The Skylighter (The Keepers' Chronicles Book 2) (10 page)

“The informant said that upon Fernando’s death you would be named steward until Rafi or one of his children could fill the role. It would have made more sense to will the state to you outright—properly dividing the power and whatnot.”

“No, Fernando knew what he was doing.” Dom snorted. “I’d be a puppet while someone like . . .”

Mortimer? He’s served as our secretary for decades. He wouldn’t sell my family’s secrets. Would he?

“Someone like?” she pressed, but he ignored her, trying to comb through the estate’s staff for possible culprits.

What about Raul? He’s been serving as weaponsmaster for only a few months. I’ve been trusting him with so much. With defense plans and training the men till Mother names the next captain.

What do I even know about him?

“Lord Dominic.” She was standing close again, her hand covering his on the neck of the bottle. “I told you about the spy in good faith and hope I can ask for a favor in return.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“I don’t particularly care, Maribelle. You just admitted to buying information about my household from spies.”

“I need you to pretend that you care for me.”

His mouth went dry with her nearness, but he mustered a quick, “No.”

“Would it really be so awful?” She leaned close, her lips curving in a tempting grin. “I’ll share every bit of information I discover that pertains to Santiago.”

“No.”

“And,” she said as she pulled the bottle from his hand and took a swig of her own. “I’ll help you catch your spy.”

A hum startled Pira from a dead sleep. It throbbed on the air, making the hairs on her arms stand at attention. Her heart faltered, then raced to march in time with the beat.

“What is that?” She sat up in her small pallet on the inn’s floor, and pressed her hand to her chest.

Across the room Vibora burst into motion, flying out of bed, reaching for the blouse she’d laid across the chair the night before. Her fingers sailed through the buttons, closing them all, then loosening the top few.

“Get up. Get dressed.” Vibora stepped into a skirt. It was sleek and fitted, and completely unsuited for any type of activity beyond standing.

The pulsing thrum moved into Pira’s head, making her feel clumsy and disoriented. She struggled to tie the laces on her pants.

“Didn’t I tell you to hurry?” Vibora sent a little zip of power through the collar that cleared Pira’s mind enough that she could function.

“What’s going on?” Pira asked as she stamped her feet into her boots. “What is that?”

In response Vibora shocked her twice more, and Pira staggered. “You are not to ask questions. You are not to
talk
.” Her face had grown dark with rage. The muscles in her thin neck stood out as she stepped closer to Pira. “He will cut out your tongue and feed it to you if you speak out of turn.”

Weakness made Pira stupid with anger. “Who? Inimigo again?” she growled, thinking of the bag of eyes on the floor downstairs.

With hard fingers Vibora clenched Pira’s chin. “That pulse you feel is
essência
—so much
essência
that he could burn Cruzamento to rubble in a blink and leave nothing but the dirt behind.”

Through the collar Pira’s power was sucked out of her body and flowed into Vibora. Dizzy, Pira barely caught herself from crashing to the floor.

“Be afraid, Pira,” Vibora cautioned as she turned to the small mirror above the washstand. “You’re about to meet someone who makes Inimigo seem like a rabbit in comparison. Someday that rotten little duke will kneel and lick the dirt off Sapo’s boots.”

•  •  •

Pira expected anyone with the power to make her physically sick to have a presence to match. She imagined Sapo as an imposing figure, tall and broad, with a warrior’s body. Someone like her brother or Leão.

As she reached the midpoint of the stairs, she stopped and surveyed the scene, looking—as always—for an avenue of escape and anyone with the capacity to stand in her way.

She must have passed over Sapo twice, placing him with the servants that fluttered around the night-darkened room. She realized the one person at the center of all the activity, who lazily unpinned his cloak and draped it over a padded chair, was the only person not hurrying to complete a task. Still, it wasn’t until Vibora threw herself into the man’s arms that Pira knew for certain.

And almost laughed.

He was a few fingers shorter than Vibora, short for a Keeper, with a slight build and plain, regular features. The only remarkable thing about him was the sandy-blond hair that curled around his ears like a child with an overgrown haircut.

Then he opened his mouth.

