21 LIKE FATHER
Malekh left, and with him Remy’s urge to kick the man in the shins for the public display. He followed his father into the large commander’s tent.
“Quite an unusual man, that vampire lord of yours,” Lord Pendergast said conversationally. “For all his unflappable air, I detected a hint of nervousness from him. You, on the other hand, have never been able to hide your emotions from me.”
“You’re not angry?”
“I had hoped that you would know to place some distance between you and they, the same as you did with the Duchess of Astonbury and her friends. There is some merit to being involved with a powerful kindred court—far more advantageous than being married to any other noble house in Elouve that comes to mind, in fact.” He raised his hand, chuckling at the look on Remy’s face. “There is no need to act like it’s an insult, Remington. I am merely stating facts. Do you know that the priests have started spreading rumors again?”
Remy froze. “About me?”
“No, about me.” Edgar Pendergast folded his hands behind his back, gazing down at the papers neatly piled on the small table. “Many refuse to see my miraculous recovery as anything short of witchcraft. They are saying that I, like my only heir, had succumbed and become kindred myself. I was quick to shut down such talk, of course, but I do not doubt that such chatter will rise again before long.”
“I am sorry.”
“There is no reason to be. I have never paid much mind to what they think of us. It is the queen and Aluria I serve, and fools always come with the territory.” He paused. “While my opinions of most kindred have not changed, I am willing to make an exception for Lord Malekh and Lady Song. But surely that is not the reason why you asked to speak to me away from their ears?”
“I don’t know what you intend to do with the alliance Aluria has forged with the kindred,” Remy said grimly, “but I want you to honor your end of the bargain. I don’t want you to betray the clans as soon as this matter with Mother is over and done with, and I won’t have you going back on your word after you’d pledged to work with them.”
“You think I would turn traitor?” Lord Pendergast shook his head. “Of all the people to fall for, Remington. Two vampires, each a ruler of their own court, in the middle of a war. Are you sure that this is the path you’re willing to take? You will never be able to return to Elouve.”
“Oh, but I’m coming back to Elouve,” Remy said heatedly, “and I’m bringing both of them with me. I’d take Xiaodan out to a ball and dance with her. Bring Malekh back to the Ministry again and give him the run of the facilities there, to his heart’s content. I’m perfectly content to show them off, not hide them like the partnership embarrasses me. I give even less of a fuck than you about what they think of me, and I’m not going to hide who I love just because the ton are the fools you say they are.”
Lord Pendergast watched him carefully, though for what, Remy didn’t know. “Very well,” he said. “I do not intend to betray the kindred unless they do so first, and it seems to me that likelihood is greater. While I believe both Lord Malekh and Lady Song honorable, at least as much as kindred can be, I have no such compunctions with their other companions. Should they prove us false, I will have no qualms about cutting them down. And I expect you to honor Aluria first and foremost. Protect your lovers, if you wish. They will be valuable allies with or without the other courts’ backing. But Ligaya—” He frowned. “There is more to this than what it appears.”
“What do you mean?”
“That wasn’t your mother, Remington.”
“You’ve been telling me that ever since she—”
“No, I mean she isn’t your mother. The kindred we faced at Elouve and even at Meridian Keep had some of Ligaya’s spirit, but this was someone else entirely. Something else.”
“What did Aluria do to Wikaan, Father? Any mention of it sets her off.”
Edgar Pendergast rubbed at his nose, sighed. “I always told you not to believe those bloody historians, Remington. Liars, all of them. Aluria professed to have saved Wikaan from the vampires that made a resurgence there decades ago, but it’s a rather careful wording of what truly happened. There were fresh sightings of a vampire clan within the Whispering Isles, true, but they were peaceful for the most part. They claimed no rulership of Wikaan, however, made no steps to seize power or pose a threat within and outside its borders. I should know. I was there.”
Remy stared wordlessly at him.
