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It was unfair for the masked Ram to see so much when the people of Ettenia couldn’t even see the face of the monarch that ruled them.
“That’s Spindrift. Tearoom by light, bloodhouse by dark.”
She was, simply put, a tempest in a bottle, tiny and simmering and ready to obliterate. White Roaring had whittled her sharp as a blade and her wits just the same.
Spindrift’s imports consisted of tea and coconuts from Arthie’s homeland of Ceylan, but with a blight affecting crops across the island, they hadn’t replenished their coconut stores in months.
Though Ettenia had grown from a kingdom to an empire, its ruling body remained the same. No one knew how the Council decided to appoint the masked monarchs, and no one knew the faces behind each mask. Before the Ram was the Eagle, before him the Fox, always with unchecked, untrammeled, unbridled power. The Ram was different, allying with the people over their fear of vampires, amending and reinforcing vampire-human laws, speaking aloud what every Ettenian was worried about. It was as simple as acknowledging the existence of vampires when the prior monarchs were content not to. Ettenians had
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The one who draws Calibore free is our savior. The one who wields Calibore is Ettenia’s right and true leader.
She was still a child, but when you saw the cruelty of the world firsthand, you became a little cruel yourself.
They collected trophies for civilizing countries that had never asked for a redefinition of the word.
People are afraid of you, Jin remembered saying once, feeling a little afraid himself. That’s not true, but it will be, she’d replied.
The Council was as arcane as the way they chose their monarchs and the masks they hid behind. By all appearances, they offered so little resistance that the Ram ruled the empire autocratically. If it could spur the Council into action, the ledger was damning indeed.
“It’s a bound ledger. Violet ribbon, standard leather casing. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s in the possession of a man named Penn Arundel who hasn’t been seen outside the Athereum in weeks.”
“If only you weren’t so good at what you do, Casimir.” He gave the room a slow perusal, pausing at the double doors when laughter rose from the lower floor, free and unrestrained. She thought she heard sympathy in his voice. “Spindrift might never have grown to the point where it threatened the Ram’s ego.”
“Laith Sayaad of Arawiya. I wish I could say it was a pleasure, but I’m not one to lie.”
The Eagle had been impressed with their advances in science, to the point where he’d commended Jin’s parents in a private meeting.
His mother kept an eye under the microscope; his father, the dreamer, kept an eye to the skies. On the cusp of a discovery, his father would say, even as he worked on other things—specifically, vampiric things. He was fascinated by the world of the living, enamored by the concept of the undead, and wanted to make life better for all.
But Arthie was already putting together their crew in her mind. She’d need Jin, of course, and their forger. She’d need Laith’s ability to blend with the shadows, and they would certainly need an inside man. Five people. She did like odd numbers.
The Athereum was beside it. Its many windows were dark, and shadows pooled between the five fluted columns set atop sculpted plinths. Flick shivered at the words carved into the architrave: mortui vivos docent. The dead teach the living.
Arthie Casimir was a maestro commanding the room. A queen at her throne. The hangman at the gallows.
The Ceylani had gone out to greet the Ettenian soldiers, offering sweets and a place to stay in the shanties by the sea. Not long after, the clear island skies billowed with smoke and chaos as the invaders turned peace into madness. Colonists, they called themselves. The Ceylani didn’t have a word for that yet because they’d never faced people like that before: kind on the outside, greed and devilry on the inside.
“Waiting on you, habibti,”
“Where did you say he’s from again, the dictionary?” But Matteo looked as if he knew exactly where Laith, with his kohl-rimmed amber eyes and curved dagger, was from. “I think you might know,” Arthie said. He struck Arthie as the sort who knew so much that they had no option but to act the opposite. Matteo tipped his head. “From a kingdom hewn of desert and strength, sprawling palaces and sparkling mirages. You’re Arawiyan.”
“So. Penn Arundel, hmm?”
“Penn is, well, he was the only one who was there for me when I first turned,” Matteo said. “He’s told me a lot about you.”
“When I learned he hadn’t been seen outside the Athereum for weeks, I knew something was wrong. He might be head of the place, but there’s very few vampires here that he can trust. I never thought I’d get the chance to possibly see him again, but I knew that if anything had happened to him, he would have wanted you to know.”
Ettenia lacked the resources to produce anything on a large scale. It was why they’d dug their claws into places like Ceylan for tea and cinnamon, Jeevant Gar for spices and textiles, Qirilan for silk and opium, far-off Morubia for gold and ivory. In many ways, the East Jeevant Company was as bad as the Ram.
“What is a monster if not a man pushed to the brink?”
“She struck the match,” she whispered, an oath in her voice as death came for her, swift as a tempest. He should never have left her alone. “Now we’ll burn her to the ground,” he swore. Then the Wolf of White Roaring scooped her into his arms and took her away.
