Too exhausted to protest the Darakaian intrusion, Luscia flipped on her side and admired Dmitri’s Noculoma-Anastasis upon her nightstand, for once content to let her guard protest it for her.

THIRTEEN

   Perched over the roof slats of a grand storehouse, the figure waited for the congregation of men to scatter once they came to a consensus about what to do with the butchered body at their feet.

He’d heard a woman scream an hour earlier while trudging in the forest just outside Arune, a grand estate in the Province of Wendylle. Rushing in the direction of her cry, the figure had arrived to find a grouping of nobility huddled around a gutted corpse, near the perimeter of a Unitarian estate. Though he’d never intended to travel this far from the crown city, Alora had ordered he leave Bastiion after Amaranth relayed the rumors he’d overhead of another cross-caste victim outside the Proper, concerning a merchant caravan making progress through the provinces. Convinced her niece was safe in her care, Alora had commanded him to go.

The Pilarese hawk preened her unusual, violet-hued feathers on the other side of the rooftop. Amaranth would travel with him until he drafted his return message to Alora. Sharper than previous candidates, Amaranth had proved an integral asset in their operation many times over. Use of the war-tainted bird was the least he could offer the fair woman he’d once betrayed, though there was no degree of servitude that could ever repay her clemency for his wickedness.

Amaranth twisted in her grooming to consider him, as if she sensed the damning shift of his thoughts. Perhaps she could—she had been his sole companion over the past decade of darkness and decay.

Motionless, the figure listened while the nobles debated ways to handle what they clearly considered to be an inconvenience. Having another function to attend, the body of a dead Boreali cross-caste wouldn’t keep them occupied for much longer. He was unaware that the Peerage of Nobility had planned to gather that night in the residence of their Haidren and Minister, Gregor Hastings. Below, each councilman stood in the customary robes for such an occasion.

“Where is she now, that servant girl who found it?” A greying noble glanced around at the rest of the men.

“The maid’s been taken to my wife, Pias. She won’t raise further alarm,” Gregor answered, clearly disinclined to bring attention to the death as well. “The girl’s no help, anyway. She only tripped over it on her way to fetch more wine from my storehouse.”

“If you’ve some rabid animal roaming your lands, any injury to my livestock is your concern, Gregor,” the youngest councilman sputtered, crossing his arms. “I’ll have you know, I spent an entire aurus on that gelding and five dromas for the mare!”

“If there’s a rabid animal on the loose, your horses are the least of my concern, Nathune. I’m the man who lost property tonight,” the Haidren tersely replied, nudging the corpse’s arm with the toe of his freshly buffed leather boot. “This cross-caste cost me a fortune off a trader two years ago. It’s criminal how much they charge for the young ones.”

Loose pebbles fell from the stone ledge when the figure tightened his grip violently at their laughter. He grimaced as the rocks clattered down the side of the storehouse. Nearly all the men jumped as Amaranth shot from her post and circled the area to distract them from his concealed presence. Her instincts grew more impressive by the day.

The Houses were notorious for their mistreatment of cross-castes, but the Unitarian high nobility had evolved into the worst offenders over the last decade. Grown fat and greedy, they’d taken their era of peace and contorted it into an era of privileged indulgence. And while some cross-castes were still considered “employed” by province manors, most had been sold as slaves for a handsome fee.

It was sickening. Even to a monster like himself.

The rarer the genetic mixing, the steeper the price. And as the House of Boreal remained the most segregated of all, a northern cross-caste would cost someone like Gregor Hastings very much, indeed.

“Just bury it, Gregor. Or burn it, I don’t care. The Peerage is waiting. But the members of your still-breathing staff need to hunt down the animal by morning,” the eldest of them coughed into the dirt, impatient to return to the boisterous event inside the manor. “My wife dragged her two best cross-castes with us this time, and you can’t afford to replace them.”

“Fine. I’ll have someone fetch you a drink, Larkstead, for the trouble,” Gregor conceded, patting the hunched man on the back. “Kuudhà, rally the boys and get rid of this thing. Don’t leave any trace of it, either—I don’t want my guests questioning the quality of Hastings wine.”

A Darkaian cross-caste, standing beyond the circle of lords, nodded silently and scurried off to enlist more servants for disposal. The nobles also dispersed, abandoning the cold, lifeless body crumpled in the grass. The Haidren to Bastiion led the councilmen toward his home to rejoin their comrades, joking as if the impromptu meeting had been nothing more than a lost bet.

Gripping his weatherworn cloak, the figure vaulted from the overhang and landed swiftly in a crouch. Soundlessly, he padded forward and knelt to inspect the injuries the child had endured. He didn’t have much time.

The length of the dull, muddied hair wasn’t evidence of gender, but the pink and coral ribbons tied throughout certainly sufficed. By the length of her torso and limbs, the young woman hadn’t yet reached Ascension age, not that it would have brought her freedom if she had. Patches of cream-colored skin were visible under the light of the moon, though her flesh was smeared with blood from innumerable lacerations. Without a doubt, she fit the recent pattern the figure had begun tracing throughout the Unitarian plains.

As the other bodies had been reported to authorities or found in areas of traffic, this was the first opportunity that offered the necessary seclusion to use his unnatural talents. Slowly, he brought his scabbed nostrils near what was left of her face and inhaled deeply.

The figure reared back from the young woman’s corpse, alarmed by the disturbing evidence collected in his blackened lungs. With shaking hands, he lifted her arms where larger gashes had been made, aware that Gregor’s manservant would return any moment. Again, breathing in, the figure was struck with an even stronger bouquet of rot, charred flesh, and an intimate, unmistakable scent not even Alora could wash away.

Bloodthirst.

This had been no animal attack.

Horrified, the figure careened into the shadows in a ceaseless sprint. Propelled by a speed not his own, but gifted from his mistress, he ran through the night under the steady watch of Amaranth overhead.

Whether he ran to Alora or from the defiled corpse, the figure did not know. The only truth guiding his inhuman legs toward Bastiion Proper was one he could not comprehend, for it was impossible.

The killer smelled just like him.