with your legs.”

“They’re stubby,” I warned her. “I fall down a lot.”

“I want to dance with your hips,” she barely breathed, her sensuality almost palpable.

“I can’t dance for shit. Ask your son. He’s seen it. It’s frightening.”

“I want to fuck with your cunt.”

Whoah, girl
. I blinked rapidly and tried to imagine this. “Would I be… in my head for this?” My eyebrows crunched in deep thought. “In my body? Where do
I
go for this fuckery?”

“I want to live,” she said with heat, and the Blue Sense roared to life to transmit her ache, her yearning. “And I will do it through you, my champion, however and whenever I so choose, in exchange for taking the throne.”