Innkeeper Chronicles 3.5: Sweep of the Blade Read online

  Sweep of the Blade

  Innkeeper Chronicles #3.5

  By: Ilona Andrews

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 Part 1 ...................................................................................... 3

  Chapter 1 Part 2 .................................................................................... 10

  Chapter 2 Part 1 .................................................................................... 20

  Chapter 2 Part 2 .................................................................................... 27

  Chapter 3 Part 1 .................................................................................... 35

  Chapter 3 Part 2 .................................................................................... 42

  Chapter 3 Part 3 .................................................................................... 49

  Chapter 4 Part 1 and 2 .......................................................................... 56

  Chapter 4 Part 3 .................................................................................... 69

  Chapter 5 Part 1 .................................................................................... 78

  Chapter 5 Part 2 .................................................................................... 87

  Chapter 6 Part 1 and 2 .......................................................................... 97

  Chapter 6 Part 3 .................................................................................. 112

  Chapter 7 Part 1 .................................................................................. 122

  Chapter 7 Part 2 .................................................................................. 128

  Chapter 8 Part 1 .................................................................................. 135

  Chapter 8 Part 2 .................................................................................. 142

  Chapter 9 Part 1 .................................................................................. 152

  Chapter 9 Part 2 .................................................................................. 164

  1

  Chapter 10 Part 1 ................................................................................ 172

  Chapter 10 Part 2 ................................................................................ 180

  Chapter 11 Part 1 ................................................................................ 189

  Chapter 11 Part 2 ................................................................................ 196

  Chapter 11 Part 3 ................................................................................ 205

  Chapter 12 part 1 ................................................................................ 209

  Chapter 12 part 2 ................................................................................ 217

  Chapter 12 part 3 ................................................................................ 222

  Chapter 12 Part 4 ................................................................................ 228

  Chapter 13, Part 1 ............................................................................... 232

  Chapter 13 Part 2 ................................................................................ 236

  Chapter 13 part 3 ................................................................................ 243

  Chapter 14 Part 1 ................................................................................ 250

  Chapter 14 Part 2 ................................................................................ 254

  Chapter 15 Part 1 ................................................................................ 262

  Chapter 15 part 2 ................................................................................ 269

  Chapter 15 part 3 ................................................................................ 274

  Chapter 15 part 4 ................................................................................ 281

  Chapter 16 Part 1 and 2 ...................................................................... 289

  Chapter 16 part 3 ................................................................................ 297

  2

  Chapter 1 Part 1

  December 25, 2017 by Ilona

  The stars died, replaced by total darkness.

  Maud hugged her own shoulders. The cold, slightly rough texture of the

  armor felt familiar under her fingertips. Reassuring. The plan was to

  never wear armor again, but lately life had taken a baseball bat to all of

  her plans.

  The floor-to-ceiling display only simulated a window, with the cabin itself

  hidden deep within the bowels of the destroyer, but the darkness

  3

  yawned at her all the same, cold and timeless. The Void, the vampires

  called it. That which exists between the stars. It always made her

  uneasy.

  “Are we dead, Momma?”

  Maud turned. Helen stood a few feet away, hugging a soft teddy bear

  Dina bought her for Christmas. Her long blonde hair stuck out on the

  right side, crinkled in her sleep. From here she could almost pass for a

  human. But Maud had survived the crucible of Karhari, where the

  slightest hint of movement, the softest whisper of sound meant

  difference between life and death. Yet Helen snuck up on her, fast and

  silent like a cat. Or a vampire.

  “No. We’re not dead. We’re traveling in hyperspace. It would take too

  much time to get where we need to go under normal propulsion, so we

  thread through the wrinkle in the fabric of space like a needle. Come, I

  want to show you something.”

  Helen padded over. Maud swept her up – she was getting so big so fast

  – and held her to the display.

  “This is the Void. You remember what Daddy told you about the Void?”

  “It’s where the souls go.”

  “That’s right. When a vampire dies, his soul must pass through the Void

  before it is decided if it goes to Paradise or to the empty plains of

  Nothing.”

  “I don’t like it,” Helen whispered and stuck her head into Maud’s

  shoulder.

  Maud almost purred. These moments, when Helen still acted like a baby,

  were more and more rare now. She would grow up and walk away

  4

  before Maud knew it, but for now Maud could still hold her and smell

  her scent. Helen was hers for a little while longer.

