The Blood Burns in My Veins by Megan Derr

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eleven

 

 

"Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorns."

― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

 

 

Forthwind snacked on sweets as he crossed the island to his destination, though he didn't really have that far to go, even if they'd dined at some showy place near the market. Dante was still there, spinning his webs like always, but Forthwind's job for the night required he be somewhere quieter.

In fact, his life was going to depend on just how quiet he could be. Thankfully, it was a skill he had honed sharply over the years.

He pouted slightly as he finished his treats—a mixture of candied nuts, biscotti, mochi, and red bean cakes shaped like seashells. Verona had more problems than even a god could count, but the food was not one of them.

Cleaning his hands at a public fountain and washing everything down with cool water, he then turned his attention fully to his target: the sprawling Ferro estate.

Rather, two people inside it, but according to Dante they would be leaving soon. Unbeknownst to them, they would have an extra shadow that night.

He perused his options for remaining unobserved. As it was a high-class residential area, he'd be noticed quickly if he stood around doing nothing for several minutes.

Usually he preferred trees, but the island was decidedly lacking in trees suitable for such shenanigans. He settled for the roof of a nearby storage shed. It was steeply angled, to sluice rain, but the heavy clay tiles provided plenty of grip, so he crouched and waited.

Thankfully, Ferro-donni were nothing if not punctual when it came to nefarious matters; Acaeus and Selinah emerged from their fortress-like home just moments after a distant temple bell finished ringing the midnight hour. Bit early for mischief, but perhaps there was a lot of it to get done. Forthwind settled the items on his back to ensure they'd make no noise to give him away and moved out.

Though he had a fair idea of where they were going, thanks to Dante and his remarkable talent for obtaining information that was none of his business, Forthwind shadowed from a reasonable distance, a balance between remaining invisible to his targets but close enough he could see if they did anything unusual.

The path they took to their destination was a needlessly winding one; clearly they feared pursuers but were appalling at actually getting rid of them. More likely, it was a token precaution, not something they took seriously.

After all, who would expect the wealthy, powerful Ferro to engage in something as crass as piracy?

Instead of the docks, which definitely would have been a stupid place for pirates to conduct an illicit meeting, they traveled from the Isola delle ossa to one of the secondary islands. Forthwind did not know its name; there were simply too many little islands to keep track of them all. He knew the main four, and a few of the outlying, but not most of them.

He wasn't surprised when they kept going. Dante had warned him the meeting would likely be in a place 'so remote they may as well have met on a boat.' As ever, Dante was correct.

That also made it damnably hard to follow them—no wonder they put no real effort into evading shadows—but they would have to try harder still to thwart him.

Forthwind tucked his knapsack into some nearby bushes to retrieve later, and then removed the flotation device he'd strapped to his back, shucked most of his clothes and hid them away, and waded into the water. It was cold, but not unbearably so yet, and the combination of float and magia made it easy enough to follow them while being essentially invisible, any sounds he made lost to the far greater noise of the sea itself.

The island they stopped on was full of scrub and rocks, but just big enough he found a place to sneak onto shore without being seen. Creeping around the edge of the island, heart hammering in his ears, he crept up to an outcropping where he could hear everything perfectly fine.

Off in the distance, barely lit by soft moonlight, was a boat of the sort that took sailors to shore or other places that the larger ships simply could not go.

Shivering as the chilly air washed over his soaked form, Forthwind waited for the fun to begin, though he really hoped things didn't get too exciting. Pirates leaned toward a level of violence he vastly preferred to avoid.

"They're late," Selinah said.

"Like always."

"I wish just once they could deign to arrive on time."

Acaeus laughed. "They're pirates. Obeying rules, even those of common courtesy, is not their line of work. Have patience. Getting upset over something that is as it has always been is a waste of energy, child. Accept it, move with it. You are fighting the tide—destined to lose."

Selinah sighed but didn't argue.

Their voices were pitched low, but nothing the wind couldn't carry to him when gently guided to do so.

