The Blood Burns in My Veins by Megan Derr

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seven

 

 

"For all evils there are two remedies - time and silence."

― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

 

 

Everything hurt. Even his face, which his parents usually left alone because people asked questions about bruised faces. Naoki hadn't been in this much pain since the days right after Arata had been murdered, and Izumi beat anyone—everyone—who so much as twitched an eyelid wrong.

He sat in his garden sipping tea laced with sweet liqueur sent to him by Mineko without prompting. At least she seemed to understand none of this was his fault. He hadn't known the blunts had come off the swords. Yes, he was stupid for not noticing, but such things happened with moderate frequency in dueling.

He certainly wasn't responsible for Kattali-donna deciding her daughter's betrothal ball was the ideal place to drink a cup of poison-flavored wine. Yet somehow he sensed part of his beating had been for that. At the very least, he'd been a place to direct anger that had nowhere else to go.

Naoki added more liqueur to his latest cup. Hardegin-principe had returned to Verona in the latest hours of the night, and shortly after, had ordered the families to attend him—in their entirety—at the midday bell. Naoki was surprised only that he hadn't wanted to see them at first light, but he supposed even Hardegin could be bothered to remember that a woman was dead and her family deserved time.

Why? He wasn't fond of Kattali-donna on a good day, honestly would not normally care one whit to hear the woman was dead… but Kattali-donna was not the type of woman to take her own life, least of all at the betrothal ball of her daughter to the son of her greatest enemy. If anything, people would have expected her to murder someone else.

Instead she'd drunk poison. Something imported, even, since he knew of no native poison that could kill so quickly—and it must have been quick, else somebody would have noticed she was missing from the party and possibly saved her.

From what little he'd overheard, she'd essentially died from suffocating after the poison paralyzed her entire body. That was far more than Naoki wanted to know, but given there were already rumors flying that his family had actually murdered her, and the betrothal was just an excuse to get close enough to the Ferro family to do it, better to know all he could so nothing was able to take him by surprise or be easily used against him. One thing to be a pawn, another to take the fall for a death he didn't cause.

He had no desire to repeat history by being sent away to die alone on a remote island prison like Ferro Carac.

The door slid open, and Naoki looked up, peeved that someone was entering his room without his bidding—but relaxed when he saw it was only Haru, still wearing an old, faded jinbei, so she must have just finished practicing her magia.

She sat down at his table in the garden and nodded to the teapot. "Can I have some?"

"It has jasmine liqueur in it."

"Good." She took one of the spare cups that the servants always brought by habit and filled it nearly to the brim. "Kanpai," she said, and shot it down smoothly before immediately refilling the cup.

"Saluti," Naoki replied as his brows rose, but he was hardly going to judge anyone for turning to alcohol when life got to be too much to endure sober. Even if it was markedly peculiar that his little sister, so reluctant to cause ripples, was the one doing it.

"Stressful morning?" he asked drolly. He examined her idly, looking for hints that his damned stepmother had finally crossed the line and started in on Haru. If she did that, she wouldn't even get the dignity of drinking poison. Naoki would feed her to sharks like a convicted pirate.

Thoughts of murdering his own stepmother spun away as his pensive gaze caught a mark of an entirely different nature low on Haru's neck, right where someone clearly thought her collar would hide it but had chosen a spot just a touch too high.

"What do you think?" Haru asked, taking several sips of the second cup. Naoki went ahead and topped it off for her.

He drank a large swallow of his own and then said, "I think you'd better get your cosmetics out, if you want to hide that love mark on your neck before Izumi sees it." He smirked. "Did you manage to sneak away with Esposito-don before or after our duel?" The idea left a weird, unpleasant squirming in his gut, but Naoki promptly drowned it with more alcohol-laced tea. At this point, it was more like tea-laced alcohol, but details, details.

"What!" She slapped a hand right on the damning spot, swearing more creatively than he'd known she could.

He lifted his cup in a toast of admiration. "So he's good then?"

