Dark Humanity Read online

  In front of her, the inky sea shimmered in the ghostly moonlight. A stiff breeze whipped the candle flame. She dropped the holder on the soft sand and, face lifted to beam at the silvery moon, tuned a full circle of joy.

  Freedom. At last!

  She ripped her filthy silk slippers off her feet. A gentle wave washed ashore, coating her in cool, foamy water.

  She stared with longing at the scattered islands beyond the breakers.

  If only she could dive into the waves and swim to one of them, but her weakened body would never allow it. As it was, damp with sweat, her corset and dress clung to lanky body like seaweed to a rock, and her breathing was labored. It didn’t matter that she relished the sand between her toes; after her high-speed escape through the tunnel, lifting her leaden feet drained her energy with each step.

  If I were Able . . .

  She shot the thought down before it had time to fully manifest.

  No. This is the way I am. I’m Infirm. I was born this way, and that’s okay.

  She gave herself the same daily pep talk to reassure herself that she and half her kingdom were not broken, despite the way the Able treated them.

  On a spit at the end of the beach, a Guardian, an iron mermaid mounted on a tower, turned on a spindle. On the land side, it was linked to a seven-foot iron wall that encircled the entire kingdom. On the seaward side, it attached to a chain-mail mesh that hung in the sea, blocking all traffic from entering—or leaving—Ryferia.

  She had never been beyond it.

  In fact, in the one hundred and fifty years it had stood sentinel there, no one in Ryferia had crossed it. To do so would defy Ryferia’s most inviolate law.

  That didn’t mean she hadn’t always longed to.

  “Tonight!” she breathed. “If I’m rebelling, I might as well do it in style! And damn them all.”

  But even in her bravado, she knew if she were caught, not even Lazard could save her from the fury—the justice—of the Intelligentsia. They would demand her death.

  Even as king, Lazard would have no choice but to obey.

  It made her escape even more thrilling.

  The sand stretched before her, silvery white in the moonlight. Only the gentle sound of the waves stirred, the back-and-forward wash perfectly timed with the mechanical creak of the mermaid’s tail. It swished like a whip.

  Her pulse spiked, and she couldn’t resist looking over her shoulder as she drew closer to the mermaid. The beach behind her was deserted.

  Ahead, the cogs in the mermaid ticked as it turned on its never-ending spindle. Heat radiated from the metal construct.

  On she trudged. She was some hundred yards from the Guardian when her temples started to tingle, then burn.

  So close to her goal, she wasn’t going to let a little pain thwart her. She forced her lanky legs and feet to plod on through the thick sand.

  Pain shafted her brain like a hail of arrows. She dropped to her knees, gripped her forehead and squeezed—as if her puny strength could drive out the knives of agony slicing into her skull.

  “Get yourself together.” She clambered to her feet and forced herself to keep moving.

  Fifty paces.

  Sweat drizzled down her torso and her legs quaked.

  Forty paces.

  Nausea curded her stomach. She clutched her abdomen, grateful she had eaten nothing.

  Thirty paces.

  A loud clang from behind made her jump. The palazzo bells pealed across the beach. They knew she had gone.

  She swore. Long and loud. And tried to run . . . toward the Guardian.

  Just fifteen paces.

  They can’t stop me. Not now!

  Hooves thundered on the sand.

  “Aurora!”

  She looked back.

  Three riders galloped at full speed toward her. Zandor led the chase.

  Just ten more paces, and she would be free—to die, if these men reported her felony to the Intelligentsia.

  Zandor never would, but she wasn’t so sanguine about the other two. His horse spun in front of her, cutting her off from the Guardian and forcing her to stop. The horse kicked sand up into her face.

  Zandor glared down at her. “Going somewhere, my princess?”

  Chin stuck out defiantly, she crossed her arms. “It’s called walking, Zandor. You should try it sometime.”

  How dare he come after her? She had as much as told him that she wanted to escape. He, of all people, should have known what this meant to her.