After that they subsided, the silence broken only by the striking of a match. A moment later, the fragrant smell of tobacco smoke from a pipe struck him, bringing a wave of nostalgia that he ruthlessly ignored. He could not afford that kind of distraction.

Pirates might not care about rules, but being late to this sort of thing was dangerous. It put people on edge, made them far more likely to do something stupid, and stupid in this case often meant dangerous, if not deadly.

Also, he was cold, so they needed to hurry this up.

Unfortunately, it was several more minutes before he heard new voices. At least three, maybe four, the accents were all so different and yet alike in peculiar ways it was hard to tell for certain. Pirates picked up their own pattern of speech that set them apart faster than anything else about them, except maybe their smell, which made nightsoil workers smell pleasant by comparison.

As they drew closer, louder, not a single one bothering with the discretion Ferro-donni had exercised, it became easier to sort out there were three voices—the confusion had come from the way one of them was telling a story, pitching his voice differently for the various parts of it.

When they reached Ferro-donni, the loudest, most strident voice ordered the other two to be silent. "Ciao, signore, Bella-donna."

"Ciao, Jinhai-san," Selinah said, voice polite, level. Almost carefully so, but it was impossible to say why for the moment. "You're late."

"Only the poor and the unfashionable show up anywhere on time, Bella-donna. I am neither. Which are you?"

"The one with the goods you want," Acaeus said dryly. "Enough with your games. The papavero we'll take for the usual price, but the steel is getting harder to move, so the price is going up."

"Up by how much?" Jinhai asked sharply, all his levity falling away. "Imperial steel is worth quite a bit, but it's not so precious I'll beggar myself for it."

Acaeus huffed. "Don't waste my time with your blustering games. Kitonia steel is unrivaled, and I know you sell to warmongers. The increase is twenty-five percent."

"I'm not going over ten."

Forthwind only half-listened as they continued haggling. Jinhai and his crew weren't going to be happy when they realized they were bargaining for steel that was no longer where it should be. When they did realize it, there would be blood. Lots of it. Nobody took kindly to double-crossing and thieving, least of all pirates when they were on the receiving end.

He resumed paying close attention as the bargaining seemed to conclude at sixteen percent. Jinhai didn't seem entirely pleased, but sixteen was better by far than twenty-five.

"You can pick it up the night after tomorrow; the guardie will be out of your way then. I can't do sooner than that because of the festival. The old man will have the key like always. You know how to reach me if there are any problems. The next shipment will be four months."

"Four?" Jinhai asked. "How? It never takes you less than six."

"Special deliveries. That's all you'll get from me."

"Fair enough. Also a friendly warning for you, signore: someone approached me about stregoni blood. I turned him down; that's too hot for me to handle. He was confident he could find it via Verona. I don't know who here is trading in it, but keep your eyes open."

"I will do that," Acaeus said, voice gone so cold that even Forthwind shivered.

Not least of all because Forthwind knew exactly where that blood was and who was responsible for the trading. How would Ferro-donni react to learning it was none less than Hardegin-principe who was bleeding stregoni dry? Such a revelation could cause all-out war—in Verona and straight into the heart of the Empire.

Forthwind never stopped being grateful Dante was his friend rather than his enemy.

"Let's go," Acaeus said, and Selinah replied with an affirmative.

Stifling a groan, having only just started to really dry off, Forthwind slipped back into the water and returned the way he'd come, arriving just in time to grab his stashed knapsack before following them back through the city.

As they reached Isola delle ossa, however, the pair slowed to a stop, and broke into a low, quiet argument that unfortunately even magia could not help Forthwind understand. Acaeus finally huffed and said more loudly, "Do as you will, then, but have a care, Selinah, because this marriage is important. If you're caught out with a lover right now, neither the Ishikawa nor Hardegin-principe will take the news well."

"I know what I'm about. Buona notte, Father."

Acaeus walked off without replying.

Hmm. This was not in the plan. Dante had said nothing about Selinah having a lover. Could it be there was something Dante did not know?

As it seemed clear that Acaeus wanted only to go home, Forthwind left him to it and shadowed Selinah as she took a winding loop back around the island until she reached the sort of inn where no donna would be caught dead, unless getting caught would, in fact, result in someone's death.