"What? He who? Oh, you mean Esposito-don. No, I did nothing with him except speak briefly. He's too old for me, don't be silly. I just like flirting with him. I think he knows that."

Naoki drowned the relief that swept through him at those words the same way he'd drowned the earlier envy. Which he hadn't felt. Because he didn't care about some flashy conte who clearly just wanted to impress all the right people of Verona and establish a name for himself. "So who did you sneak away with, then? Come, come."

"Someone I've never met before. We— We had fun."

"I can tell," Naoki said with a slow smirk. "How much fun? 'Trip to the continent in a couple of months' fun? No, you have more sense than that. Well, let's start with the basics. She? He? They? Was it a party? Surrender the details, little sister."

"I'm not telling you anything," Haru hissed, delicate skin the color of the red flowers edging the perimeter of his garden.

He pouted. "But I'm sharing my alcohol and being almost pleasant."

She sighed. "Her, and she was a lot of fun, in many ways—that's not what I meant!" she said as Naoki burst into laughter hastily muffled by his sleeve. "I mean, I like her, for more than just how much fun she was… well, somewhere I'm not telling you."

"Oh, I hope it was Izumi's sitting room."

"Shut up," Haru said, flushing an even brighter scarlet. How hilarious to see his little sister blushing over a silly amorous rendezvous. "Anyway, I could have fucked her right in the middle of the ballroom, and I still would not have drawn as much attention as you did with your ridiculous duel. Nice scar, by the way. It honestly makes you look all mysterious and dangerous, on top of already being pretty."

Naoki's good mood soured. "I'm not pretty, and I'm certain I've merely gone from ugly to hideous, but dōmo for trying."

Haru sighed. "I hate what Mother has done to you, because you're easily the most beautiful of all of us, Naoki."

"Enough. Come on, give me a few more details about your little adventure. Nobila? Servant girl? Out with it."

"I'm going to take you out if you don't quit!"

Naoki laughed. "I'll get the details eventually, especially if you keep drinking like that."

Haru's levity died like a crushed flower. "What do you think is going to happen to us?"

"What do you mean?"

"Because of Kattali-donna."

"She committed suicide. Three different officials confirmed that. Some deep guilt drove her, to judge by the note she left." He drummed his fingernails against the side of his delicate porcelain cup. "If I had to guess, I'd say something at the party happened that tipped her over the edge. People with such thoughts in mind seldom act according to a rationality the rest of us can see."

Haru nodded but looked far from reassured.

Naoki couldn't blame her. They hadn't done anything, for once. The last time either of their families had lashed out at the other had been when Carac murdered Arata. There'd been countless rumors that it was actually a bandit, which had inspired his rampant fear of them, but surely if it had truly been a bandit and not Carac that would have been sorted out?

Not that it mattered. The point was that the death of Arata had finally been what tipped their families into more or less behaving, since Hardegin's threats on the matter had not been idle. Nor had his orders their families unite via marriage.

Now Kattali-donna might have ruined everything. Why couldn't she at least have had the decency to kill herself in her own home? At least then his family would not be in danger of banishment, even execution, if they could not convince Hardegin they were in no way responsible.

They'd done their best, and Ferro Acaeus had seemed to believe it was suicide, but the only opinion that mattered in the end was Hardegin's, and he hated all of them, or may as well.

"If nothing else," he finally said, "Hardegin-principe would never want to go to all the trouble required of replacing us. Few of the continent rabble want to move to what they consider the middle of nowhere, far from the court where they all take turns trying to assassinate each other while wearing their precious masks. Not to mention we have a magia that is difficult to replace. The only other stregoni dell'acqua of our caliber reside in enemy territory. The rest are tied up in merchant contracts, or similar such, and aren't even half as good as us, and the money that fills Verona's coffers, Hardegin's pockets, and the emperor's vault relies heavily on us. Hardegin doesn't believe in working that hard."

"You shouldn't speak so carelessly about him."

"Or what? He'll bestir himself from his continent games and whoring to slap me? Oh, no, another person wants to beat me for not doing exactly as they say, when they say, how they say. Whatever will I do?"

