Game of Towers and Treachery (The Shadow's Apprentice Book 2) Page 15

  Lady Verrikose folded her hands primly in her lap. “I suppose you expect a ‘thank you’.”

  “No. But I do expect you to cease all coercion and control of the remaining menagerie. You will leave the creatures to accept the palace grounds as their rightful habitat. No more encouraging this ‘restlessness’ that you thought was such a clever trick to skirt the rules.”

  “Do you really not think they will grow restless on their own? They were born for one purpose, Lady Despiris – to hunt. Whether or not I exploited that instinct, it is still the purpose with which they were instilled. You are merely putting off the inevitable.”

  “Perhaps,” Despiris admitted. “But at least if they reach that point of their own volition, without you obsessively interjecting to cheer them on, we will not risk this dastardly ‘melding’ you enlightened me about, and we might actually get somewhere sending you into their minds to correct them. Fear not, Lady Verrikose, there will always be possible need of your services here at court. Just not in the hunt for the Shadowmaster.”

  To that, Lady Verrikose found her way past her defeated glower to a snide chuckle, determined not to completely relinquish her standing. “Please, Despiris. You may have the cards to cripple me, but do not think you can so easily abolish your competition in the hunt. I do not need a menagerie of fantastical beasts to keep my place in the hunt. I made a whole career out of my specialty without the aid of mythical creatures.”

  That was true enough. “Of course. Employ your ravens and your rats. There is little I can do about that. But if you think, after everything, that such party tricks will be the key to the Shadowmaster’s downfall…” She made a pitying expression. “Well…I will leave you to it.”

  The glower had returned, and it seemed Lady Verrikose might not have the wherewithal to contrive a suitable retort for once. She just looked weary.

  Despiris rose to see herself out.

  “Do not underestimate the raven and the rat, Lady Despiris,” the noblewoman’s quiet voice stopped her at the door. “The raven is among the most ruthless and intelligent birds on the gods’ green earth, and rats can find their way into all the nooks and crannies of the city which Ophelious’ menagerie could not.”

  Glancing over her shoulder, Despiris gave the beastress’s warning due consideration. “Enjoy the nooks and crannies of the world, then, Lady Verrikose. But I do hope it is not the mind of a rat you eventually find yourself trapped in, when you succumb to the obsession just like everyone else.”

  *

  It came to pass, on the matter of the plague, that a young mystic-medic by the name of Fayvyr cracked the code for a trial cure.

  Positive results were instantaneous. All available personnel were put to the task of mass-producing the cure, and one could nearly feel the city-wide breeze as a perpetual sigh of relief swept the capital.

  Fayvyr became an overnight heroine. The first preternaturally-gifted soul to be openly and widely celebrated.

  That will certainly go a long way in the cause for preternatural acceptance, Despiris thought, and it was almost instantaneous that the playwrights and scribes began reworking the script for Riftfolk to include this heroic new character who saved Fairoway with magic.

  And there would be no better time to tempt the masses to attend the theater, than after a dark span of isolation and despair when everyone was in need of a good boost in morale.

  The king was already planning the celebratory ball.

  “We shall have roast pheasant and candied sweet potatoes and venison pie and steamed pudding – and gooseberry tarts! And this Fayvyr Vladanor – she will be my guest of honor.”

  “Very good, your Eminence.” Isavor’s event planner scurried down the hall in his wake, skipping to keep up with the extra pep in the king’s step and struggling to take notes at the same time.

  It was hard not to catch on to the king’s infectious good mood, but all Despiris could think was, I suppose this means I’m going to have to wear a dress.

  It was difficult to be so ecstatic, too, when the good news came just too late for those she loved.

  Po still mourned. Still ached.

  So Despiris did as well.

  She joined him on the windowsill that night, where he was curled up against the cold staring out the window at the snowfall. The side of his forehead pressed against the glass, his quiet breaths fogging the pane.

  How to convince him a party might do him good?

  “Hey, Po,” she greeted gently.