“It was where we met,” Lord Pendergast said. “She was not born in the main archipelago, but along one of the smaller islands dotting the peninsula. An islet really, one of those small fishing villages that you would think little of visiting, the ones you could walk from end to end in the space of an hour. I had traveled there based on reports of this so-called coven, to determine whether they might pose a threat to us. I was forced to take shelter at the nearest hut when a storm broke without warning: a hut I thought abandoned, until I saw her by the fire she was only beginning to kindle.”
Lord Valenbonne paused. He looked different now, Remy thought. The hard look his father often wore softened visibly, a trace of a smile faint on his lips. “She was not very happy to find a Reaper in her home, despite my apologies. This small woman threatened a hunter with her little kettle, saying she would brain me unless I told her what I was doing in her home.
“She kept the pot trained on me until the rains lightened enough for me to leave, even after I told her who I was and how I meant her no harm. Even when we started talking about other matters, of the food she was cooking and her begrudgingly sharing some with me. Long before the storm had passed, I knew I would make her my wife. She was still none too pleased when I returned a few hours later armed with flowers instead of Breaker, though she relented a little more each day after, with every new visit I made.”
Remy was silent. This was not the tale he’d been expecting from his father, who looked almost like a different person as he recounted his story.
“I courted her for months. She was the leader of her tiny village, but admitted she looked forward to my visits. Wound up spending more time in that small hut than in Elouve in those months. It was the happiest I’ve ever been.”
“What happened?” Remy asked quietly when his father stopped.
“King Beluske and Aluria happened.” Lord Edgar Pendergast said with a grim smile. He stopped before one of the two wooden chairs within the tent, but made no move to sit, content to remain behind it, a hand resting at the backrest. “In the course of my reconnaissance, I sent letters telling him that the Wikaans were peaceful. That the one historian who knew anything told me those kindred had warred with the Night King and long since sundered their court willingly, choosing to live simply among the mortals. Not even I could detect any kindred, so integrated they would have been within these communities with none the wiser, not even their family or friends. Ligaya didn’t even know that Wikaan vampires still existed, that they had a court of their own. Unlike the Eight Courts, Wikaan kindred chose who to turn.” He let out a humorless bark. “Ironic, don’t you think?”
“Despite my reports and pleas, King Beluske chose to invade. He gave the Reapers permission to slay anyone who resisted, under suspicion of being kindred. He decreed that I had spent far too much time there, that my objectivity was colored by my feelings for the locals. So he sent Astonbury to take command instead, and the attack took place without my knowledge.
“The small island Ligaya lived on, along with many others, was utterly destroyed, family and friends scattered to the winds if not outright killed.”
His father shook his head. “I did not know Beluske’s plans until the bloodbath had already begun. I could not go against the king’s orders, but I protected Ligaya, spirited her away. I told her it would be easier for her to live with me in Elouve, that she would enjoy being a duchess. I didn’t know until much later how much anger and resentment she harbored against me and Aluria, nor that she would be despised by the Alurians for hailing from what they now call the Witching Isles. Astonbury was particularly vicious, delighting in the scandal. She drew away from me, little by little, over the years, no matter my entreaties.”
It explained Astonbury and Valenbonne’s longstanding hatred of each other.
“I thought time would help her heal, but it was not to be. I started hearing rumors. How she had been spotted with another man, some stranger in Elouve no one else knew. Speculations that it was a foreign count, or a merchant, or even a bloody stable hand. That she’d taken in a lover, multiple bedmates. It drove me mad with jealousy, and still I could not let her go, even knowing she hated me to go to such extremes.” Valenbonne’s voice was steady and even, and yet he gripped the back of the chair with such force that the wood creaked under his grip. “I was willing to look the other way, to believe the gossip was false and that she would be honest with me in the end. Until the day I learned she’d eloped. My life ended that day. When we found her body months later, I was still numb. All that remained was my own hate.”
He looked at Remy, regal and proud. “You look too much like her, and all the love I had for her had burned up so that I had none more to spare.”