Haru just regarded him somberly, even sadly. "Die. All of this will kill you one day, Naoki, if you don't do something."

He slammed down the teapot he'd just picked up. "Do something? What would you have me do? Argue with my vindictive stepmother? Defy my violent-tempered father? Ignore Mineko, who delights in any excuse to be malicious? If standing against them was remotely possible, you and I would both be long gone." He retrieved the pot and refilled their cups.

She sipped at hers, then added more liqueur. "I think about it sometimes. Running away, I mean. Just hopping on whatever ship is pulling out of port and going where the wind and water take me."

"So do it," Naoki replied. "If anyone could succeed at such a stupid plan, it's you. Just pack smartly, because life outside the sheltered luxury of being an Ishikawa is nothing remotely like what you imagine, no matter how much you think you've taught yourself."

"You could come with me." She stared at her tea, tracing the rim of the cup with one finger, then slowly looked up at him through her lashes. "We could run away together, find somewhere simple and quiet to live, far away from all of this."

Naoki drained his tea, and this time filled it with straight liqueur. "No. It's a fool's wish, and I'll not be sucked into it."

"You'd rather drink yourself to death or wait until someone beats you to death?"

For a moment, a single, darting, flashing moment, Naoki recalled a devastating smile, eyes that burned like fire, a man who dueled like it had never occurred to him that Naoki was anything but an equal and worthy opponent. A few precious moments in time where he'd felt like himself, where he'd been happy, an emotion he mostly thought of as something people made up.

Then it was gone, burned away by the sticky perfume scent and soft burn of jasmine liqueur. "Whichever comes first, yes." He tossed the liqueur back, dropped the cup on the table, and rose unsteadily. "Now if you will excuse me, sister-chan, we both need to be getting ready for our meeting with Hardegin-principe."

Haru looked like she had plenty still to say to him, and for a moment looked on the verge of tears, but then she simply jerked to her feet and fled the room as though she was the one who'd been beaten half to death the previous night and a bit more that morning for good measure.

Sighing, Naoki rang for servants, and with their help soon had gotten dressed in the court regalia required of an audience with an imperial principe.

If only running away could solve their problems. But as appealing as being far, far away from the life of an Ishikawa sounded at times, the reality was not so simple. Naoki had sense enough to know he was a pampered nobile. He had no idea how to farm, or weave, or cook, or anything else that people did every single day so that he could spend his time sulking and drinking and recovering from beatings.

The people who made fine clothes seldom could afford to wear them.

He'd make a terrible peasant, and so would Haru, and eventually she would realize that—or Izumi would beat it into her, though not before she was married off to a spouse that would bring Ishikawa even more power and wealth.

When he was dressed, he thanked the servants and dismissed them. Firmly alone, he retrieved the flask Mineko had given him that morning, along with plenty of alcohol to fill it, and tucked it into the sash of his somber purple and gray kimono.

Would they soon be forced into the full grays of mourning? Probably. Did it really matter? No. Naoki did hate looking dreary all the time, though.

The rest of his family was already gathered in the hall. Izumi looked him up and down, familiar disgust curling her mouth into a sneer that she would never show in public. From the drinking or his embarrassing looks, he couldn't say. Probably both, and a third thing he didn't even know about yet.

"I cannot believe you are going to show up for audience with Hardegin-principe drunk," she hissed when he drew close, and smacked his cheek hard enough to sting, though not so hard the red marks would still be there when they arrived at the palace.

Naoki regarded her with the same cold blankness that shaped all their conversations. "It's drunk or not at all. Take your pick, Honored Stepmother."

"Let's be on our way," his father cut in before more violence arose. "Naoki, stay quiet and out of the way if you can't have enough dignity to arrive sober."

"Yes, Honored Father." Already anticipating the moment he'd be able to slip away to enjoy his flask, Naoki walked with his family out to the waiting palanquins.

To his astonishment, the first thing he saw upon their arrival was Esposito-don.