“Vibora, my love,” he said in a rich baritone. His voice commanded as much attention as the energy that pulsed around him. Honey tones drew Pira in as he spoke. She couldn’t hear the rest of his words clearly, but the sound of his voice made her want to be close to him, to please him.

She straightened, realizing that she was leaning toward Sapo, and a strange ache settling deep in the pit of her stomach.

Spirit. He’s using his affinity to compel everyone—maybe even Vibora—to do his will.

His servants, perhaps ten in all, returned from their tasks and settled at the long mahogany table or on the rug near his feet. They wore thick silver collars around their necks, all watching him with rapt attention. It may have been Pira’s imagination, but they seemed to shiver like good hounds waiting to heed his next command.

Vibora stepped back a bit, and Sapo gave her a quick, tactical kiss on the lips before he caught Pira peeping from the stairs.

“What did you bring me?” he asked, his dulcet voice urging Pira’s feet down another stair. His gaze was a physical pressure, rounding her back; his words, a heavy hand forcing her to bow.

She fought the weight of his power, struggling to break free of the swirling force, but it pulled her under and held her there till she stopped thrashing.

“This is Pira,” Vibora said, with a gesture toward the stairs. The movement was slightly timid; perhaps she wasn’t as excited to see Sapo as she seemed. “She’s a full-blooded Keeper, Earth affinity.”

Sapo’s eyebrows rose as he studied Pira. “You found her on this side of the wall?”

“There were four Keepers total, all on an unsanctioned mission to check the stability of the barrier. It’s why I came immediately to meet you and sent Barrata to complete our assignment.”

Vibora relayed the story she’d tortured out of Pira: the Mage Council’s inaction, the four-member crew’s escape beyond Olinda’s borders, and their hunt for the princess. At the end of the retelling Pira wished she’d been able to hold more back. But every time Barrata had called for his rats, Pira had spilled new information. She’d been able to keep quiet on only one subject, and that was more because Barrata and Vibora didn’t know to ask than because of any great act of will.

She’d kept Leão’s identity a secret. Vibora knew Leão was strong, that he was a full Mage, but Pira hadn’t told them he was one of the strongest Mages among all the Keepers in Olinda, that he’d been earmarked to head the Council someday, and that his grandmother Amelia—a name that Vibora would certainly recognize—was the leader of the Keepers.

For now they’d see him as a tool, as one more person with
essência
they could use. If they realized who he was, that he had ties to the Council, he could become a bargaining chip. Or worse, a weapon.

Leão was a warrior, trained to kill when necessary, but his soul was gentle. It was one of the qualities Pira loved best about him. If Leão’s power was used against his will to harm others, it would destroy him.

She’d hurt him enough already—the harsh words they had exchanged haunted her almost as much as the kiss they’d shared—but she would protect him from a distance.

“One Keeper is weak, he’ll serve as no great threat,” Vibora continued. “The other is young. He won’t make it far on his own.”

Something caught Pira’s attention, something wholly unexpected. In Vibora’s entire retelling
she
never once mentioned
Jacaré’s
name.

The question was why.

Perhaps Sapo sensed something missing in the tale. The plain lines of his face changed. His jaw took on a sharp edge, his hazel eyes flashed with anger. The hand that had so gently rested on Vibora’s lower back turned to a claw, bunching the material of the dress she’d donned to impress him.

“And the princess? What of our plans?” All his collared companions flinched—dogs cringing after a sharp kick. Neither Vibora nor Pira felt the direct result of his anger, but a pulse of
essência
rocked Pira back onto her heels.

“I . . . I had her for a little while, but Barrata is after her now.” Her poise melted as Sapo’s face hardened. “He’ll catch her long before she reaches the wall.”

“He’s had sixteen years to find her, and she’s evaded him at every turn.” His hounds cowered, some sinking to the floor. “Yes, you did a little better but ultimately failed. How hard is it to bring me one girl?”

When yelling, his beautiful voice turned harsh, making Pira’s knees weak. She leaned against the wall, supporting her weight with one hand.

“Because they had the glass.” It was a new voice, so soft compared with Sapo’s shouts. “They’ve watched her for all this time.”