  He continued to stare, unblinking, almost as if he hadn’t heard. But his lips parted, and, so softly she hardly made out the words, he murmured back, “Hi, Des.”

  Something cradled in his fingers caught her eye. “What do you have there?”

  Brought out of his trance, he glanced down at his hand, parting his fingers just wide enough that Despiris identified the black rose. He hesitated, running a thumb down the edge of a petal. “A gift,” he said softly, and Despiris was happy to hear those as his choice words.

  “Can I see?” After a moment of reluctance, he handed it to her, and she turned the rose over in her hand. The petals had dried and shriveled, but the raven feathers were as glossy and lush as ever.

  “I found it on my mum’s grave. It’s…it’s from the Master of the Shadows. Isn’t it?”

  Despiris still hadn’t let on to the boy that she was an associate of the legendary Shadowmaster. Everyone else knew, at this point, but she’d never broached the subject with the children. Would it hurt anything, if Po knew?

  Would he think any differently of her?

  “Yes,” she replied to his question, undecided on revealing her own identity but seeing no reason to lie to him about that. “That was kind of him.”

  “The stories don’t talk about him being kind.”

  “No.” She twirled the rose ruefully in her fingers. “They don’t.” It was easy to grow sentimental, to get lost in the tangle of petals, thinking about the many redeeming qualities of Clevwrith’s that no one would ever know about.

  Po broke her out of her wandering thoughts. “Why would he care about my mother?”

  Glancing back up at him, she handed the rose back before she could start to look too possessive of the token. Should I tell him? There was little point trying to hide the truth, she realized. He would catch on to her position at court before too long, hear the servants whisper about her. It was just…she’d been confused enough about right and wrong in her maturity, thanks to her association with a criminal mastermind. The children were impressionable. What would they make of the convoluted relationships she entertained? One of the children had already decided he wanted to be just like the Master of the Shadows when he grew up, and, well… Frankly, Despiris wasn’t sure it was something she wanted to encourage.

  But she could not hide the truth from Po forever. Probably not for much longer.

  She drew a composing breath, following his erstwhile gaze to the snowfall. “There is something you don’t know about me, Po.”

  Bemused, he looked up at her. “About you?”

  “About me. And the Master of the Shadows.”

  The wheels of his mind turned. “You said once… That you had seen him. Do you know him?”

  “I do. Quite well, in fact. You might say he…trained me, the same way I’ve been training you, and the others.”

  Po looked at her in a new light, a sense of wonder chasing away a margin of his melancholy. “You were trained by the Master of the Shadows?”

  “Yes.” Not for the first time, nostalgia set her heartstrings off. “He trained me. Fed me. Cared for me. Many don’t know, but underneath the mask, behind the ominous propaganda, he is a kind man. And I wish more knew that about him.”

  Po digested her words, but frowned again in the end. “Don’t they hunt him, here?”

  She grew rueful – or was that guilt? – once again. “Yes. They do.”

  “And you work for them?”

  It was difficult, now that she tried to
explain it, to clarify her position. How could Clevwrith be her friend, and yet she hunted him? How could she defend him and condemn him at once?

  If you can’t explain it in simple terms, how can you stand by it?

  Her words to the king about it being a riddle – confusing even to her, a possible mistake – echoed tauntingly in the back of her head.

  She shook off the notion, reminding herself that, riddle or not, she was following her convictions. There were things that kept her here. “When you get older,” she explained gently to Po, making it up as she went, “you’ll realize that it’s not always easy to tell who is good, and who is bad. Sometimes good people do bad things. And bad people do good things. We are all just people. Sometimes people make mistakes. Sometimes people have to do what’s right for themselves. And sometimes people have to do what’s right for others.”

  Po hung on her every word, that eagerness to learn still rapt beneath his grief. He’d always taken her tutelage to heart, soaking it up as if every new skill, every tidbit of enlightenment, brought color and life to his otherwise dull existence.

