In the blue hour before dawn, Ederras returned to Westcrown Island.
He was utterly drained. After Velenne had left, he’d sat there for another hour, not really thinking about anything, just letting the night’s solitude wash over him.
The drunk had twitched and cursed helplessly in his restless sleep, but that had only made Ederras feel more alone. Finally, when he judged that morning was near enough to make it safe, he’d summoned a wisp of divine light around one of the empty wine bottles and left that small blessing to see the young man through to daybreak.
And then he’d walked away, back into the silence of the city where the moon had set and the stars were falling, but no sun yet touched the sky.
Velenne’s kiss still burned. He’d loved her, once. Or maybe he’d only loved a mirage of her, a version that shared his ideals and passions. A version that had never really existed.
The truth was red and black. House Thrune and devils. That was who she really was. Not the girl who had enchanted him with her smile and made him believe, for a short and glorious and terrible time, that together they could restore Westcrown to its long-lost splendor. All of that had been a lie, an illusion that she’d used to worm her way deeper into the rebels’ secrets so that she could destroy them to a one.
The only question was why she’d come back. There was nothing Velenne could exploit him for now. Was she just that much a sadist?
He scrubbed the back of his hand against his mouth. The fire of her touch hadn’t faded. It frightened him how easily she did that, and how readily he responded. Desire had been a stranger to him for so long that he’d forgotten how powerful its dictates could be.
It was a relief when the walls of the inner city rose before him. Ederras stepped off the skiff that had carried him across the dawn-silvered canals to Regicona, paid the rower extravagantly, and left the docks behind.
Around him, the first signs of life were beginning to stir. Maids from the smaller houses filled water jars at the communal fountains. Along the side streets, a handful of highborn stragglers, still dressed in last night’s rumpled finery, returned discreetly from illicit assignations or secret duels. On the main boulevards, uniformed dottari took down the spent pyrahjes and set new ones for the evening to come.
No one paid Ederras much mind. He was just one more dissolute noble wandering home after a night of excessive revelry. A cluster of giggling young opera singers and courtesans, their hair tousled and lip rouge smeared, waved and called to him flirtatiously. Ederras ignored them, and after a few pouting protests, they moved on.
It’s no sin to be happy, he reminded himself. They weren’t harming anyone. The world would be a better place if pretty girls everywhere felt safe to express their vivacity freely and without fear. Wasn’t that part of what he fought for? A world that was civilized enough to allow for such gaieties?
Yes. But he was glad for their joy without having any interest in it. What he wanted was in black and red. Iron and fire.
It always had been. Even when he’d tried so hard not to see that, some part of him had always known. That was the real reason he’d never been tempted in Mendev, or during any of his journeys before he’d joined the crusade. Not because he’d been concerned about the impropriety of engaging in liaisons with his commanding officers or taking unfair liberties with his subordinates. Because what he wanted, what he’d always wanted, was something much crueler.
He reached the gates of the vaneo. The household guards saluted and opened the spiraled iron gates, allowing him entry into his ancestral home.
One path stretched in front of the paladin. A line of pale crushed stone cut a swooping arc across the manicured trees and courtyards of Vaneo Celverian, leading to the manor’s grand front doors. No branches, no forks. One clear line.
The orchard’s fig and lemon trees draped long, crisscrossing shadows over the manicured grass. The ornamental vines and trellises that ringed the garden gazebo made their own tangled knot of blue shade. Around and through them looped the path, passing from sunlight to shadow and back to sunlight again.
It goes back to the light. He had to have faith in that.
Pushing through his weariness, Ederras started down the path.
He had scarcely gotten upstairs to his old bedroom when Belvadio knocked at the door. The steward looked more tired than Ederras had ever seen him. Both years and grief told on his face, but his coat was pressed and buttoned, and his grooming was impeccable despite the ungodly earliness of the hour. “Welcome home, Master Celverian. May I bring you anything? Tea? Or slippers?”
“Tea. Strong. Thank you.” It would be an early morning, not a late night.
As the steward turned toward the door, Ederras raised a hand to stop him. “Belvadio, wait.”
“Yes?”
“Yesterday, when I first arrived, there was something you wanted to say. What was it?”
“Ah.” Again that minute tension flickered under the surface of Belvadio’s outward composure, just as it had the first day. “It may well be nothing, but … when the Hellknight was here, she asked whether anything might have been stolen from the vaneo. I said that there had not, because it was not apparent to me at the time that anything was missing. Later, however, when we were preparing your brother for burial, I realized that one of his keys had vanished.”
The hair prickled on the back of Ederras’s neck. “Which one?”
“Not one of the house keys. None that was regularly used, which is how I missed it.” Belvadio clasped his hands at his waist. A hint of a flush crept up along his neck. “It was a key to the Black Chest.”
“My uncle Stelhan’s chest?”
“The same.”
