7 WINGS
Malekh didn’t seem too concerned about Xiaodan’s disappearance, but his irritability told Remy that she’d pulled this stunt before. A hunt was currently underway, though Malekh had returned to the laboratory for a moment to go over her most recent test results. He’d told Remy that she would make herself known to them whenever she felt ready to, that it was usually best to leave her be in the meantime.
Remy was not of the same disposition as Malekh. He remembered all the times he’d gone off to sulk—which in his case often meant getting shit-faced drunk—only for Xiaodan to find him anyway, cajole him out of feeling sorry for himself, and get something sobering into him. Though the last time, it was him sobering up inside her, which worked well enough. He ought to look, in any case.
Easier said than done, as Fata Morgana was two-thirds the size of Elouve, intimidating by that measure alone. He had little inkling of Xiaodan’s favorite spots here, or any special hiding places known only to the locals. But, glancing up at the spire above him, the tallest structure within the fortress, he thought he could hazard a good guess at where she was.
The guard on duty was only too glad to show him the way to the top. Unlike elsewhere in Fata Morgana, the tower held no ramps—too narrow, too high, and too remote for the residents to access, as he was informed it was not in use.
The winds were stronger up at these ramparts, and the cold made Remy’s teeth chatter. The steeple was tall enough to graze the dark clouds overhead, but the fog below swamping the plains prevented anyone on watch here from seeing into the horizon for approaching hostiles. It was probably why no one kept watch here. Malekh undoubtedly used other means to alert his people of any enemy sightings.
He was alone. There was no one else around, and Remy thought that he’d gotten it wrong, until he could hear the faint sounds of a heartbeat. It took a few minutes for him to puzzle out where the source was coming from, finally looking up with a quick flash of insight.
Xiaodan sat on the roof above him, carefully perched on the angled stone tiles and so quiet that he wouldn’t have noticed if not for her heart. She was as still as a weathervane in a storm’s eye, gazing out into the vastness below them while the winds whipped her long hair forcefully about her.
She’d been crying. Remy couldn’t even begin to describe the sheer melancholy on her face, at the wistfulness there.
“Malekh’s worried about you,” he said.
“Zidan knows where I am. He’s giving me space.” The quick look she shot his way indicated that Remy should have followed suit. “How did you know I was here?”
“I seem to recall someone at our first meeting saying they would climb the highest tower they could and shout into the wind when they were feeling out of sorts,” Remy responded, refusing to budge. “I was worried about you.”
“I’m all right. You didn’t need to come looking for me.”
“You always sought me out when I was in a foul mood or was trying to drink myself into oblivion, insisting that I would do better with the company. I’m just repaying the favor.”
She flickered out of view and reappeared beside him, her gaze still on the mist surrounding the castle below. Her hand was cold, but Remy quickly warmed it, slipping his fingers in between hers. For a long moment they both said nothing, gazing out into the plains.
“Zidan’s not going to be happy with me,” Xiaodan finally said.
“I know.”
“Especially once he learns I’ve been up here for close to an hour, trying to channel the sun again.”
“I know.”
“I couldn’t. You said I was able to do it back at Eugenie’s, but I don’t remember that. I can’t even manifest so much as a spark. But I won’t stop trying. And Zidan won’t like that.”
“I know.”
“I thought you’d be angry too.”
“I’m not sure Malekh’s as mad about this as you think. He knows you better than I do, and I know you’re likely to be stubborn regardless.” Remy ignored the glare she shot his way. “He understands, but you could at least let him set the pace for you.”
“You’re actually agreeing with Zidan? Am I dreaming?”
It was Remy’s turn to grump. “We don’t fight all the time.”
“It’s foreplay for you two. I find it both heartwarming and alluring.” Xiaodan ignored his glower. “I took being the Sunbringer for granted. I thought its absence would improve my health, but I’m not so sure anymore. My heart doesn’t feel any stronger for its lack. I don’t even know if I can stand strong against the First Court.”