Despite his efforts to be drunk enough he cared about nothing, it was impossible not to notice the man he'd scarred. Who'd scarred him. Naoki barely kept himself from reaching up to touch the scar he could still feel, a strange sensation on a part of his body he seldom noticed, or assiduously avoided thinking about as much as he could, because who constantly wanted to think about how ugly they were?

Esposito-don did not share that problem. He was quite possibly the most beautiful person Naoki had ever seen. He was big, broad, without being hulking or intimidating. His shoulders looked like they could carry the world. He had long, wavy hair, somewhere between dark blond and light brown, threaded here and there with silver, and the kind of eyes that seemed to change color depending on what he was wearing and where he was standing.

Like everyone else, he was dressed in somber grays, accented with light touches of dark blue and silver. His beautiful hair was held back by a single ribbon, strands of it already escaping to frame his handsome, sharp-edged face. His skin was relatively pale, though warmed slightly by the sun, practically perfect.

Naoki was almost sorry he'd opted to duel instead of dance, except even the pain still wracking his body from the beatings did not make him regret those few precious moments where he'd felt alive.

He murmured a greeting and turned away before he did something stupid, like smile, and followed his family into the palace. All around them, the people of the palace—staff, inhabitants, visitors—fell silent as they watched the two most notorious Houses in Verona arrive for yet another audience with an angry principe. Some stopped Acaeus-don to offer condolences and sympathy, but he largely ignored them past a bare nod of the head.

The walk through the main hall to the audience chamber Hardegin always called them to seemed to take even longer than usual. The last time he'd been in this room, it had been when their families were informed that they would marry or suffer particularly unpleasant consequences. Before that, it had been because of Arata's death.

As that wasn't a memory he wanted to dwell on, especially when he'd worked so hard to get drunk to make this day more bearable, Naoki turned his thoughts elsewhere, admiring everything from the floor to the lavishly painted ceiling to…

Well, well. Hardegin had brought his precious, sheltered daughter along. That was peculiar. Was he finally allowing her to be something other than a cosseted doll? Naoki had always felt sorry for her the same way he felt sorry for Haru. They were young, beautiful girls who would never get a chance to live life on their own terms. They had been born pawns for their parents' ambitions and would die being the same for their husbands and children.

The poor duchessa looked in over her head, dressed in full court regalia, sitting to the right and slightly behind her father. Her gown was gray, with an overdress of dark blue trimmed in silver lilies, the sides open, long and wide, the whole cinched with a quarter-sash loosely knotted in the front with the ends left to dangle. All women in the room wore similar, though the overdresses on the older women weren't open on the sides.

For men, it was hose, thigh-length tunics in two to three layers, and hot, stifling boots instead of the slippers or raised sandals people wore otherwise. Naoki hated court regalia; all it did was make a miserable situation sweaty and uncomfortable.

Hardegin, imposing in black and gray with lurid flashes of scarlet, gave a minute nod to signal they may rise from their deep bows. He snapped his fingers, and the guardie in the hall departed, the closing of the doors echoing through the cavernous space.

"Ishikawa-donni, you'd better have alibis," Hardegin said, the words cracking out like a whip, "and be able to convince me you didn't pay someone else to do the deed. Choose your words carefully, because I am perilously close to executing every single person in this room."

"Principe-sama, I will speak for them," Acaeus said. "Let me be plain: there is no love lost between our families, and our history is bloody and sordid. If I thought for one moment they were responsible for the death of my wife, I would already have exacted my revenge and damn the consequences. But three experts gave their opinions, knowing full well I wouldn't like the answer, and both the method she used and the note she left behind are in keeping with my wife's character. I cannot explain why she would do something so heartbreaking, but I am convinced she did. No one else had a hand in her death."

Hardegin stared at him, brows vanishing into his hairline. "Not the words I expected to hear today. Perhaps there is hope for the lot of you after all. We have no idea what drove her to such an extreme? What make you of the note?"

Acaeus replied, "My best speculation, Principe-sama, is that she feared exactly the situation we are now in: that we all would believe the feud continues, the bloodshed would begin anew, and she did not want that to happen. As to why she did it… I could not say. She had every reason to live, to my knowledge."

