Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles Book 4) Page 4

  She nodded, “I know. And that’s a problem. I’m a widow of a dishonored knight. My husband tried to murder his own brother to become the marshal of his House. I am a human. I know how vampires treat outsiders. I’ve lived that life. Your House will see me as a human woman who has nothing, no status, no honor, no purpose. No use to anyone. A woman who has a half-vampire child and would do anything for the sake of that child, including seducing the pride of their House and then manipulating him to get what she wants.”

  Arland raised his eyebrows. “I’ve survived countless attempts at manipulation before. I appear to be too dense for it. However, I am open to being seduced.”

  “Will you take this seriously?”

  “I don’t care what my House thinks.”

  “But I do. For years I was an exemplary wife to the son of a vampire Marshal. Nobody could find fault with my behavior or with my daughter. I worked for the benefit of House Ervan. I organized their banquets, I taught them to deal with their alien neighbors, I memorized their rituals, rites, poetry…I know more Ancestor Vampiric dialects than most vampire scholars. Yet, when my husband committed treason, his House threw us away like garbage. None of my accomplishments mattered. I didn’t exist outside of my husband.”

  His face turned hard. “I’m not Melizard and House Krahr is not House Ervan.”

  Maud nodded. “I know that. But the imbalance between us is much greater than between Melizard and me. I don’t want to be the pet human, Arland. I won’t let myself be treated that way again. My trust in your society has been shattered. I swore to myself that I would never return to the Holy Anocracy. I wanted to save myself and Helen from rejection. I can probably take it. It would crush me, but I would survive it. I’m an adult. Helen is a child. The first time it happened, she was too young to fully understand it, but now she is old enough. I can’t put her through it. To have found a home and a father and then to have it ripped away from her for the second time would be too unfair. I can’t let anyone throw us away again. I won’t. But I can’t keep my promise to stay away from the Anocracy either, because the thought of you leaving terrifies me and because my child is half-vampire. She deserves to know where she came from.”

  “I am the reflection of my House,” Arland said. “I love you. I see you as you are, a woman who would be an asset to any House. If you come with me, those close to me will see you as you are as well, and they will come to love you. There is not a person alive who wouldn’t care about Helen.”

  “Tell it to her grandmother.”

  Arland bared his fangs. “I will when opportunity arises. Marry me.”

  “I can’t. But I can’t let you go either. I want to come with you, and I don’t know if I am doing it for Helen, for myself, or because I am too weak to do the right thing and thinking about not being with you makes me desperate. I won’t lie to you, Arland. I used to finesse my husband, because he left me no choice, and I will never do that again. I can’t promise I will marry you. I can’t even promise I will stay with you. I can promise that I will try to prove to your House that I am worth it. This is so much less than you deserve. I have only two conditions. One, you do not pressure me into marriage. Two, if I want to leave, you will provide me with a passage back to Earth. Take us with you or don’t. The decision is yours.”

  She stared straight ahead, looking in his direction but not seeing him.

  “Maud.”

  She met his gaze.

  “How quickly can you pack?” he asked.

  2

  NOW…

  The stars died, replaced by total darkness.

  Maud hugged her 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 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 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, Mama?”

  Maud turned. Helen stood a few feet away, hugging a soft teddy bear her aunt bought her for Christmas. Her long blond hair stuck out on the right side, crinkled from her sleep. From here she could almost pass for a human.

  “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 a 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. Soon she would grow up and walk away, 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.

  A tiny spark 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 the galaxy.

  Helen stared, her eyes opened wide, the starglow of the display playing on her face.

  The dazzling universe engulfed them. The ship tore through the last shreds of darkness and emerged into normal space. A beautiful planet hung in front of them, orbiting a warm yellow star, a green and blue jewel wrapped in a turquoise veil of gently glowing atmosphere. Daesyn. 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 home world 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.

  The planet grew on her screen.

  Maud hugged her shoulders. 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.

  Being in love in the inn was simple. They were fighting for their lives every day. It left little room for small things, but in ordinary life those little things often became important enough to shatter relationships. Jumping headfirst into vampire politics was unwise, especially House Krahr politics. Melizard would’ve cut off his arm to own this ship, and Arland drove it back and forth like it cost him nothing. The threshold was that much higher.

  When she had married Melizard, she had hoped for acceptance, second family, and trust. She found none of it. Now…Now she just wanted to find out if House Krahr was worth it. She was no longer willing to settle. They would take them in as their own, or they wouldn’t need to bother.

  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...

  Maud 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 a latticework of spikes. From here the rings appeared delicate, almost ethereal. She touched
the display, zooming in on the rings.

  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.

  Maud’s fingers went to the blank crest on her armor. The crest controlled the armor’s functions and granted her entry to the Holy Anocracy and permission to operate within its borders as a free agent, a mercenary. She wouldn’t be trapped on Daesyn. If things went sour, she could always grab Helen and go back to Dina’s inn, she told herself. She made Arland promise to provide a passage, but Dina had insisted on sharing the proceeds of the sale of weapons they collected during the attack at the inn. She could easily buy a passage back.

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

  “Almost, my flower.”

  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-blooded vampire. But she was only half. The other vampires would not let her forget it. At least not until she beat every last one of them into submission.

  “Come here.” Maud crouched and adjusted Helen’s belt, cinching her daughter’s tiny waist. She reached for the small box waiting on the shelf next to the bed and opened it. A strip of black metal lay inside, ten inches long and one inch wide. Maud took it out and placed it on Helen’s left wrist. Tiny red lights sparked inside the metal. The strip curved around Helen’s wrist, joined into a bracelet, and shrank, adhering to her skin. Thin rectangles formed on its surface.