“And I don’t give a fuck about the Night Empress or her court if it means putting you at risk. We can’t keep relying on you to defeat her. Malekh and I will just have to work harder to take the burden off your back.” Remy lifted her hand, pressed it against the side of his mouth. “But you have to give yourself time, too.”
Xiaodan’s fingers shifted, and Remy let go so she could move them down his neck, the tips cool against the bite marks there. “These look rougher than they should be.”
“He’s been taking out his worry for you on me, yes.”
She tilted her head up toward his, and Remy kissed her. He had missed this. He’d missed her, and he would have been content staying up on that windy rampart, kissing her for hours despite the bracing cold.
“I suppose I can return now and listen to his lecture,” she said after a while.
“When you need time alone, I would appreciate it if you could find a more accessible spot than this,” Remy grumbled.
A glint of mischief appeared in Xiaodan’s dark eyes. “We could always jump down.”
“Absolutely the hell not,” Remy said, breaking out into a sweat despite the chill. “Unless you start sprouting bat wings yourself, and even then, I’d rather use a hundred flights of stairs.”
Xiaodan froze, looking at him like he’d just told her he could sprout feathers out his rear. “You’re right,” she whispered. “She did do that, didn’t she? Hold tight, Remy.”
Remy had no time to stop her, because he was already clinging on for dear life, Xiaodan having only enough consideration to check if he was safely secured to her person before quite inconsiderately jumping off the spire.
Remy’s screams were swallowed up by the winds as they plummeted down, his throat raw by the time Xiaodan landed with the gracefulness of a cat. His head was still spinning when she anchored her hand even more securely around his waist and took off running back into the direction of the castle courtyard, the world blurring around him.
By the time everything had stopped swiveling around, he was flat on his bottom, the ground finally stable underneath him. They were at one of the mills. Workers stared curiously at him as he staggered to his feet, still tottering. “Xiaodan,” he managed to say, “we weren’t so pressed for time that you had to throw us off the fucking—”
“Why take the longer route when I could simply jump some hundred feet down and arrive here in seconds?”
“That is not the point!”
Xiaodan wasn’t listening. She was waving frantically at one of the workers: Salvador, the Tithian vampire he’d talked to earlier.
Salvador glanced questioningly at the dazed Remy. “I’m glad to see you up and about, milady, though I believe Lord Malekh has been worried about you.”
“Zidan can wait,” Xiaodan said dismissively. “I apologize for the abruptness, Salvador, but I was hoping that you might tell us all you know of Wikaan vampires.”
Salvador looked surprised. “Err, you mean like me, milady?”
“You were bitten by an Altruscan vampire during the turn of the century, so that’s not quite what I was asking. I meant the kind of kindred prominent within the Whispering Isles before the Alurians renamed it Tithe. You’re a historian, so I thought you might know more.”
Salvador nodded, a bright smile breaking out on his face. “It’s been awhile since I’ve talked to anyone about any of my scholarly pursuits. Yes, I was a student of Tithian lore, but if it’s kindred you wish to learn more about, I’m afraid there’s little to know of Wikaan kindred even before Aluria invaded.”
“And why is that?”
“The vampires of the Whispering Isles learned to survive by pretending to be human themselves, milady. It was said that the First of the Vampires had established another ruling clan within the islands. It was their lineage that Ishkibal warred with, believing them to be one of the many threats to his rule. Lord Malekh would know more. As one of Ishkibal’s generals, he would have fought the Wikaan vampires—ah, Tithian kindred, I mean—all those centuries ago. But it’s harder to do battle when your opponent has no desire to face you on the field—they used guerilla tactics to keep themselves hidden from his ire. The eastern and northern kindred clans fell to Ishkibal’s forces, but the Wikaan survived against all odds.”
“Did the Wikaan vampires possess bat-like wings?” Xiaodan asked.
“Xiaodan.” Remy was stunned.