"Did she seem strange in the days leading up to the ball? At the ball?"

"No—" Acaeus broke off. "There was a moment, in the receiving line, where she seemed troubled for a moment. She assured me it was nothing. I cannot recall to whom she was speaking, unfortunately. I remember at the time I just assumed someone had made a crude joke or unpleasant comment under the guise of being witty. Perhaps it was more than that."

"Hmm." Hardegin leaned back in his seat. "If you recall to whom it was she spoke, let me know at once, and we will see what that person might be able to tell us."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"All right. That was sorted more easily than I anticipated."

Naoki swore his stepmother swayed on her feet, and his father made a choked sound, like he was smothering an hysterical laugh. Mineko looked as though she wished she'd followed Naoki's steps and arrived drunk. Haru—

Haru was staring not so discreetly at the duchessa, who stared back with more subtlety but not much. Interesting. Apparently now she'd snuck off with one woman, Haru wanted to make a practice of it. He'd have to advise her against trying anything with Kumiko-donna. Leaving aside neither of them was supposed to be doing anything before their future husbands got grubby hands all over them, Hardegin worked hard to keep his daughter well away from the cutthroat games that were the lifeblood of imperial nobility. In Verona, he especially kept her far from the claws of Ishikawa and Ferro. If he found his daughter tumbling an Ishikawa, even Oceana herself would not be able to contain his fury.

Before he could figure out a discreet way of telling Haru to quit staring, Hardegin resumed speaking. "The marriage of course will have to be delayed to accommodate the period of mourning, but when the six months have passed, we will have the ceremony and reception here in the palace."

So everyone would know Kattali-donna's suicide hadn't sparked the feud anew, and they were still in Hardegin's tenuous good graces. It meant there would be no seaside ceremony, which Naoki had actually been pleased about, as much as he was pleased about anything. Now they'd have to include a whole slew of excess steps and formality and fuss to accommodate not just an imperial presence, but an imperial host. Marvelous. Thank Oceana he was already planning on being as far from sober as he could get without falling unconscious.

"Yes, Principe-sama," everyone chorused, before the parents launched into the obligatory platitudes about his kindness and generosity while quietly seething about all the expensive plans they would now have to cancel or rearrange.

After several more interminable minutes, Hardegin abruptly called for a break to deal with whatever one of his staff came up to whisper to him about. Naoki did not give his parents an opportunity to speak to him, but fled through a side door that led to a small, private rock garden where he promptly pulled out his flask.

He'd barely taken one sip when a spider crawled across the rocks to join him.

Selinah smelled like roses and bergamot, the perfect scent for such a somber occasion.

"I'm sorry again for your pain," Naoki said.

"I don't need your sympathies," Selinah replied, so close beside him on the bench the folds of her gown fell over his thigh. If they were not engaged, anyone who caught them would beat her unconscious for behaving so inappropriately—and beat him harder for being such a rude, crass, sex-starved bastardo.

Really, though, they'd both just be punished for getting caught.

He took another swallow of liquor. "What do you need then? I assume it's not my pleasant company."

The curl of her lip said more than words ever could. "I want to discuss our marriage."

"Delayed for six months at least, and probably longer since His Highness insists on overseeing the matter personally now. What's to discuss?"

"I want us to elope. Married in secret because we just could not wait, and it's what my mother would have wanted."

Naoki sighed. "You want a pretty scandal." He took another drink. "I'm sorry, but I have to ask: are you trying to cover a pregnancy because you can't go to the continent to take care of it?"

"No," Selinah said. "Marriage would not hide a mistake like that, depending on the magia the child possessed—if any."

"True enough. So just for the pretty scandal of it all?"

"Yes."

Naoki sighed some more and finished off the contents of his flask. "I'll have to talk to Mineko. There's no way I can pull it off without her assistance."

"Fine. Send me a note when the matter is settled." She rose and departed without so much as a farewell, carrying the scent of roses and bergamot with her, leaving him mercifully alone once more with the dusty smell of rocks and the salty sea air.