Remy swallowed. “Why didn’t you give me up, then?” It was not uncommon for noblemen to reject bastards, even their own, and have them brought up in some other establishment, fostered by others well paid for the task. No one else in Elouve would have batted an eye, would have thought it cruel or out of the ordinary.
He wondered why his father had never taken another wife. Never thought to make another heir.
Something crossed his father’s expression. “There is something you ought to know about Pendergast men, Remington,” he said instead of answering Remy’s question. He moved toward the tent’s exit, lifted the flap open. Outside, the kindred were preparing to leave, and the other soldiers were already breaking camp, intending the same. The skies had darkened, the clouds gray and heavy with hints of stars filtering through their haze. Lord Valenbonne looked up at the scarce pinpoints of light. “Your great-grandfather fought countless kindred, only to die in a duel protecting his lady’s honor,” he said. “His grandfather before that was killed protecting his wife and child from a coven that swept through northern Aluria, though their marriage had been dissolved years before. My own father lost to vice and drink; a slow death, as he was unable to comprehend a longer life without my mother, who passed long before him. If there is one thing you should know about us Pendergasts, Remington, it is that while we take betrayal poorly, we feel too strongly for it to matter. Be careful with the Lord Malekh and Lady Song. Never love anyone so much that it makes them the death of you.”
THE RIDE back to the Allpriory was slower than when they’d set out. The kindred were not so eager to return when they came bearing bad news. Malekh himself seemed willing to linger, letting the others enter the lake while he remained on the shore with Xiaodan and Remy, to give the latter time to steel himself for the dive.
“I did it without meaning to,” Xiaodan said. “I think that the closer I am to her physically, the more I am able to draw from the sun inside her that she took from me.”
“And if you tap into it and wind up hurting yourself more you hurt her?” Malekh asked.
Xiaodan looked chastened. “Well, what else can I do? It’s the only way I can think to get back my powers, even with how she was.”
“How she was?”
“Something about her was wrong,” Xiaodan said slowly. “Even though I can feel the sun burning inside her, she was so cold. Nothing like our previous encounters.”
“My father thinks along those same lines,” Remy muttered. “And so do I, for that matter. She was different this time. She didn’t even remember the Alurian ivy she’d kept.”
“We were in battle, Remy. She might not have remembered in the heat of the moment.”
“She loved that plant. She lectured me about it in one of the first dreams I shared with her. But she acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about.”
“The rest have departed,” Malekh said. “Are you ready, Pendergast?”
“And what the fuck was all that shit you said to my father?” Remy blurted out. “About my role in your court.”
“Did you intend to turn it down?” Malekh asked.
Remy colored. “I should. Just because I’m with you, doesn’t mean I want to be some blasted ruler! I don’t know the first thing about leading anyone.”
“You do,” Xiaodan said. “You were wonderful with Renzo and the others at the Fata Morgana.”
“It sounds like a position for someone more… permanent,” Remy said, the words sticking to his throat.
“Are we going to start this again?” Malekh asked gravely. “We want you however you want to be with us. I apologize for saying such to your father before we had the chance to talk to you.”
“You have no obligation to do anything for his court or mine,” Xiaodan added. “You’re perfectly free to represent Aluria in any future affairs—”
“I’d rather leave the politics to you two,” Remy blurted out. “But. I could… train some of the others again? Help with supplies? I’d be happy to serve as a go-between for Aluria, but I have no wish to go back to Elouve. I want to stay in either Fata Morgana or Chànggē Shuĭ, or travel between them. Wherever you both are.”
They stared at him. Finally, Xiaodan cleared her throat. “We weren’t expecting you to make a decision so soon,” she said, her voice light.
“Shouldn’t I have?”
“No,” Malekh said quietly. “This pleases us.”
Never love anyone so much, his father had said, but it was far too late.
MALEKH WASTED no time summoning a quick council to gather all the court leaders together, and Remy knew how much of a headache that was going to be. With the Night Empress’s claim, there was a chance Raghnall and Hylasenth would renege on their oaths, whether out of spite or a desire to uphold custom. Even Fanglei was something of a dark horse, for all her assurances.