“So they say,” Salvador confirmed. “Wings of varying textures and shapes, I believe. I know disappointingly little, for all the information I’ve tried to procure in the years since.” Salvador grinned, a hint of fang protruding. “In ages past, being a Tithian vampire was a symbol of royalty—few were permitted to be turned. Unlike the vampires of the Eight Courts, who believe in multiplying their species at will.”
“A symbol of royalty?” Remy echoed.
“They were called mandurugo. They can choose to pass down their abilities to their kin—their leaders were called babaylan, I believe, but Tithians use it nowadays as a title rather than any proof of kindredship. One of the few monikers that survived to the present day, though many are unaware of its true origins. It’s not even a question of birth, milady. You can be born of one and still not be worthy until the babaylan decide to make you their heir. Unfortunately, even if the war with King Ishkibal didn’t whittle down their numbers, then the Alurian invasion would have, if not obliterated them entirely. I’m impressed that you know of even that small detail, milady—no babaylan has ever emerged from Aluria’s—” Salvador broke off. “Are you all right, Armiger? You’re looking pale.”
“We need to find Malekh.” Remy was finding it harder to breathe. “Now.”
“YOUR BLOOD tests are in order,” Malekh said, leaning back against his chair with a frown. “If your main concern is that you are going to sprout wings and fangs and fly away like the Night Empress did, you are safe.”
“She bit me at Elouve.” Remy paced the floor, his mind running a mile a minute. “She must have, if she could control me.”
“She doesn’t need to bite you to compel you,” Xiaodan pointed out gently from her spot on the bed. Much to Remy’s relief, Malekh had asked the other scientists to leave the laboratory to give them some much needed privacy. “She compelled Malekh without it.”
“She might have.” Remy’s fists clenched. “How can I know for certain that she hasn’t tried to give me some of her blood? If she wants to pass this onto me without my consent?” His voice rose, angry and fearful. “She was never turned by a vampire. She already was one herself. Those damned wings were proof she was descended from the Whispering Isles kindred. What if I become like her? What if I turn into kindred? What if I turn on the both of you—”
“You won’t.” Xiaodan left the bed, her arms now wrapped around his waist. “Zidan is certain. He would know the best out of all of us. As Salvador said, had she truly passed anything down to you, she would’ve lost her own abilities. Inheritance is not something they take lightly.”
Remy gulped in a lungful of air. “But what if eventually passing them to me has been her intention all along? What if she succeeds? I think I’d rather kill myself before—”
“We will not allow it to happen,” Malekh said sharply. His hand was on Remy’s face, his hold firm. “Do you hear me? We will never allow that to happen to you.”
Remy dragged Xiaodan closer. His other hand tightened on the front of Malekh’s coat.
All his life he’d been desperate to cling to any part of his mother, to imprint memories of her on himself so he wouldn’t forget as he grew older. And now, the very thought of sharing the same blood as her, with the same consequences, terrified him more than anything else.
REMY TRIED to put it behind him in the days that followed. Malekh had pointed out that there was little to be done and worrying about it now would change nothing until they could uncover more information.
So he took to training the sprouts more seriously. The youths didn’t have enough experience yet to be comfortable with sharper-edged weapons, so Remy put them to work with staffs, wooden sticks, blunted practice swords. He hadn’t thought he’d make a good teacher; he only had his own experience training with his father and then the Reapers to fall back on, but while Valenbonne had been a hard taskmaster and an unrelenting disciplinarian, Remy tried to temper his instructions with a kinder touch, giving his charges the space to make mistakes to analyze afterward.
Some of the other adults had also asked to be trained by the third day, and Remy obliged. He’d never been placed in charge of his own squadron before, unofficial as this was. It was oddly satisfying.
“You make it look easy,” Xiaodan said on the fourth morning. She had grudgingly stayed at the infirmary until the doctors determined her fit to leave, and today marked her first day of freedom.