  But she raked her gaze over the horse he rode. Despite seeming so hale and strong, Zandor was like her: Infirm. He couldn’t stand to be around animals; he’d be covered in bloody hives within the hour. A minor Infirmity as Infirmities went, it still marked him as one of them. Her escape had forced him to ride.

  The other two riders hesitated behind him.

  “You need to come home.” Zandor looked toward the palazzo. “It’s Lazard. He’s sick. Very sick.”

  “If this is a trick to get me back—”

  Zandor’s horse whinnied, raring to go. “No trick. He collapsed at the feast.”

  Her mouth went slack. “What happened?”

  He leaned down. “I think he’s been poisoned,” he whispered.

  The blood rushed from her face.

  Zandor grabbed her arm, and swung her up onto his horse. The pressure from his arms around her made her chest burn. Normally Zandor was so gentle with her. Something was seriously wrong.

  As they galloped across the sand, the wind whipped the air from her lungs.

  All she could think of was Lazard. She had argued with him, disobeyed him, and now? What if, like Mamma, he died from this poison?

  Tears stung her eyes but were whisked away by the wind before they wet her cheeks.

  Her fists bunched her dress, and her face hardened.

  Lazard is not dead yet. And if anyone can save him, it’s me.

  “Faster,” she gritted out to Zandor. “We have to gallop faster.”

  Chapter Three

  Aurora leaped off the horse before it came to a complete stop at the palazzo stables.

  Pain shot up her legs, and every muscle in her body groaned in complaint.

  Come on, get it together. Why do you have to be so damn useless?

  Zandor dismounted. “Slow down, Aurora. You’re going to hurt yourself. Let me help—”

  “I don’t need help. I need to see my brother,” she snapped, pulling away from his gentle touch. “Where have they taken him?”

  “His chambers back at the villa.”

  Her heart fell. That was a lot of stairs to climb to get to his apartment. “Let’s go.”

  She ignored the hot coal in her chest, walking as fast as she could for the bright-blue door that signaled her and Lazard’s home. Unlike her apartment on the first floor, his chambers were right at the top of the building.

  She pulled herself up with the aid of the railing, all too aware of Zandor close behind her, ready to catch her if she fell.

  For once, she didn’t let it irritate her.

  At the top of the stairs, she braced herself against the hunting-scene mural to catch her breath. Then she rasped at the musketeers guarding Lazard’s chamber, “Open the doors.”

  The double doors swung open.

  Lazard was hidden by the weak candlelight and the bustling masters and physicians crowding his huge bed.

  “Move away,” she panted, stumbling into the room.

  No one responded.

  “Are you deaf?” she yelled.

  The room went silent, all eyes turning to her.

  A hiss of relief rippled through the men. They may have hated her for being Infirm, but none of them would deny that she was unrivaled when it came to potions and alchemy.

  If anyone could save the king, it would be her. But first she had to assess him. A path to Lazard cleaved through the masters.

  Stomach roiling, she trod on trembling feet.

  Lazard’s handsome face, now gray and
clammy with fever, looked far worse than she could ever have imagined. His wheezing breath was agonizingly slow and shallow. Sweat drenched his clothes and the sheets.

  She wiped her sweaty palm on her sand-covered dress and placed two fingers on his neck.

  His pulse was weak and erratic.

  “Princess Aurora.” A master holding a glass bottle inched closer. “We believe his heart may be failing. When we brought him here, he was confused. Babbling about seeing flashing lights.”

  She wanted to cry, but fought back any sign of weakness these men could use against her. “Has he vomited?”

  Even as she asked, Lazard writhed and foul-smelling green muck bubbled out of his mouth and oozed down his cheeks. She snatched up a cloth and swabbed it away. If only that could stop the poison eating away his insides.

  “It looks like digitalis poisoning,” she whispered, wishing it weren’t so. Digitalis was a small, unassuming white flower with a dark-green stem tinged with purple; it grew in shaded, moist areas—the marshes of Ryferia. Few ventured there, and a small white bloom in such places was no more than an unexpected greeting from a pretty face. But when the juice of its ripened berries was extracted, concentrated, and ingested, digitalis robbed its victims of their reason, torturing them with flashing lights as their bodies fought to expunge the poison through every orifice while their pulse raced their hearts to destruction.