There was no way he could follow inside without drawing attention, so Forthwind settled for skulking in an alleyway across the street. If he was lucky, the lover would arrive second. If he was unlucky, he'd be sitting here the rest of the night, and even morning, hoping to catch sight of the lover leaving.

Also hoping it was someone he'd recognize, but one step at a time.

He was just starting to daydream about going for a quick snack when he heard footsteps coming from far down the street. Far too loud for an assignation, surely. Heavy boots, meant for working, and they had a raised heel, which wasn't common in Verona, where everything was cobblestones, rocky shoreline, or sand. The most people dared risk were raised sandals, and even those could be a fool's game on the cobblestones.

There was also a jangle of metal, likely flashy bits of jewelry that didn't cost more than a few pence at small, cheap markets.

As the figure crested a hill and came into view, Forthwind almost rolled his eyes at the stupid predictability of it all. He really should have guessed.

Because he might never have seen Jinhai's face, but he knew a Hajari-born pirate when he saw one, and Selinah did not seem the type to settle for less than a pirate captain, though even that seemed remarkably low for someone of her snobbery.

Jinhai slipped into the inn with all the subtlety of a drunk in a fight, and Forthwind slipped out of the alleyway and made his way to the stable where Dante had said to meet him, or leave a note if he didn't arrive by two in the morning.

His stomach clenched, shoulders tensing, as he drew closer and saw a lantern was still lit. That meant Brom was awake. Forthwind had not seen him since their one night together, but he'd heard every word Dante had recounted to him. Still heard them, over and over again in his head, like a painful splinter he could not remove.

It was what he'd expected. What he deserved. He'd chosen to help Dante, and that came with consequences, even if he had not once ever expected this to be the sort of price he would pay.

Whatever. He'd spent one night with a beautiful man. There was no reason to be so maudlin. More than likely the night had probably meant nothing to Brom, and less than nothing now, for certain. The matter was over. Everyone else had moved on; so could he.

Pushing open the access door beside the much larger doors used to let horses in and out, Forthwind trudged across the yard to the house at the back of the place. He could smell food—vegetables, miso, fish, crab, and more.

Despite the dread gnawing at his stomach, Forthwind hastened his step, unable as ever to resist the pull of food—good food, very good food by the smell of it.

He left his shoes in the entryway and stepped into what proved to be a kitchen and dining area, and stared rapturously at the spread on the table. Vegetable miso soup. Herb-crusted roasted fish with lemon. Crab cannelloni. A dish of spicy pickled vegetables to cut the richness of everything else, and a porcelain carafe of warm saké to complement it all.

Clearly Brom was expecting someone. That did not sit well in Forthwind's stomach, but he told his stupid brain to behave, because honestly, Brom was probably delighted to be free of the whorehouse and seeking out old friends and other acquaintances. Rebuilding the life that Selinah had destroyed.

It would be best if Forthwind left a note for Dante and went on his way. He could stop at one of the countless food stalls along the way and eat in his room, and not at all think about—

"Dante, gomen, I was—" Brom stopped in the doorway, mouth snapping shut, skin losing some of its beautiful color as he realized it wasn't Dante who'd just arrived. "What are you doing here?"

"Didn't Dante say that I might be stopping by? He told me to meet him here after my job tonight."

"He only said that 'someone' would be stopping in to give a report, and that you both would appreciate any food I could come by. I didn't realize I'd be feeding you."

Forthwind winced. You. He'd been called all manner of names in his life, but somehow that you, full of hurt and contempt, was more damning and cutting than all of them. "I would never be that rude. If I'd known Dante had not warned you, I would have simply sent a runner with the message."

"You would never be that rude?" Brom laughed bitterly. "Only rude enough to fuck me while setting me up for revenge. I'd think that was ruder, but then again, people rarely consider whores to be real people."

"It wasn't like that." At the look on Brom's face, Forthwind added, "I swear it, on my father's grave. Not that he has one, because they dumped him in the sea like so much garbage and merely sent me a letter that he'd died in prison, but the point remains. Everything I did with you was in earnest, I swear."