“Can you beat Lady Song, too, Armiger?” Renzo called. “She and Lord Malekh’d be the only ones that can give you a good raking through, yeah?”
“If this is them liking me, I don’t want to know what it’s like for them to hate me,” Remy muttered, earning a laugh from Xiaodan.
“Do you want to?”
Remy looked back at her inquisitive face. He’d fought Malekh many times before, but he’d never had to face Xiaodan in a sparring match. “All right, but I’m not looking forward to getting my arse handed back to me with my pupils looking on.”
“You’re underestimating yourself again.” Xiaodan grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.”
She was brutal. The Fourth Court vampire’s idea of a spar was to jab him lightly on his sides, forcing him to block the blows whenever he could, then grab his face when he grew tired and plant a wet, sloppy kiss on him when his guard was fully down. It became their means of keeping score, which made it harder for Remy not to concede defeat at every bout. The hoots and friendly ribbing grew louder after he barely managed to keep Xiaodan from kissing him a fifth time.
“It’s not much of a fight if the armiger wants to lose, milady!” one of the women called out, and the laughter was contagious. Remy felt giddy, light on his feet, and not because he was making a good impression.
“Why so quiet now?” Xiaodan teased. Their fighting exhibition over, she’d wrapped his arm around her shoulder, looking healthy and happy and beautiful and still checking him worriedly for any bruises.
Remy couldn’t stop grinning. Times like this, he could almost—almost—forget about his mother. About his own cursed lineage. “They’re right. Feels like I won, anyway,” he said, and kissed her this time.
He was still getting his share of ribbing when Salvador invited him to the Tithians’ domicile that night. The men lived in several cabins they’d built at the outer courtyard, spacious and comfortable enough for their needs. They were sprawled in chairs outside their respective homes, which Remy learned was a nightly habit of theirs. They’d initially been offered rooms in the castle when they first came to the Morgana, Salvador had explained, but they’d turned them down. “Too luxurious for our tastes. We’d asked for something with a nice view of the night sky instead, and Lord Malekh obliged.”
“Did you all live in Tithe when it was an independent kingdom?” Remy asked curiously, already tipsy. The Tithians drank as hard as they worked. They’d offered him a liquor they’d brewed themselves, an eye-watering concoction called lambanog that had Remy choking and pawing at his throat at the very first sip, while the others knocked the foul liquid back like it was water.
“Tithe,” another named Allan snorted. “Alurians call it Tithe. Wikaan was its original name. Even that they eradicated until there was nothing left. So few remember nowadays.”
“I heard Geoffrey telling the others about the Night Empress.” Salvador’s face was a picture in sympathy. “Said that she was Wikaan, too? That’s why you and Lady Song were asking me about Tithian lore?”
Salvador held up his glass. “Here’s a bit of information, then. Apparently babaylan had a ritual where they transferred their authority to another by sharing lambanog.” He took a swig and laughed. “Always thought they made up the occasion to drink themselves insensible.”
“Still not sure about this alliance with Aluria that Lord Malekh wants,” Josefin said with a scowl. “But if he really believes it’s the key to peace… Queen Ophelia has been working with the Tithians to reconstruct their kingdom, I hear, though it’ll still be a mere shadow of what it once was.”
“I can tell you what little I know,” Salvador said. “The bat wings, for instance. It’s not quite that.”
“What do you mean?” Remy asked.
“There’ll be more than one pair on her, at her strongest. Mandurugo supposedly possess multilayered wings, and I suppose she was severely weakened if you’ve only seen one. You asked about how they pass down their abilities. That’s commonly through their children—Wikaan are devoted to their families—but from what I’ve gathered, the heir must be willing to be turned and the sire willing to do the turning.”
Remy took another sip, trying to hide his nervousness, his relief. “So they can’t pass it on to someone who refuses?”
“That’s what the legends say, though without any firsthand accounts I can’t really confirm that. Sounds like it’s been something you’ve been thinking hard about, though. I thought Lady Song would be willing. Or is it Lord Malekh who’s resistant?”