“Was anything taken from it?”
Belvadio coughed. “I cannot say, master. Forgive me. The Black Chest remains in its accustomed place, and it does not appear to have been disturbed. The lid is shut, however, and lacking the key, I cannot open it. Moreover, I do not know what your uncle kept there. If anything were missing, I would not be able to tell.” He waited a moment, then inclined his head to excuse himself when Ederras didn’t respond. “I will see to your tea.”
Ederras sat back on the side of his bed and raked a hand through his hair. The barber had cut it shorter than he’d expected, insisting that this was the current fashion in Egorian. It was startling to feel the difference, but that was the least of the things unsettling him.
Stelhan Celverian, his father’s elder brother, had died when Ederras was just a boy. He remembered Stelhan vaguely as a towering presence with a booming voice and a great golden beard, but they’d never been close. Lord Abello Celverian had always harbored a certain tension toward his brother, and even on the rare occasions that Stelhan was in Westcrown, they had seldom visited.
What little Ederras knew about his uncle had come in bits and pieces of family gossip, mostly from his mother: that Stelhan had abdicated his inheritance as a youth, saying that there was no place for him in devil-ruled Cheliax; that Stelhan had spent the better part of two decades serving Iomedae as a roving paladin across the wastes and wilds of other lands; and, finally, that Stelhan had disappeared, presumed dead, somewhere in the River Kingdoms.
The Black Chest was all he’d left behind.
Built of black-stained wood and trimmed in tarnished silver, it had sat in a cobwebbed corner of the vaneo’s cellars for as long as Ederras could remember. He and Othando had dubbed it the “Black Chest” as children, and the name had stuck. Supposedly it was enchanted, and held some of the keepsakes and trinkets that Stelhan had accumulated during his travels, but that was only family rumor. Ederras had never confirmed it for himself. He had never seen it opened. He hadn’t even known that Othando owned a key.
Could the Black Chest have held something worth killing for?
He was still mulling over that question when Belvadio returned with the tea. A hot, lemon-scented facecloth and steamed hand towel in a silver dish accompanied the cup and teapot. Ederras took them gratefully, daubing some of the night’s exhaustion away.
“What do we need to open the Black Chest?” he asked, returning the cloths to the tray. “A wizard? A locksmith? I’d like to know what was in there. Perhaps it bore some connection to the crime.”
Belvadio shook his head before Ederras had finished speaking. He whisked the towel dish away deftly, carrying it toward the door. “Lord Stelhan was always most adamant that it could only be opened by the proper key. Any attempt to force it, whether by steel or spell, could be deadly.”
“But if we don’t have—”
“There is another. There was, at least. While your uncle left the original key to your brother, to be claimed upon his majority, he bequeathed a second key to Lord Kajen Tilernos for safekeeping.”
“I see.” Ederras poured himself a cup of tea, collecting his thoughts. Lord Tilernos was well known throughout Westcrown as an upstanding and pious man, one of the few to remain in power at the head of a great house after the Thrune Ascendancy. It wasn’t entirely a surprise that his uncle would have been friends with the man. “Do you suppose Lord Tilernos might be willing to entertain a visit?”
“I’ll send a messenger to ask. He is in residence at Vira Tilernos, so I imagine we will have his answer shortly.”
Lord Tilernos’s reply was brief and to the point: he had indeed been friends with Stelhan Celverian and had thought highly of the man, and he would be delighted to meet with Stelhan’s nephew.
Later that afternoon, Ederras went to Vira Tilernos. He’d slept, washed, and changed into clean, simple clothes in white and gold-slashed blue. After a moment’s indecision, he opted to wear his sword. He didn’t think Kajen Tilernos would be offended by receiving an armed guest, and even Regicona was not without its hazards.
Vira Tilernos, unlike Vaneo Celverian, was a true estate, encompassing numerous buildings within its sweeping stone walls. The servants’ quarters and stables were tucked discreetly to the sides. In the center, at the end of a driveway paved in swirling stone tile, the great house rose in gold-and-white terraces over an expansive formal garden.
Mulberry, orange, and bay trees framed a long rectangular pool that ran through the garden’s heart. Lush-petaled flowers bloomed in carved marble vases, filling the garden with ethereal perfume. At each end of the reflecting pool, graceful sculptures depicting philosophers and muses stood as fountains.
It was a display of breathtaking wealth. Every statue and bench in the garden was a work of art, and every double-flowered lilac and silver immortelle in the vases was a botanical masterpiece. Ederras couldn’t begin to fathom how much money House Tilernos must have poured into its vira over the years. It was a wonder they hadn’t lost it all after House Thrune took power.