  Which only increased the pressure to get it right. Hoping she wasn’t steering him awry, Despiris finished her sentiment. “Sometimes people deserve mercy. And sometimes people have to accept the consequences of their actions. It can be confusing. And messy. I am trying to catch the Master of the Shadows, Po. But I don’t want to hurt him. Sometimes you have to stop people from hurting themselves. Or others.”

  “Does he hurt people?”

  Despiris affectionately tucked an unruly lock of red hair behind his ear. “Not on purpose. But we don’t always realize when our actions indirectly hurt another.” There she went, playing the noble card, when she knew it was still a game as much as anything else. But she pushed that thought away. That was not what she wanted Po to take away from this conversation. Her situation with Clevwrith was wholly unique. There were angles that would never apply to another set of human beings. No sense in filling Po’s head with life lessons that would only ever pertain to one exceptional man and his fateful apprentice.

  “What will they do to him, if they catch him?” His concern was touching, and Despiris had to consciously fabricate a wall to keep such loaded questions from re-filling her head with doubts.

  What will they do to Clevwrith, if I hand him over to the law? “They will put him in prison.” It made it real, saying it. But she reminded herself just as quickly: A prison I broke out of almost faster than they slapped me in it.

  And it was true; she knew that part of her had been willing to play such a large role in the hunt because, for one thing, she didn’t necessarily expect to best the Master himself, and even if she did – she knew in her heart there was no prison that could ever hold Clevwrith. Not forever.

  Surely, no matter the outcome of this ridiculous hunt, he would find a way to escape.

  Surely.

  A flicker of uncertainty gave her pause, but just for a moment. She swallowed it, tucking it safely behind her resolve. Clevwrith needed to taste his mortality. Because if he didn’t, Despiris was afraid he’d be force-fed it one day in a lethal dose.

  So in the end, she was doing it for him as much as for anyone else.

  Or she was just as good at fooling herself as she was the rest of the world.

  Recoiling from the dark spiral of introspection that always awaited her on the matter, she re-donned her mask of intrepidness. Suddenly, a party sounded splendid. A distraction she needed as much as Po did.

  Quickly, she formulated a brief reassurance to put any of Po’s concerns to rest. “Don’t trouble yourself over the Shadowmaster, Po. He’s a big boy. He can handle the consequences of his actions. And he will get a fair trial. I’m here to make sure of that. Or I can break him back out just as fast.” She gave Po a playful nudge with her elbow, and he ran a thumb thoughtfully over a withered black petal. Despiris cleared her throat, ready to move on past the subject. “The king is throwing a ball tonight. I think you should go. We should go.”

  Po looked reluctant.

  “At least for a little bit. If you hate it, we can come straight back here and mope in the windowsill some more. Promise.”

  Hesitating a moment longer, he swallowed and nodded. “Alright. I’ll go. Just for a little bit.”

  “Good.” Despiris gave his shoulder a squeeze as she rose. “I’ll have some fancy attire rummaged up for both of us.”

  Soon they were both primped and preened, outfitted like royalty and ready to make the grandest of entrances.

  “Po!” she exclaimed when she saw him, all dolled up in a black and gold ensemble with his hair combed neatly to one side. “You look like a proper gentleman!”

  Despite himself, he fought a shy smile, ducking his head with a blush. “Thanks, Des. You look pretty.”

  “Just putting on the finishing touches,” she said as a servant dusted her cheeks with rouge. And in spite of her reservations regarding the womanly dress-code, Despiris had to admire herself in the floor-length mirror. She was a vision in green, swathed in a satiny, cascading emerald gown and bedazzled from head to foot with matching embellishments. From her gem-studded up-do to her trailing, sequin-speckled lace train, she was a glittering, gliding masterpiece.

  Yet the haunting question wouldn’t rest: Am I becoming unrecognizable?

  She stared at her reflection, that troubling undercurrent shimmering beneath her satiny-smooth façade. How could she be sure if she was finding herself or losing herself down this defiant, uncharted path?