Confusion and curiosity mingled on Brom's face. "Is that how you and Dante know each other? At first it seemed like you were lovers, but that's not how he speaks of you."

"Dante and I lovers? No. We are good friends, and he was like a second son to my father. That is how we met, yes. He took care of my father while they were both locked away in the Isola del tasso. After Dante escaped… Well, it is a long story, but after the way he cared for my father, and the things he did for me after we met… I owe him greatly."

"So greatly you agreed to fuck a whore to maneuver him where Dante needs?"

Forthwind pinched his eyes shut, longing and hurt and remorse sweeping through him. He'd known he was a fool, he'd known it would come to this. There was no point in being maudlin about getting exactly what he deserved and expected. "I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you. It's true that my job was to get you to see the job posting. After that, my plan had been to cut the night short and go home. I never had any plans to sleep with you. Then I actually saw you, met you, and learned that I am quite weak at heart. You were beautiful, and intriguing, and filled with so much sadness, that I continued the night instead, purely for myself, to spend more time with you, to see if I could take some of that sadness away."

Brom said nothing, but his face said he wanted to believe Forthwind, against a lifetime of harsh experience that told him how stupid it would be to do so.

"I asked Dante to show you mercy, if that matters. I could not believe for one moment, after spending the night with you, that you had ever meant to maliciously betray or hurt him. It does not seem in your nature to act that way. So I asked him to show you mercy. He would not leave off his revenge entirely, but he said if you failed his test and proved to be a terrible person, he would not be as vicious as he would have otherwise. I'm sorry. I knew giving into baser impulses would backfire on me. It was stupid. I could not resist spending whatever time with you that I could, but I should have."

His stomach growled, but he ignored it. When Brom said nothing, and the silence stretched on, Forthwind pushed on further into the house, still holding the knapsack he'd brought with him.

After a bit of searching, he found the office, which smelled of Dante's cologne and was already cluttered with the bits and bobs and stacks of paper that seemed to follow Dante everywhere. Scrounging up what he needed to leave a note, Forthwind quickly jotted down his report and left it where Dante would be certain to find it.

Leaving the office, he backtracked to the front room, where it was clear Brom had been relaxing with saké and a book. Forthwind swung the knapsack off his shoulder and knelt on the floor. Undoing the ties, he pulled it open and then gently removed the paper-wrapped package inside. Giving his most prized possession away hurt, but it also felt right.

He set the package on Brom's cushion, then shouldered his pack again and returned to the kitchen. Brom was where Forthwind had left him, and with a nod and murmur of goodnight, Forthwind departed, ignoring his grumbling stomach.

Cold night air washed over him, making him shiver in his still-damp clothes.

He'd just reached the door leading out to the street when he heard footsteps running up behind him and a familiar voice calling his name. Forthwind turned, and just barely caught Brom from barreling into him. "Whoa, are you all right? What's wrong?"

"Why did you give me this?" He thrust the unwrapped gift into Forthwind's face. "Why?"

Forthwind barely grabbed it before it fell to the ground. "I want you to have it. Why does anyone give gifts?"

That did not mollify Brom remotely. "I know this is important to you. I saw your face when you let me borrow it. You made it yourself, I remember that. Why would you give it to me."

"Because you're important to me too. At least, I want you to be, or I think you could be. I was drawn from the moment I saw you, and I've not stopped thinking about you since, and I hate the circumstances that brought us together, even though we might not have met otherwise. I never wanted to hurt you, and I am sorry that I did. Ciao, bello."

He gently handed the fur wrap back, immediately missing its soft, warm, familiar weight, and turned to go, but a hand grabbed his, fingers threading through his with shocking ease, and tugged him back. "Knock it off with the dramatics. You may as well come inside and eat. I didn't spend hours making food just for it to go to waste."

"I don't want to impose."

Brom smiled ever so fleetingly. "Too bad for you, because you're quite imposing. Come on." He let go of Forthwind's hand and held the fur close as he led the way back across the yard to the house.