Malekh had waved off Remy’s attempts to help. None of the other familiars would be in attendance, he was told, and it would be far better for him to return to their chambers and wait.
There, Remy dozed off without intending to and found himself in paradise.
He was sitting on a beach with the clearest blue waters he’d ever seen, slender trees with large, fanlike leaves swaying in the breeze above him. He watched the waves lap at the shore a few feet behind him, the sun warm on his face.
He turned. Small huts were lined up neatly in a row along the sand. Smoke rose from a small campfire beside one. A large cooking pot simmered cheerfully over the fire, and the smell made his stomach growl.
“Was this where you lived?” he asked.
Yes, said the Night Empress from behind him. It was a simple life, but a peaceful one.
She moved to the pot, taking a bowl from midair, and ladled soup into it. Come. It may not warm your belly for true, but perhaps it can soothe your soul.
Remy perched himself on a nearby rock and accepted the bowl. It tasted sour and tangy at the same time, with bits of chopped meat and vegetables floating to the surface. It tasted real. “It’s good,” he said.
He basked in her companionable silence awhile, neither of them wanting to speak. A dog came to bark importantly at them, then trotted away. From a distance, he could see fishing boats hauling in the catch of the day with their nets.
“To answer your question,” Remy said. “Yes. I love them. Does that anger you?”
No. It is clear that they are devoted to you.
A heartbeat. Two. Three. “Father loved you. When rumors circulated that you had eloped with someone else, it broke his heart.”
He braced himself for her rage, did not expect her melancholy. He sent reports to his king, swearing he would protect my home. He spirited me away and left my family and friends to their fate, to live among those responsible for their deaths. Fond as he was of me, he despised vampires more. Her voice turned pensive. I had not expected people to think I would take a lover, when all I wanted was reassurance that I was not turning into what my husband hated most.
“Etrienne Sauveterre found you,” Remy said with a sudden, awful realization. “Was it he who put that First Court sigil on you?”
No. Not he. The Night Empress hunched over, face wracked with pain. There is something you must know, but I… I do not remember. Why can’t I remember?
“You were not yourself when you fought the other kindred today,” Remy pressed on.
I recall little of the battle. But why? Why? I am most myself in these dreams, but I cannot reconcile this version of myself to the reality of me. When I took in the vampiress’s sun—oh, it burned me, yet its pain made me aware that I am not myself. But the thought does not always flare so brightly, and then I do not remember. What was it? What has—
She rose to her feet without warning and crossed over to where Remy sat in an instant. Before he could defend himself, she had taken his shoulders and began shaking him hard.
Wake, the Night Empress cried. You must wake, my Remy. Danger is close, and death draws near, wanting. Wake! Wake.
Remy startled awake on the armchair he’d fallen asleep on and had little time to clear the cobwebs of his mind before he beheld the shadow before him, poised to strike.
He bolted out of his seat to hit the floor as a dagger flashed in the near darkness, the hilt embedding itself into the backrest. Remy scrambled to his feet, his first instinct to grab for Breaker, only to realize that he’d kept it leaning on the side of the bed several feet away, and his would-be killer was far closer than that.
He dodged again when the assassin struck at him, the blade narrowly missing his side as he made another mad dash for his weapon. The knife slammed into the floor in front of him as the killer moved in between him and his scythes, and Remy flung himself backward to avoid the next swipe. The fires had burned down low, and he couldn’t see much of the intruder, only a robe and hood. He ducked down, the blade sailing past his head, and then made a desperate grab at his attacker’s wrist. A deft flick and the knife skittered to the floor.
The assassin had likely more arsenal, so Remy risked turning his back on his attacker to make the final leap for Breaker, grabbing on to it like a lifeline and spinning back around with it firmly in his grip, finally ready to fight back.
But the room was empty. Whoever the attempted killer was had fled in the interim, leaving him with nothing but the faded embers of the fireplace and the encroaching darkness.