Pira couldn’t quite see the speaker; she was hidden by the table and its benches, but the words rang with defiance.

Sapo marched around the table and hefted a thin blond woman to her feet. “Why didn’t you say anything about this before?”

Her body convulsed, taking the full force of his anger and power. He shook her, and the shawl slid off her shoulders, revealing the severe jut of bones under an ill-fitting dress. “I didn’t
know
before.”

“You’re supposed to
know
everything.”

The woman raised shaking fingers to her throat, where a fat band of silver hung loosely above her collarbones. The band, the same color as those around the others’ necks, seemed a little oddly shaped. The edges weren’t quite straight. It looked less like jewelry and more like the harsh tool a jailer snapped around his prisoners’ throats before dragging them to meet the executioner. Whereas Pira’s was smooth and symmetrical with an invisible clasp, this band was hinged and locked with a large, awkward mechanism. “How am I supposed to
see
anything when I have no
essência
to use?”

She said “see” the same way Elma—the old Keeper who’d hidden among the Performers—had. Seeing, as if to discern the future. Like Pira’s Earth affinity was specifically attuned to metal, a very small group of Spirit users could discern murky versions of the future. Sharing what they saw affected the outcome, and though some had learned to talk around their visions, their riddles were often too convoluted for any real use.

If Sapo continually drained the woman’s
essência
to keep his own at a powerful blaze, then it would be practically impossible for her to see the future at all. “You didn’t even foresee the destruction of your beloved home. I don’t know why I ever expected anything useful out of you.” He gave her a hard shove. She tumbled into a chair and her elbow clacked loudly against its wooden back. She fell to the floor and remained lying there, unmoving.

Pira rushed to help the injured woman, but her body halted a few steps short of her goal, frozen by the collar. Vibora eyed her like a pet with poor impulse control.

The woman on the floor jerked, tears pooling in her gray eyes, as she suffered some sort of torture that Pira was incapable of stopping.

Struggling against Vibora’s hold siphoned away Pira’s energy, and though her will held, her strength didn’t. The inability to act was almost as daunting and frustrating as feeling her power drift away.

After a few moments the woman on the floor relaxed. She rolled onto her side, pulling her long blond braid over one shoulder.

She met Pira’s gaze. And smiled.

Ceara learned from Bartlett’s mistake. The windowless cell had only one exit: a door of slatted iron. There was no use beating her fists against it or screaming herself hoarse once they’d whisked her away from the public. No one in the courtyard that separated the prison from the garrison barracks paid any attention to one more shrieking inmate.

Still, she had fought and bitten and kicked till they forced her across the threshold and slammed the lock in place.

“She’s practically rabid,” Ceara said to his guard. He covered a bleeding spot on his forearm where her teeth had removed a hunk of flesh and torn his shirt. “I personally prefer my women with a milder temperament, but to each his own, I suppose.”

His guard didn’t respond, stepping away from the cell door and leaning against the opposite wall, arms folded tightly.

Johanna spat in their direction, though it fell well short.

“I don’t care what you do to her, Don Diego, but she has to be alive when Duke Belem comes to claim her.” Ceara leaned closer to the bars, tempting her to try again. He studied her for a moment, tilting his head from one side to the other as if the angle might reveal the secret that eluded him. “On second thought, the duke might be upset if we damage his little prize, so if she’s naughty or refuses to eat or gives you trouble, punish the boy instead.”

“What boy?” Fear collapsed Johanna’s lungs. She said it again, louder. “What boy?”

Ceara’s teeth gleamed in the gray predawn light. “Did you actually believe what I told old Bartlett? That I’d come to rescue you on DeSilva’s behalf?”

“Of course not. Rafi—”

“Is in the next cell. Where he’ll stay until he
dies
. Unless, of course, you have some information to give me? What do you have that Duke Belem wants so badly?”

Her identity was her only bargaining chip, and even that wasn’t going to be enough to save Rafi. Ceara had already killed Bartlett, burned down the Bean and Barley, and betrayed his liege lord. “I have nothing,” she said, and the words struck her deeply. “I’m just a girl who caught Lord Belem’s fancy.”