The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

As he kicked open the door, relishing the wet print of his boot on the wood, it occurred to him that he didn’t actually know what the consequences of disobedience were. Being turned off without a reference or pay had always been his assumption, and it had seemed bad enough, but the new and terrible information of the past few days made Zelen reconsider.

Servants left rarely, but when they did, they simply vanished.

Surely, he thought, they couldn’t all have been sacrifices. Surely that would have excited too much comment. But he actually couldn’t be sure, and the very need to consider the possibility was chilling.

Gedomir didn’t keep wine, brandy, or whiskey in his desk, or Zelen would’ve poured himself a stiff drink, oncoming battle or not. Holding it would have conveyed the proper mood, for one. Lacking that, he picked up a series of carved stone paperweights on the desk—cats of different sizes and colors, all rather charming and one of the few remotely human touches in the place—and then dropped them out of order, in between pacing from the door to the window and back.

It didn’t take much pretense at all.

He was by the desk, toying with a gray-blue sitting cat the size of his palm, when he heard the door open.

“Gedo, thank the gods,” he said, turning with the figurine still in his hands. “This place is torment for a sober man, you know.”

“Zelen.” The delay made sense. Despite the hour, his brother was impeccably dressed: gray tunic, black surcoat, breeches, and boots, silver-buckled sword belt and silver-hilted sword in a sheath worked with the same metal, not a hair out of place. “You choose the most interesting hours.”

This time, he wouldn’t rise to the bait. He’d let his emotions carry him away when Gedo had told him about Branwyn—had told him what he wanted Zelen to believe about her—and Gedomir would believe that the same would be true when Zelen heard any particularly important news about the matter.

He didn’t bother putting the figurine down, just summoned as much wide-eyed alarm as he could. “I’m sorry for waking you, Gedo.”

“You could’ve saved me the interrupted sleep, and yourself the time and the strain on your horse, most likely,” said Gedomir, stepping inside the door. “I expect to be in the city by tomorrow afternoon. Mother, Father, and Alize are halfway there already.”

Lord and Lady Verengir, and their elder daughter by virtue of traveling with them, didn’t spend more than three hours on the road at a time. There was a small inn between the estate and the city, one that Zelen suspected made its entire profit from his family’s infrequent trips and the ability to use their name.

“It couldn’t wait. You’ll understand…” He passed his free hand across his mouth, letting it shake, and watched Gedomir watch the motion. “I hope you’ll understand. You’re not going to believe what I’ve discovered—”

“No,” said Gedomir.

He took a few steps further into the room, but Zelen now noticed that he stayed carefully far away. Behind him, the shadows in the hall grew more solid, developing harsh faces and broad shoulders, dark armor and bared weapons.

“No,” Gedomir repeated, “I don’t think I would.”

Chapter 36

Gedomir had never regarded Zelen particularly fondly, but now his gaze was brimming with contempt. “I don’t even want to know the lies you’ve come up with,” he said. “It would only insult us both.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Shock and fear were appropriate. Zelen gave them free rein and yanked back hard on guilt, or hoped he did. “I came because—”

“You found the…woman’s…sword.” Gedomir ticked off points on his fingers as he stood, square-shouldered and upright as a statue, eyeing Zelen as though he were a maggot in meat. “You didn’t bother consulting with me, our parents, or even the girls about it. Instead, you practiced a rather shoddy deception with a broom handle.”

The last word was the kick in the stomach. Zelen didn’t respond. The guards moved in, each taking one of his arms in a none-too-gentle grip. The cat statuette fell to the floor.

They knew. Yathana hadn’t counted on Gedomir’s paranoia about having the sword around outweighing his distaste for it, or some event had made him decide to check on it, or, hell, Gizath had given his faithful a vision. It didn’t matter. They knew.

He thought that as hard as he could, hoping that Yathana would pick up on it across the house and through their barely existent bond: They know. Get Tanya and run for it.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked,” Gedomir went on, “by your lack of any family feeling. You’ve constantly demonstrated that you have no regard for the ties of blood any proper gentleman should feel—and yet, you manage to disappoint us again. Tell me, Zelen, didn’t you even think of consulting us?”

The question, and his brother’s genuinely wounded manner, startled Zelen into a cawing laugh. “Consulting you? What in Letar’s name would you have said if I did?”

Now that he was alert for it, he saw Gedomir flinch at the mention of the goddess. It wasn’t much, only a slight twitch near his left eye, but it put to rest any ideas Zelen might have had about the whole business being an awful mistake.

“Or am I wrong?” With nothing to lose, he pressed his point. “Has there been some horrible error? Did the demon that killed the Rognozis not bring Branwyn’s sword back to you, like a good dog returns game to the hunter? Do you and our parents, and even the girls”—Zelen imitated Gedomir’s delivery—“not worship the Traitor?”

The blow was openhanded, but full strength. Zelen’s teeth split two of Gedomir’s knuckles open, which was a small bright point in the whole wretched evening.

“You shouldn’t speak of truth that’s beyond you,” Gedomir said, shaking his wrist. “Our lord knows more of loyalty and order than any of his degenerate sister’s favorites, as feeble an example as you