  “We are in agreement.” The master held up a bottle of liquid. “I was going to administer—”

  She grabbed it from him and read the scrawl on the faded label. “This won’t help him. It’ll keep him going for a little while, but it won’t be enough to save him.”

  She slapped the bottle back onto the master’s palm and then brushed experienced fingers across Lazard’s forehead.

  He burned like a furnace, his face twitching beneath her touch. His eyes rolled beneath his lids.

  “It’s okay, Lazard,” she whispered so softly only he would hear her—if he were conscious, which wasn’t certain. “I’m going to help you. You’ll be okay.”

  Please, please don’t let my last words to him be a lie.

  She pulled herself up, mind racing with theories and ideas. “Administer that antidote for as long as you can. Get his fever down. Buy him some time.”

  She turned to Zandor and bit back her pride at having to ask for help. “Run me down to my garden. I’m going to make him an antidote.”

  Zandor swooped her up and took off for the stairs.

  As he jogged down with her in his arms, she planned her potion. Charcoal, definitely. Some willow, too. But as she mentally flitted through the collection of herbs and compounds at her alchemy bench, her blood chilled.

  Whatever antidote she made would take hours to brew.

  Hours Lazard didn’t have. She would have to cut the brewing time and pray it would still be enough.

  She closed her eyes, refusing to consider that she might already be too late.

  At last, they arrived in Niing’s cavern—a burrow linked to a string of tunnels carved out of rock beneath the palazzo. Candles on an odd assortment of wooden tables lit this section of the cavern. The tables—and most of the overstuffed sofas—were cluttered with books and her misplaced gardening tools. She loved tending her garden even more than she adored making potions.

  From the ceiling hung bunches of dried herbs she used in her alchemy. The rough walls were lined with wood-and-glass cabinets filled with the precious stones her tutor, Niing, had collected during his long life. Like herbs and plants were her passion, Niing always gravitated to the base minerals and rocks for his potions.

  In the center of the cavern stood a low table—her and Niing’s alchemy bench, with its burners, flasks, and vials.

  Niing jumped up from the plush couch beside the pot-bellied fireplace, his short legs carrying him the distance to Aurora and Zandor. He peered up at them through thick eyebrows. The Able sneeringly called Niing a dwarf. It never failed to annoy her.

  “What’s the verdict, my princess?”

  She squirmed in Zandor’s arms, annoyed at the prolonged hold. He set her down gently.

  “Digitalis.” She didn’t stop to chat. “I need a cauldron.”

  “What can we do?” Keahr coughed as she jumped up from her chair. Her green eyes, set in a strikingly beautiful dark-skinned face, were strained. She glided to Aurora with a grace that belied her Infirmity. “Give me work.”

  “Bring me what I need. I can’t be running around looking for ingredients.” Aurora half-marched, half-stumbled, to her equipment table. Exhausted from shock and all her exertions, she had to grip the side of it to keep upright. “Niing, you know what I need.”

  Under any other circumstances, Niing would have scolded her for her sharpness, but tonight he didn’t. He turned to Zandor and Keahr, muttering instructions.

  Aurora took a moment to catch her breath. It didn’t help that her vision was blurry and her head buzzed.

  Niing stopped what he was doing and stared at her. A soft tsk, and then he pulled out his pipe.

  Careful fingers stuffed the bowl with his mystery concoction of pipeweed. Try as she might, Aurora had never managed to extract the recipe for Niing’s blend from him. Her nose suggested it contained nettle, rue, and mistletoe, all useful herbs in the fight against magic hexes, but Niing would never be drawn to comment. She was sure he’d added a few pinches of his favorite minerals to it, too. And then he was puffing, filling the air with a sweet scent.

  Instantly calmed, Aurora breathed deeply.