At the door, a halfling butler greeted him and escorted him to a cozy library off the main foyer. Two of the walls were lined with shelves of leather-bound books, their gilt-lettered spines gleaming in sedate dignity. Another held a glassed cabinet of brandy, rum, and other spirits in crystal-stoppered bottles. The last was adorned with ceremonial shields bearing heraldry from the great families of a century past, before the Chelish civil war had altered Westcrown so profoundly.
Lord Tilernos had curated his selection pointedly. His wall held only the families who had kept faith with the dead god Aroden, and then with the Inheritor, Iomedae. A third of the houses represented on those shields no longer existed. Some, like House Galonnica, had fled after the civil war, seeking refuge in Taldor or Andoran. Others, braver or less wise, had stayed and been destroyed. Most of the survivors, including House Celverian, had fallen from power, existing only as shrunken remnants of what they’d once been. None, save House Tilernos and its handful of allies and cadet lines, retained any real wealth or influence.
Ederras was studying those shields, hands clasped behind his back, when Lord Kajen Tilernos entered the library.
“Our city has changed a great deal since those days,” the lord observed from the doorway behind him. “Not for the better, I’d say.”
“Lord Tilernos. Thank you for making time to see me.” Ederras crossed the room and offered a hand in greeting.
“Call me Kajen, please. Your uncle was never one for ceremony. Stelhan would have my head if he knew I let his nephew refer to me by title.” Lord Tilernos clasped the younger paladin’s hand in a strong grip and drew him in for a quick, one-armed embrace, then stepped back, smiling. “It seems a shame we never really met until now.”
“It does,” Ederras agreed. He had seen Lord Tilernos at formal removes a few times, of course: at the mayor’s banquets, opera performances, and the glittering balls that opened and ended each social season. But Ederras had scarcely had time to become acquainted with Wiscrani noble life as an adult before he’d been forced to flee into exile, and he’d never had occasion to speak to Lord Tilernos privately.
He regretted that now, for having finally met Lord Kajen Tilernos, Ederras liked him immediately. Although the lord had to be well north of sixty, he remained vital and energetic. He was a compactly built man of middling height, with a wreath of close-cropped silver hair around a bald pate. Intelligence and good humor lit his rich brown eyes, and his mouth seemed perpetually quirked on the verge of laughter. Had Ederras not known of his reputation, he would have guessed that Lord Tilernos spent more time with books than blades. In fact, he was famous for his accomplishments with both.
“Sit,” Lord Tilernos said. “May I offer you a drink? Brandy?”
“Thank you.” Ederras accepted a glass from the lord, who poured another for himself and then settled into a red leather armchair opposite his guest. “You must be wondering why I came.”
Lord Tilernos smiled over the rim of his brandy glass. “I have a few guesses. First, however, allow me to express my regrets for your loss. I knew Othando moderately well. I liked him. He was a good man.”
Ederras bowed his head to acknowledge the kindness. “That’s part of what brings me. Othando had a key to a chest that once belonged to my uncle. The key’s gone missing. I don’t know what was in the chest, but I wonder if it might have had something to do with the attack on our house. I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on that.”
The lord didn’t answer immediately. He swirled the brandy in his glass, taking a long and thoughtful sip. “I understand you spent some time in Mendev recently. Serving Queen Galfrey.”
“That’s true.”
“What did you think of it? The crusade?”
Ederras frowned. It was his own turn to take a delaying drink of brandy as he pondered how to answer. Finally, as honestly as he could, he said: “It wasn’t as simple as I had thought or hoped it would be. But it was important. I knew my purpose there. It rekindled my faith.”
“Faith that you lost in Westcrown.”
“Yes.”
Lord Tilernos nodded, as if that answer was exactly what he had expected. “It’s hard to hold faith here. The way of the righteous is not easy anywhere, but in Cheliax, we have particular difficulties. That’s why Stelhan left. I imagine that’s why you left, as well.”
“How have you managed so long?” As far as Ederras knew, Kajen Tilernos had never faltered or fallen. For more than forty years, the patriarch of House Tilernos had been a paladin in Iomedae’s shining grace—and yet, somehow, he’d also managed to navigate the treacheries of Chelish politics without losing his family, his fortune, or his head.
“By rarely leaving my vira,” Lord Tilernos replied wryly. His smile faded after a moment, though, and he tapped his fingers reflectively on the brandy glass. “My apologies. You deserve a better answer than that. The truth is, I did it by caution and flexibility and luck. I’ve struck some bargains that I’m not sure really served the greater good, although I always tried to. I’ve doubted myself a thousand times over the years, and I’ve made some grievous mistakes. But the Inheritor recognizes and forgives our imperfections, and by her mercy I have never strayed too far from the light.” His gaze returned to the wall of shields. “It’s possible to do good in Cheliax. Even today. It’s possible, and it’s never been more important. There are so few of us left.”
“I couldn’t,” Ederras said bitterly. “I failed almost before I began.”
