their paranoia, cunning and ambition. It was said their shadow guards were trained in four hundred and thirty ways of killing in silence, and that their homes were mazes fraught with deadly traps. All of these things had helped keep the Shin monarchs of this principality for hundreds of years.
They were also well-known for their hatred of the Emperor—who lived on the east coast of the continent and taxed them, in their opinion, far too heavily. No one ever liked taxes, though they kept the roads safe, and petty wars from breaking out. Provinces far from the bright heart of the Empire rarely saw Imperial Dirigibles or the Imperial Guard, and so tended to forget they existed.
“Nothing to offer then?” Raed whispered, as he slipped closer to the river. “No great geistlord insight about the Shin?”
The wash of malice made his jaw tighten painfully.
So all he had to rely on was his own teaching about the Shin—and that had not included knowledge about the internal layout of the fortress. Luckily there were still some people here who remained loyal to the Rossin family. Not everyone had been delighted with the Conclave of Princes’ choice to bring a foreign Prince in to take over as Emperor; some still remembered or held tight to “the good old days” when Raed’s grandfather had ruled. That was how he had managed to find someone in town willing to give him basic information about what he might find in the fortress.
It was for these same reasons that his sister had found her way here. In their grandfather’s time, the Shin had been allowed far more latitude to rule their own kingdom. She was undoubtedly reminding them of that. Every minute that she was left to negotiate with them was another step closer to civil war. Unless he could prevent it.
The Emperor sitting back on his warm throne in Vermillion would never know he owed his rival such a debt. Perhaps though, Sorcha would hear of it.
Raed inhaled sharply, recalling the last time he had seen the Deacon, hanging limply in Merrick’s arms, like a discarded puppet. The Young Pretender wondered every day if the Sensitive had held to his promise to save Sorcha. If only there were gods to honestly pray to for that.
For once the creature was right. He had to focus on the here and now, not on the what could never be.
The sky above was clear and warm, and the stars bright and sharp with no clouds to hide their beauty. Before he could lose his nerve, Raed quickly stripped his clothes and boots off, and shoved them into an oilskin bag. Already the bag contained the maps he had secured the previous night, his sword and his pistols. The satchel was the kind sailors used to keep their belongings dry while on deck. He had one too many times found himself naked in the wilderness, and he didn’t want to be that vulnerable in the fortress.
“I’m ready,” he whispered more to himself than to the Rossin. Nude, he crouched by the water’s edge for a moment, running out the waxed cord that secured the bag’s mouth. “You remember the deal?” he asked the geistlord as confidently as he could. Raed knew it was useless to try to hide his real emotions from the beast, but it made him feel better.
“We find my sister first—then you feed.”
It should have been impossible for another consciousness in his head to sound so cunning—but the Rossin did. Raed was becoming aware that his lifelong assessment of the geistlord as merely a beast running on bloodlust was quite incorrect. It was convenient to think of the geistlord as an animal, but they were more tightly connected than ever now, and Raed was catching glimpses of something else; an immense patience, and a fearful delight that all was coming to fruition. Just what that might mean however was still wrapped in shadow. Not for the first time Raed wondered what the beast had gained by allying himself with the bloodline of Raed’s ancestor, the first Emperor-Deacon.
“Only if we are discovered,” Raed said as he stood tall by the lake edge. “Then you may have at it, and see how the dice roll—but if you break our agreement, back into the depths you go, and I will never call you out again. It is as we agreed.”
Something about the pact they had made bound this creature of death and mayhem. Raed was not going to question how it worked—but perhaps a Deacon would know more of it than he did.
Previously, whenever the geistlord had taken control, the Young Pretender was always subsumed. He awoke from the Rossin’s rampages with only a scattering of memory, the taste of blood in his mouth and terrible guilt. However, since he had drawn the beast into his own consciousness—they shared an awareness. This was, Raed reasoned, a fair cost for the Rossin’s help. Just how much control he had over his passenger in this state, he had never tested. Sooner or later he knew he would have to.
Pain. That was another change. He felt a deeper pain as the Rossin bent and twisted his flesh to make its own shape. Bones snapped and were remade. Every nerve and sinew was severed and spun by the geistlord’s will. He wanted to scream to release some of the agony, but even his throat would no longer obey. He had nowhere to hide from the agony.
The Rossin took his flesh and snarled in hunger. The head of its aerial form was that of a great eagle, while the body remained feline and huge. A pair of long feathered wings snapped angrily in the air. The beak was curved and wicked and could carve human flesh as readily as the teeth of its other forms. The Rossin was beautiful and deadly. Magnificent—if you were anyone else but the Young Pretender. He was carried along like an unwilling rider on a runaway mount.
After snatching up the bag in its beak, the beast leapt into the air. Flying was something that many people dreamed of; being carried aloft, leaving the world below, and touching the ultimate freedom. As the Rossin sprang into the air, Raed felt elation, but he tried to repress the emotion. It was wrong to find any enjoyment in anything the geistlord did.
Lying in his arms, Sorcha had spoken of the giddy rush of power a Deacon felt when wielding the Gauntlets, and how she had to fight it; how it was a constant struggle and a deadly temptation. He now understood what she had meant.
The Rossin naturally loathed the Deacons; not only did it hate the first one that had traded with the geistlord, but Sorcha, who had put controls on him with the Bond. The beast did not like restrictions of any kind.
Raed wanted to think about Sorcha some more, but he dare not. The geistlord hated her so, and she was a complication in his already broken life. He didn’t expect to see her again. He didn’t expect to live very much longer.
The air was cold up here, in the clouds, but the heat of the Rossin was greater. Birds scattered from the great shape, like pebbles thrown across the sky. The natural world was always so much better at sensing the unliving than humans.
It was not far to the stronghold of the Shin, but the Rossin wheeled above it, careful to keep himself low and away from the sliver of the waxing moon. It was a good night for dark deeds. The feathers that lined the wings of the Rossin were like owls’, soft and silent. In all his forms the creature was a predator. His eyes were sharp too. He could make out details of the fortress and its defenses; a collection of low, curved roofs capped the towers that jutted sharply out into the clouds. All in all a very unwelcoming sight.
As the Rossin turned and banked away he could make out a handful of human shapes moving atop the curved roofline. They smelled of steel and gunpowder, but now they were fodder for the geistlord. Folding his wings, the Rossin dropped down from the dark skies and aimed for a guard leaning against his polearm and looking down toward the city. He never saw his end coming, until it was upon him. The Rossin knocked him to the ground, wrapping his wings around the guard, and plunging his beak into the man’s unprotected throat. The taste of blood flowered in Raed’s mouth; thick, rich and terrifyingly satisfying. To his horror he found he was enjoying it.
The geistlord fed on flesh, blood and bone until he was sated. Having gorged on the bounty hunter only a few days ago it did not take long. As the geistlord sucked down the last of the blood, Raed reasserted control. Its hunger satisfied, the beast gave way without any hesitation and retreated into the depths of the Young Pretender’s soul, much as he used to before they had made their new pact. Then he was on the ground, covered in blood and