Stuffing his empty flask away, he rose and went in search of Mineko, who was predictably enough found in a servant's passage molesting some young man who looked barely old enough to be working. "I need a word, Mineko, if you can stop trying to rape a child for five minutes."

She rose to her full height and stared at him with annoyance. The boy took the chance to run for his life. Well, he'd saved one. "What is so important that you must interrupt my fun?"

Not bothering to comment on her ideas of fun, Naoki told her of the conversation with Selinah.

"She's smart, I'll give her that. Tell her it will happen. I'll make the arrangements and let you know the date when I have one."

"But—"

"But what? You were always going to marry her. Do the details really matter?"

"Nothing, you're right," Naoki replied. "I'll let her know." He turned and walked off, and flagged down the first servant he saw, asking them to bring him liquor to the rock garden.

But what. The words pounded through his head. What had he been hoping for? Mineko was right—the details had changed, but the outcome was the same as it had ever been. So why had he been protesting?

The truth rose up, despite all his efforts at drowning such thoughts. Neither woman had asked what he'd wanted. No one had, not from the moment Hardegin had ordered a marriage would take place. Selinah had been the obvious choice for the Ferro family, despite their not-so-secret ambitions to strengthen their ties to the imperial throne, and Naoki the obvious choice for the Ishikawa. He was the sacrificial goat; it was the only purpose his father and stepmother had ever seen in him. Probably his mother would have been no different, had she lived.

"So have you decided?"

"Decided what?"

"Whether we are to dance or to duel."

Now that Naoki thought about it, that stupid, teasing question had been the first time in longer than he could remember that someone had asked him to make the choice, to pick his preference.

Naoki reached up to touch the scar that ran across the bridge of his nose, then angrily wiped away the tears that had escaped and distracted himself playing with the water in the small pond at the center of the garden until his alcohol arrived.

Shortly after it came, however, so did yet another visitor: Esposito-don.

"My apologies," Amore said. "I did not mean to intrude. I was exploring a bit, since I only ever came to the palace one other time, to register, and that is a completely different section."

Naoki motioned for him to sit. "You are not intruding. I wanted to apologize again for my carelessness. I should have noticed the blunts had fallen off. I did not mean to hurt you, and I am sorry that I did."

To his complete astonishment, Amore reached up and touched Naoki's scar, tracing it from one end to the other, his touch feather-light but searing. Then he touched his own the same way before letting his hand fall. His eyes looked gray there in the garden, whereas at the entrance they'd looked more green. They were beautiful, and Naoki hated himself for noticing.

"If I were a more superstitious man," Amore said, "I would say this means our fates are bound."

"Many would agree with you," Naoki replied, heart tripping for reasons he could not explain, or at least didn't want to. "If you wanted all of Verona to know your name, you're on the right path, Esposito-don."

"Please, I think at this point you may use my name."

"Then you should do the same."

"Dōmo for the honor, Naoki-don."

"And you, Dante-don," Naoki replied, licking his suddenly dry lips and looking away before he said or did something stupid. "You duel well. It was an enjoyable time until I ruined everything."

"Nothing was ruined in my eyes, but I regret you probably suffered your family's wrath. Your mother seemed most upset."

Naoki looked at him again, smiled faintly. "Between you and me, Dante-don, my honored stepmother is always upset about something. Do not pay her any mind. It was my betrothal ball, our duel, and I enjoyed it immensely."

"As did I, so we will call the matter closed," Dante replied, and reached up to touch Naoki's scar again, sending delicate shivers running through him.

Was he losing his mind? Was there something there between them? Did this beautiful, intriguing man see something more than the Ishikawa drunk?

Reality came crashing back down as a bell tolled, summoning them back to Hardegin's presence.

"Shall we?" Dante asked, mouth twisting into a smile that Naoki did not remotely understand.

Dante offered his arm as they stood, and Naoki accepted it; together they left the garden, leaving behind the alcohol Naoki had never gotten around to drinking.