  “Don’t be afraid. You have to look, or you will miss the best part.”

  Helen turned. They stood together, looking at the darkness of the Void.

  It began as a tiny spark that flared in the center of the display. The

  brilliant point of light rushed toward the spaceship, unfurling like a

  glittering flower, spinning, its petals opening wide and wider, painted

  with all the majesty of stars.

  Helen stared, her eyes opened wide, the lights of from the display playing

  on her face.

  The glittering universe engulfed them. The ship tore through it and

  emerged into the normal space. A beautiful planet hung in space,

  orbiting a warm yellow star, a green and blue jewel, t
he turquoise veil of

  atmosphere glowing gently. It wasn’t Earth, but it could’ve been her

  prettier sister. Two moons orbited the planet, one large and purple,

  closer to the surface, the other tinted with orange, smaller and distant.

  The sunsets had to be spectacular.

  “Is this the planet where Lord Arland lives?”

  “Yes, my flower.” Maud set Helen on the floor. “You should get dressed.”

  Helen scampered off, like a bunny released from its hutch.

  The turquoise planet looked at Maud through the screen. The

  homeworld of House Krahr.

  This was crazy. Certifiable.

  If she went on logic only, she should’ve never come here. She should’ve

  never brought Helen here.

  5

  In combat, Maud made decisions in split second, but in something like

  this, a monumental shift in her life, she liked to take her time, weighing

  pros and cons. The first time a vampire proposed to her, she had taken

  two years to decide.

  She was the daughter of innkeepers. Caution was in her blood.

  An ancient agreement existed between Earth and the rest of the cosmic

  powers. Situated at the crossroads, Earth served as the way station for

  many travelers passing through on their way elsewhere. They arrived in

  secret and stayed at the specialized inns, equipped to handle a wide

  variety of beings. In return, the planet was designated as a neutral

  ground. None of the interstellar powers could lay claim to it, and the

  existence of other intelligent life remained a secret to all human

  population except for the select few innkeepers. It was a pact that

  persisted for centuries.

  Her parents had been innkeepers, experts in all things galactic. That’s

  how she’d ran into Melizard. She could still remember the exact moment

  they met. She’d just came off the practicing session. She walked into the

  kitchen, sweaty and flushed, looking for something cold to drink, carrying

  her sword, and he was there, a young vampire lord, standing beside his

  father talking to Mom. Tall, handsome, imposing in his black armor, with

  a mane of chestnut hair and an arrogant smirk on his lips. He looked at

  her and that smile died. And then he kept looking, like he was struck by

  lightning, as she got her glass of water and left the kitchen.

  He proposed to her at the end of that week. She turned him down.

  Vampires were a predatory strain of humans. They lived in a structured

  society, where noble houses ruled, bound together in Holy Anocracy

  under the religious guidance of Hierophant and military leadership of the

  Warlord. They loved armor, conquest, epic poetry, and killing things with

  their weapons and teeth. She knew entering that society would be a

  6

  challenge, and so she said no again and again, until finally Melizard

  convinced her, and she said yes.

  Yeah, and so much good all that careful preparation did her. The

  memory of Melizard’s head on a pike flashed before her. She shut her

  eyes for half a moment and willed it out of her mind.

  This time a vampire proposed to her after she knew him for barely two

  weeks. She said no. That was the right thing to do. And then she got

  her daughter, and boarded his destroyer, and let him bring them to his

  planet.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  The problem was, she wasn’t thinking. She was feeling. She was a

  mother; she couldn’t afford the luxury of simply doing something

  because it “felt right.” But she had done it anyway.

  It was unwise.

  The planet grew on her screen.

  It would’ve been so much more prudent to walk away and stay in her

  sister’s inn. To relearn being a human after trying for so many years to

  become the perfect vampire. But every time she looked at Arland or

  heard his voice, her heart gave a little flutter. Maud didn’t think she had

  a heart anymore. Karhari had dried it up into a lump of hard dirt. Then

  he would say her name…

  This wasn’t what she wanted. Jumping head first into vampire politics

  was the last thing she and Helen needed, especially House Krahr politics.