  She could only hope that, when it was all over and she finally stood staring at her prize, at Clevwrith reduced to a common criminal behind the cold, unyielding bars of captivity, she found what she was looking for.

  18

  Uninvited Guest

  “We shall invite everyone – the entire kingdom!” exclaimed the king in excitement for the upcoming ball.

  “We can’t invite everyone, your Majesty.”

  “Nonsense, Crow – I said everyone! Your grandmother, the chimney sweeps, the Master of the Shadows. Invite them all!”

  “We aren’t inviting the Master of the Shadows, Sire.”

  “Why not? You never know – he might come.”

  “I’m not–”

  “Invite him!”

  Rolling his eyes, Crow let the king continue down the hall without him. “I’m not inviting him,” he muttered.

  *

  Despiris swept into the ballroom with Po at her side, instantly overwhelmed by the festive chaos. An onslaught of light and music and people bombarded her senses, colorful bodies churning together like paint thrown at a canvas, the drone of conversation confusing itself with the meandering warm-up of cello strings.

  She immediately wanted to escape out one of the many sets of double doors that opened to moonlit balconies overlooking the gardens. But she’d convinced Po this would be good for him, and she wasn’t about to abandon him.

  Instead, she led him to the refreshments table, where an array of beautiful delicacies towered and tiered in fantastic abundance. Everything was dyed or styled or sculpted or embellished, almost too pretty to eat.

  Po’s eyes went wide. “This is for us?”

  “Whatever you’d like. As much as you’d like.”

  Overwhelmed, Po looked up and down the long table, struggling to find where he should start.

  “Here,” Despiris said, plucking a bright green pistachio cupcake from the very top of a cascading stand. “Try this.” She caught a cloyingly sweet whiff as she passed the cupcake to Po. Mesmerized, he admired the glittering sugar crystals that crusted the top, but, unlike Despiris, he found no reservations demolishing the pretty dessert in short succession.

  Green crumbs tumbled down his black ensemble.

  Chuckling, Despiris swiped him a napkin as well, and then some punch to wash down his greedy mouthfuls.

  Amazed by all the rich flavors suddenly bombarding his senses, Po was instantly questing down the table for his next co
nquest. Relieved to see him momentarily distracted from his woes, Despiris smiled after him, then turned to peruse the display for her own choice of refreshment.

  For Po’s sake, she would enjoy herself tonight. She would set the tone of merriment, and hopefully it would be infectious.

  Of course, in order to fully enjoy herself, she had to allow herself a little bit of mischief. And so, as she finished a delightful puff pastry, she scanned the ballroom for opportunity as the musicians finished their warm-up and let loose the first true number of the night. A smattering of couples glided to the center of the ballroom to dance, the floor clearing around them.

  Despiris’s gaze skittered past a black-clad figure lurking in the pillar shadows before doubling back. It wasn’t what she’d had in mind, but…

  A wicked little grin spread suddenly over her face. There was no love lost between her and the Lord Advisor, but that would make it all the more awkward for him. And Despiris realized she did so want to see him squirm.

  Drawing herself up and putting on the poised air she’d cultivated as Lady Odria Vidalla at the Tricovan court, she gathered her voluptuous skirt free of her feet and swept around the edge of the room to where Mosscrow skulked.

  The Lord Advisor did not immediately notice her approach. His shrouded eyes shifted sourly about the room, every display of merriment seeming to impress him less than the last. A dancing couple spun past his nook, the lady’s periwinkle skirt flaring out to brush Mosscrow’s robes, and his scowl deepened, nearly turning his face inside-out. He straightened his robes indignantly, brushing imaginary specks of mirth from his person.

  Clearly, he needed a party as much as Po and Despiris.

  “Good evening, Lord Mosscrow,” Despiris greeted, startling him.

  “Evening,” he grumbled back, his acknowledgment terse and brief before returning to the festivities.

  Unperturbed, Despiris sidled in behind him and looked over his shoulder, following his gaze to the dance floor. “And which one of the lovely ladies has caught the eye of the Lord Advisor?”