Forthwind snorted. Him, imposing. He was about as imposing as a goldfish.

He removed his shoes again, and this time set his knapsack with them, and followed Brom into the kitchen. His stomach rumbled again as the wonderful smells washed over him. "If it tastes as good as it smells and looks, I do not understand why you couldn't get work as a cook somewhere."

"Nobody would hire someone who'd angered the people I angered," Brom said. "They were more than happy to pay for my time later, but give me a better job? No. That's not how people work. Sit. Is saké all right, or do you prefer something else?"

"Saké is fine. I'd never had it, or even heard of it, before meeting Dante, but it's excellent stuff." He sat at the table, tucking his legs beneath him, and barely stopped to recite the appropriate platitudes before picking up his chopsticks and setting to work. "This is delicious."

"I'd be flattered, but I think you just like food," Brom said with a chuckle as he ate far more sedately.

"I like good food." He finished off his cannelloni and went for a second, interspersing it with the vegetable miso soup and occasional pickle. "After my family lost everything, I was lucky to get anything to eat once or twice a week, and most often it was stuff I prefer not to remember. When Dante found me, I was even skinnier than you, and damned tired of eating food only barely above refuse."

Brom frowned. "Why were you starving?"

"Homeless, for years. As I said before, it is a long story, how I came to meet Dante and find myself in Verona."

"I don't mind listening," Brom said quietly, "but it sounds like a sad and painful story, so do not feel obligated to tell it."

Forthwind smiled faintly. "I learned how to tell people 'no' and 'drown in an outhouse' a long time ago. If I did not want to tell it, I would not. As you say, it is sad and painful, but if you want to hear it… Well, where I come from, story or news for food is a traditional trade." He refilled his soup and saké, gathering his thoughts, and when he had them, began the tale of his family's fall.

"My parents were farmers, but my father did not grow up such. He was more of a scholar, and because the farm made so much money, and my mother had plenty of help, he pursued some of those interests, and sometimes even tutored children who showed an acumen for such a path. He was a quiet man, smart and kind, but also fierce when he thought a wrong had been committed. One day, he was giving a lecture in the public square, on a study he'd been conducting on the potatoes we—and everyone else in the area—grew. That study included the detrimental effects a recently built watermill was having.

"A lot of people had already been grumbling about it, and my father now had hard proof, backed by his esteemed reputation in the community, which finally lent the complaints real weight. The owner of the mill, who'd been in the process of building two more in the broader area, was not pleased. The matter devolved into an ugly, bitter feud. Eventually, someone wound up dead. My father was wrongfully blamed for it, and the mill owner used every favor with every powerful friend he had to see my father was convicted and destroyed, and then trumped up debts to take everything away from my mother and me. She committed suicide, eventually. Couldn't bear the loss, the shame." Not even for her own son, but that was a bitterness he'd had to learn to let go just like thoughts of revenge.

"My father was dragged away to the Isola del tasso, and there he remained for the rest of his life. He was a shadow of himself for years. On the rare occasion he was allowed to write to me, his letters were lifeless, and I hated getting them, even as I treasured any hint that he was still alive. One day, though… one day I got a letter than sounded much like the way he'd been before everything went wrong. He spoke endlessly of a new prisoner, little more than a boy, wrongfully blamed for murder as well.

"From then, his letters were full of Carac this, Carac that, but also of some of his old studies and interests, including how he was working once more on the Treasure of the Lost Empress."

Brom laughed. "Why would such an accomplished academic as your father seems to be waste time on such a silly legend?"

"Because it's not a legend. Not entirely, anyway. She was assassinated, and her body was hidden, along with enough wealth for her heir to restore the empire when the war was over."

Everyone knew the rest of the tale: her heir, and the rest of the imperial family, was slaughtered. The empire lost the war and was taken over by the kingdom of Kitonia. People had wasted their lives searching for the mythical empress hidden away with enough wealth to save an empire, while others argued her body had been one of the many thrown on a pyre and lost forever, and people created the story because it was better than hearing their empress had died as easily and pointlessly as everyone else.