“Resistant to what?”
Salvador looked embarrassed. “Ah, pasensya. Thought you were thinking about, uh, you and the Third and Fourth Court leaders. Because you’re human and they’re… I assumed that you were going to let them, at some point.”
“I—no. Or rather…” Remy paused. “I haven’t talked to them about it.”
“Didn’t mean to bring it up,” Salvador said apologetically.
“No apologies necessary,” Remy said, then took a huge gulp of the lambanog. This time, he didn’t even feel the burn.
“Night’s still young,” Tonio said cheerfully, tipping a new bottle Remy’s way. “Up for another round, Armiger?”
They were right. It was far too early to be thinking. Remy shoved his tankard toward him. “Just one more,” he agreed.
“I AM not drunk,” Remy said, keeping himself very still and steady.
“You are impossibly drunk,” Xiaodan said with a slight, crooked smile. She was cross-legged on the bed, watching Remy cross the room in what he hoped was a straight, sober line. “I could smell you before you even stepped foot inside the castle. The Tithians must really like you, if they’re breaking out their most expensive liquor on your behalf. I could hear all the merriment through the window.”
“We weren’t that loud.” Light, but the Tithians loved to sing. Mother’s tits, that was right, he’d sung along with them. “You’ve drunk their lump—their lamba—limsa—”
“Their lambanog? It’s not quite to my taste, but Selim and the other carpenters sometimes buy it off them. Said it strips bark clean off, better than any tool they’ve got.”
“Ah.” Remy reached the side of the bed and paused. “Do you want to turn me?” he blurted out.
Xiaodan looked startled. “Remy, why—”
“Because I might let you,” Remy said in a rush, because maybe he was drunk. “I might want to. I don’t want to—I don’t want to be eighty and hunchbacked and liver-spotted while you and Malekh… I’d be a blip in your lives, and you’d forget me soon enough. I’m selfish, but I want to be more than just a mayfly in your—”
“Remy.” A split second was all it took for Xiaodan to send him onto the pillows, her finding a spot on his side. Her arm encircled his waist. “Go to sleep. We can talk about this in the morning.”
“I would,” Remy mumbled. “If you asked me to, I would.”
Xiaodan looked at him for a few seconds with both fondness and sadness. “I know,” she sighed and stroked his hair. “But I’m not asking, Remy. Go to sleep.”
HE WAS at Miss Grissell’s funeral, seventeen and alone, the whispers loud to his ears as he paused by her coffin, head bowed. He was sober here, at least.
Only his nanny’s brother was brave enough to approach him, already old enough to be his grandfather. “She was proud of you,” he said softly, voice full of tears. “Used to cut out news clippings of your exploits. More than once she’d march to the Wayward Post offices and demand they recant something they’d said about you. Was successful a couple of times, after she invoked your father’s name. Always enjoyed it whenever you stopped by to see her, even after her mind started going.”
“I didn’t visit her enough,” Remy said.
“You did more than you ought to,” Miss Grissell said. “More than he would have wanted. I’m glad there was someone in your life you could rely on, however brief.”
Remy turned.
Miss Grissell was standing by the doorway, smiling at him like she wasn’t dead inside the casket before him.
“Blue eyes,” he said.
“What’s that, love?” asked whoever was pretending to be his nanny.
“Lanacia Grissell had blue eyes,” Remy said. “And in these bloody dreams, yours are brown.”
Miss Grissell opened her mouth to speak.
Then he was standing outside the caves at the Dà Lán, the dead children Vasilik had turned, piled at his feet. Light danced across the ground before him, the clouds above parting briefly to allow the sun passage every few minutes.
I am sorry, Miss Grissell said, an odd accompaniment of echoes now augmenting her words. Before he could say another word, black wings spurted from her back, the wispy white hair transforming into tangles of the same shade; he saw eyes that were brown for only a moment more before they turned to him, now red and burning and bright.