  Melizard had come from House Ervan, a smaller clan with a solid

  standing, respected but not influential. She’d had to claw her way to

  respectability. It wasn’t enough to be good, she had to excel to just get

  a pass. House Krahr was one of the premier Houses. Melizard would’ve

  7

  cut off his arm to own this ship, and Arland drove it back and forth like it

  cost him nothing.

  A sphere slipped from behind the curve of the planet. It didn’t have the

  usual pitted look of a satellite. She squinted at it.

  What the hell…

  She pinched her arm. The sphere was still there. Three rings wrapped

  around it, twisting one over the other, each consisting of a metal core

  bristling with latticework of spikes. From here the rings appeared

  delicate, almost ethereal. She touched the display, zooming in on the

  ribs.

  Not spikes. Cannons.

  House Krahr had built a mobile battle station. Her mind refused to

  accept the existence of so much firepower concentrated in one place.

  Dear Universe, how much did that thing cost? Arland had mentioned

  that, because of her sister’s help, their House was doing well, but this,

  this was off the scale.

  She couldn’t marry him. The gulf between them was too huge.

  She couldn’t let him leave either.

  So here they were. Her fingers went to the blank crest on her armor. The

  crest controlled the armor’s functions. It also granted her entry to the

  Holy Anocracy and permission to operate within its borders as a free

  agent. It marked her as a mercenary. If things got really bad, she could

  always grab Helen and go back to Dina’s inn, she told herself.

  “Momma?” Helen asked. “Are we there yet?”

  “Almost, my flower.”

  8

  She turned. Helen had put on the outfit they bought at Baha-char, the

  galactic bazaar. Black leggings, black tunic over a crimson shirt. She

  looked like a full-bloodied vampire. But she was half. The other

  vampires would not let her forget it. At least not until she beat every last

  one of them.

  “Come here.” Maud crouched and adjusted Helen’s belt, cinching her

  daughter’s tiny waist. She checked Helen’s wrist band and the small pc

  attached to it. “All set.”

  “All set,” Helen said. “Can I bring my teddy?”

  “We’ll bring all our things.”

  They had so little, it didn’t take them long to pack. Five minutes later

  Maud swung the bag over her shoulder, glanced one final time at the

  cabin and display, and took Helen by the hand. The door slid open at

  their approach and they stepped through it.

  9

  Chapter 1 Part 2

  January 5, 2018 by Ilona

  Space crews had a saying, “Volume is cheap; mass is expensive.” In space,

  where air and friction weren’t a factor, it didn’t matter how large

  something was, only how much it weighed. It took a certain amount of

  fuel to accelerate one pound of matter to the right velocity, and t
hen a

  roughly equal amount of fuel to decelerate it.

  House Krahr had taken that saying and run away with it. The arrival deck

  of the ship looked like the courtyard of a castle in the finest Holy

  Anocracy tradition. Grey square stones paved the deck, climbing up to

  10

  veneer the towering walls, punctuated by false windows. Long crimson

  banners of House Krahr, with the black profile of the saber-toothed

  predator that gave the House its name, stretched between the windows.

  Between them flowering vines sent a gentle perfume into the air,

  offering bunches of delicate pink blossoms. In the middle of the

  chamber, a vala tree spread its branches, its red blossoms in stark

  contrast to the black bark. A two-foot wide stream rushed through the

  artificial stream bed, breaking into two, falling down in three small

  waterfalls, then uniting again before winding around the tree in a perfect

  circle, and disappearing beneath the roots. She could’ve understood if

  the stream was part of the water supply that would be later recycled, but

  there were bright sparkly fish in it. It wasn’t used for anything except as

  a stress-relieving decoration. The luxury was mind-boggling.

  There had to be some way to close it off if the ship had to maneuver,

  Maud reflected. Otherwise they would have a mess on their hands.

  Nothing more fun than unsecured water in zero-G.

  “Can I?” Helen whispered.

  “Yes,” Maud told her.

  Helen ran to the tree, little heels flashing.

  Maud followed slowly. She’d walked across stones just like these

  countless times. If she let it, her memory would change their pale grey

  to warm travertine beige, the banners to Carolina blue, and the distant

  ceiling over her head to the pale gold sky of Melezard’s planet. She

  stopped before the vala tree. Every vampire world had them. If the

  climate couldn’t support them, the vampires built hot houses just to

  plant them. A vala tree was the heart of the clan, the core of the family,

  a sacred place.

  11

  When she was married, the blossoms of the vala tree decorated her