"You're joking," Brom said, a forgotten bite of fish frozen halfway to his mouth. He set it down. "You cannot be serious."

"My father figured out the likeliest place she and the treasure would have been buried. He told Dante before he died. Dante escaped, went after it, and once he found it came to find me. He tried to give me half of it, but I refused. When he wouldn't relent, I conceded to a quarter. He ignored me and gave me a third. The remaining two thirds he retained, and of course he knows how to ensure our money keeps making more money. Even the emperor himself does not know how much money we truly possess or where it came from."

Brom laughed, cynicism slipping into it. "Of course not. He'd confiscate it whole cloth as rightful imperial spoils of war long-denied the throne. I still find it hard to believe you found the treasure."

"Believe it." Forthwind reached beneath his tunic and pulled out the ring he kept on a silver chain. Removing the chain, he poured it into Brom's hand. "The imperial ring of the empress herself."

Brom stared, precisely the way Forthwind had when he'd first seen it. The ring was remarkably simple, made of solid gold with only small diamond chips forming the imperial crest, a signet more decorative than practical. But carved on the inside was the empress's name, in not one but three languages, and a tiny lily that was said to have been her personal mark. It was large, heavy; even on Forthwind it would cover his finger clear to the first knuckle.

"You kept this?"

"I did. Partly because it's essentially priceless, or would simply be called a forgery. Mostly, I keep it to remind me how easy it can be to rise and to fall, should I ever let the money do my thinking for me. Everything that ever mattered to me was taken away because of greed and ambition; that fur is all I really had left of that old life."

"Then you shouldn't—"

"My decision is made," Forthwind cut in, and took back the ring as Brom held it out. "Most of the other items that bore any sort of proof of their origin, Dante melted down or otherwise altered to keep our secret. Jewels, precious metals, imperial coins… A few pieces were donated anonymously to museums, but the rest we converted to a fortune we could use."

"Incredible." Brom laughed faintly and resumed eating. "Only Dante could be sentenced to jail for murder and come out of it the wealthiest man in the world. There were so many things about him I once envied, but the way the world always seemed to bend to his will, with little to no effort on his part… well, I've since realized it's never actually that easy, and the price of the world is high. Too high for me. But of course it works for him. He has fire in his veins and can warm the world or burn it."

Forthwind sighed. "If only he was less interested in burning it, but nobody can stop Dante except himself, and honestly I cannot blame him for wanting revenge. He gave my father a peace and happiness he'd not had in years. For that I will go to the bottom of the ocean with him. I hope it brings him the closure he so desperately seeks."

"What are you two going to do when this is over?" Brom asked.

"I do not know. Go where the wind takes us, I suppose, or perhaps return to the Esposito lands in Monte Cristo and settle down."

"So you're not staying in Verona?"

"I doubt it. Dante hates this place too much, and I admit that while interesting and amusing in the short term, long term this place is too rich for my blood, even if the food alone is worth remaining a lifetime. Especially yours."

Brom rolled his eyes but looked pleased all the same. "I learned to cook in my spare time. There's more of it than you might think in the whoring business. When the main cook was sick or otherwise unable to work, I often filled in these past few years. I'm no professional chef, but I enjoy it. I made a matcha tiramisu for dessert."

"Oh, I had that when we first arrived. It's the best dessert on earth, except perhaps for my mother's blackberry pies."

"I don't know what that is, but I enjoy berries on the rare occasion I get them fresh."

"If you ever come to the continent, I will give you all the berries you want," Forthwind replied.

Brom rolled his eyes again, but there was an unmistakable flush to his cheeks as he turned back to his dinner. "Finish your dinner. After we're done, I'll make up a bed for you, since it's late, and it smells like it's going to rain soon, and you look like you've been soaked enough for one night. I'm sorry, I didn't notice before, or I would have gotten you dry clothes."

"I'll change after dinner; they're almost dry now anyway." Forthwind smiled, and wanted to dance with joy when Brom tentatively returned it.

Outside, unnoticed by either, a shadowy figure smiled softly and faded off, headed back across town to his own rooms, Forthwind's note tucked into the sash of his yukata.