“You were alone. You need friends. No one is strong enough to stand in isolation, not against the world as it is today. That was the cause of my only real fight with Stelhan—that he abandoned you and your brother to be raised without proper guidance. But then, he always was more for playing the chivalrous mystery knight than for putting down roots. No matter how many times I tried to tell him that all our victories blow away in the wind if no one stands fast to secure them, he wouldn’t listen.”
“Is that why he gave you a copy of his key? To help secure whatever is in that chest?”
Lord Tilernos looked back at Ederras. A measuring glint came into his brown eyes. He leaned back in his armchair, raising the brandy glass. “After a fashion, perhaps. I think he did it so that whoever wanted to open the chest would have to either receive the key from him or come to me. So that one or the other of us would be able to judge their character.”
“Why? What’s in there?”
“An old, dangerous, broken thing.” Lord Tilernos drained his glass and stood to refill it, his expression distant and enigmatic. “You’ve heard of Citadel Gheisteno?”
“I know the name.” It was one seldom spoken in Cheliax, for it was linked to many old miseries. Once the headquarters of the Hellknight Order of the Crux, Citadel Gheisteno had been destroyed over half a century ago when its order was declared anathema by House Thrune and the other Hellknight orders.
Ederras didn’t know what the Crux had done to earn the enmity of their former brethren, but it must have been a grievous sin, for the Hellknights had stamped those heretics out completely. Not one of them had survived the slaughter. Their fortress had been razed to the ground, their bones cast into unmarked graves, their sites of worship cursed by Asmodeus’s clerics … and yet even that hadn’t ended their miseries. Twenty-five years after Citadel Gheisteno’s destruction, a ghostly replica of the citadel had materialized upon the fire-scarred mountain where the fortress had once stood. It was said to be a bleak and cursed place, its walls ringed by blackened skulls, its towers infested with wailing ghosts. Few mentioned that name now, and no one ever went there.
Lord Tilernos uncapped the crystal-stoppered carafe. “Your great-grandfather, Kelvax Celverian, was among those that brought down the Order of the Crux.”
“I thought the Order of the Scourge led that crusade.” Ederras hadn’t had any idea that his great-grandfather had been involved in the attack on Citadel Gheisteno. One more piece of family history his father had never mentioned. He finished his brandy and offered his empty glass to Lord Tilernos.
“They did.” The lord poured another splash of amber liquor for him and handed it back. “But they weren’t alone. The Order of the Crux was a Hellknight order, after all. They made fierce adversaries, and the Scourge knights weren’t about to turn allies away. Your great-grandfather was a formidable champion of Iomedae, and his name added considerably to the weight of law on their side. He was quite old by then, but nevertheless he volunteered to help them, because he believed they were fighting on the side of the righteous.”
“Were they?”
“I think so. But I wasn’t there. What I do know is that Kelvax found something in Citadel Gheisteno that he regarded with absolute horror. An indefensible sin, he called it. This was, mind you, in the judgment of a man who would work hand-in-hand with Hellknights if he thought he could serve the Inheritor by doing so. Kelvax was not one who shied from hard measures. But whatever was in Citadel Gheisteno shocked him.
“It wasn’t within his authority to pronounce judgment on the entire order, nor to decide what would be done with their possessions. Your great-grandfather, however, couldn’t countenance the continuation of whatever it was he’d seen. In the chaos and confusion of the fighting, Kelvax seized a key part of its workings. He removed it undetected, and hid it away in secret. He meant to destroy it, I believe, but never found a way to do so before he died.”
Ederras frowned. “That’s what was in the Black Chest.”
“Yes.” Lord Tilernos settled back into his armchair with a comfortable creak. “Your great-grandfather never confided this secret to anyone other than Stelhan, and Stelhan never told anyone but me. Kelvax didn’t want anyone to know unless he could trust them completely, and the only one he trusted was the grandson who followed him into Iomedae’s faith. Even then, he never told Stelhan exactly what it was. Only that it was never to be revealed.”
“And Stelhan just left it in the vaneo?” Ederras asked, baffled. “It’s practically unguarded. It’s just a dusty box in the cellar. Belvadio said it was warded, but I don’t know whether that’s true. I’ve never sensed any magic on the chest.”
“There isn’t any. Stelhan told his servants that to keep them from tinkering with it. But in reality there’s no enchantment, and the key is just a key.” Fishing around in his pocket, Lord Tilernos came up with a small steel key on a worn leather fob. He tossed it across the room to Ederras. “Both your uncle and I believed that there are two ways to keep a dangerous thing safe. You can lock it up in a ferociously guarded vault, ringed by traps and monsters. Or you can drop it quietly in an unmarked box, stow it in the least likely place, and hope the whole world forgets.”
“That didn’t happen, though,” Ederras said. He weighed the key in his hand. It felt like almost nothing. Too small, by far, to be the reason for Othando’s death. “Someone remembered, and they killed my brother for it.”