  Some of her exhaustion lifted and, with it, the buzz in her head. She could do this. She could save Lazard.

  Chapter Four

  No amount of dripping candles could brighten the dark dining hall of Lorithian Castle. Even the weak sun shining through the tall, stained glass windows facing the capital city of Fueport couldn’t lift the gloom. Or Raith’s spirits.

  He studied the glass at every meal, looking for one reason why it hadn’t been torn down years before.

  He found none.

  It depicted the fall of magic in Ryferia at the hands of the alchemist Nethric and his ragtag army. With their alchemical, steam-driven Guardians, those Untalented upstarts had routed his ancient family. His family had been forced to flee for their lives. In a timeline of the past hundred and fifty years, the window showed the split between his noble house and the last remaining members of the royal family that once held power in the most celebrated dynasty the world had ever known. A dynasty and a royal family now reduced to ash. Nethric’s descendants and their ugly mechanical Guardians and iron walls had taken the place of the rightful rulers of Ryferia, stopping magic from ever entering the kingdom again.

  When Father, Duke Krall, finally did him the courtesy of dying, he would tear down the ugly glass and replace it with his own story of power.

  Not that there was much to put up there.

  “That’s what real magic looked like.” Father’s gravelly voice. A smoker’s voice.

  Raith rolled his eyes at the interruption.

  “Our ancestors were fire-breathers. They flew on wings of wind. They held the second form of dragons. They led the world in power.”

  Not entirely true; as far as Raith knew, the Magical in his ancestral line had mainly been incubi, but he didn’t argue because he knew where this conversation was going. He’d had it many times before. This time, however, only his brother, Carian, was here to support him.

  His sister, Trojean, was long gone.

  Carian’s huge shoulders and big hands hunched over his wine glass on the opposite side of the table. He glanced up at Raith and let out a silent sigh.

  Raith scowled at Father.

  Face wizened and tinged with red from a lifetime of imbibing, Father’s shaking hand slopped goji wine from his glass goblet. His iguana, sitting on the table, licked it up.

  “Now look what we have become.” Father waved his drink. The acrid smell lifted to Raith’s nostrils. “Hiding in a castle on the
edge of the world”—his rheumy eyes settled on Raith, his disgust apparent—“with nothing but an incubus”—then fixed on Carian—“and a worthless human. Maleficent’s tits, the goddess cursed me.” He shouted insults about Raith and Carian to his iguana. She nestled closer, listening intently, then whispered something back that Raith didn’t understand.

  Like shouting to reptiles is much better.

  Raith lowered his fork and cleared his throat. “You used to have a succubus as well. Or have you forgotten her already?”

  Father breathed in sharply and slammed his goblet on the table. What was left of the wine splashed, spreading like blood across the white cloth. “Your sister gave her life for you and your worthless human brother, while the two of you sit here under my roof, drinking my wine. And you have the gall to accuse me of forgetting her?”

  Carian was the only member in their immediate family who was born human, with no magic to speak of. And if Father hated Raith and Trojean for the type of power they held, he hated Carian even more for having none.

  Raith allowed the tip of his fangs to slip through his gums. “Trojean was equally as disgusting to you. Don’t you dare pretend you miss her.” His throat burned with anger. He was past grieving for his twin; that ship had sailed a year ago. Now all he wanted was revenge against the creature that had taken her from him.

  “She may have been a disgusting succubus, but the girl had more balls than either of you.” Father’s hand drunkenly swayed between Raith and Carian. “Raith, you stay in this forsaken kingdom, using your disgusting power to take magic from our people. You’ve driven magic to extinction in an entire generation in Lorithian.”

  “I never took from anyone. I took from animals,” Raith said, knowing how weak his argument was. He’d used it too many times before. How he longed to sink his fangs into Father’s iguana to prove his point.

  He didn’t dare.

  But Father was right about one thing. Trojean had been fearless. And pitiless. While he had taken minor trinket magic from animals, she had sought out the most powerful people she could, taking their magic and their lives from them like a pirate on the Northern Sea of Snakes.