  “Do you remember how to use it?” Maud asked.

  Helen nodded.

  “Show me.”

  Helen tapped the center rectangle with her finger. A translucent screen showing the layout of the ship flared into life one inch above her wrist.

  “Call Mommy.”

  Maud’s own unit came to life, tossing her own screen out with Helen’s image on it.

  “Good.”

  The harbinger unit served as the Holy Anocracy’s version of a smartphone. Equipped with a powerful processor, it made calls, tracked its target, provided maps, monitored vital signs, tracked schedules, and simplified dozens of small tasks to make one’s life easier. In adults it interfaced with armor, but Helen was wearing a child’s version. It couldn’t be removed or turned off by anyone other than a parent.

  For the past five years, keeping Helen alive had been the core of Maud’s existence. Once they made planetfall, there would be times Helen would have to be on her own. Thinking about it set Maud’s teeth on edge. The harbinger didn’t take away the anxiety, but it blunted it, and right now she would take all of the help she could get.

  “All set?” Maud asked.

  “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. Maud squared her shoulders and raised her head and they stepped through it.

  Let the games begin. She was ready.

  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 then a roughly equal amount of fuel to decelerate it.

  House Krahr had taken that saying and run with it. The arrival deck of the ship looked like the courtyard of a castle in the finest Holy Anocracy tradition. Square gray stones paved the floor and veneered the towering walls. Long crimson banners of House Krahr, marked with a black profile of the saber-toothed predator, stretched between the false windows. The gentle breeze of atmospheric circulators stirred the fabric, and the several krahr on the banners seemed to snarl in response.

  In the middle of the chamber, a vala tree spread its black branches. Solid, with a sturdy trunk and a mass of limbs that divided and subdivided into a vast crown, the vala reminded Maud of basswood, but unlike the gentle green of linden trees, the vala’s leaves were a vivid scarlet. The blood-red heart of the ship, a remnant of the origin world, sacred to vampires. No major ritual took place in vampire society without the vala tree to witness it.

  As if all of this wasn’t enough, a two-foot wide stream meandered through the smooth stream bed, crossing the deck, winding around the tree in a perfect circle, and disappearing beneath the roots. Maud could’ve understood if it was part of the water supply that would be later recycled, but there were bright sparkly fish in it. The stream served as a decoration, nothing more. The luxury boggled the mind.

  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. There was 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 before when she was married. If she let it, her memory would change their pale gray to a warm travertine beige; the crimson banners to Carolina-blue; and the dark ceiling of the ship to an orange-tinted sky.

  She stopped before the vala tree. Every vampire planet had them. If the climate couldn’t support them, the vampires built hothouses just to plant them. A vala tree was the heart of the clan, the core of the family, a sacred place. The blossoms of the vala tree had decorated her bridal crown. It was a great honor, appropriate to the bride of the second son of the Marshal of House Ervan.

  A hot pain pinched her chest. It’s in the past, she told herself. It is over and done with. Let it go.

  Careful footsteps approached from behind, trying to sneak up on her. She hid a smile.

  “Greetings, Lord Soren.”

  The footsteps stopped, then resumed, and Lord Soren halted next to her. Vampires aged like their castles—growing bigger and sturdier, as if time itself reinforced them. Lord Soren was the perfect example of a middle-aged vampire: wide in the shoulders, muscled like a grizzled tiger, with a spectacular mane of dark-brown hair and a short but thick beard, both touched with gray. His syn-armor, midnight black with red marks denoting his rank of Knight Sergeant, and the small round crest of House Krahr, bore a few scars here and there, much like Lord Soren himself. A testament to life spent in battle. He looked like a humanoid tank.

  He was also Arland’s uncle. She had worked hard to get him to like her. Lord Soren wasn’t complicated. His worldview came down to three things: honor, tradition, and family. He dedicated his life to upholding all three, and they were never in conflict. He viewed her favorably, but how far exactly his good will extended remained to be seen.

  He pondered Helen, who had dropped her bag and was dipping her fingers into the stream. “The child loves the water.”

  “There is little water on Karhari, my lord.” There was nothing on Karhari except miles of dry, hard dirt, and it desiccated those sent there until they hardened and dried as well.

  “It’s a new experience for her.”

  “It is.”

  They watched her in comfortable silence.

  “It’s good that you joined us,” he said.

  She hoped he was right.

  “Perhaps, with your presence, my nephew will stay put for longer than five minutes before running off on another fool’s errand halfway across the galaxy.”

  The arrival deck was slowly filling up with people waiting to go planetside.

  If he does, I’ll run off with him. “I understand Lady Ilemina is in residence?”

  “She is.”

  Sooner or later she would have to meet Arla
nd’s mother. It wouldn’t be a pleasant meeting.

  “Has my nephew told you why I had to come to the inn to fetch him?” Lord Soren asked.

  “No.”

  “What do you know of House Serak?”

  She raked her memory. “One of the larger Houses. They control most of their planet, which is also named Serak, if I recall correctly. They’ve never produced a Warlord, but they did come close twice in the past five centuries. After suffering defeat in the Seven Star War, their influence diminished, but they’re still formidable. They’re also hungry to regain what they’ve lost and that makes them dangerous.”

  Lord Soren nodded in approval. “And their sworn enemy?”

  It took her a second. “House Kozor. A slightly smaller House, but a great deal more aggressive. They control the second habitable planet in the Serak system.”

  “They’ve decided to bury the bones of their fallen,” he said.

  Interesting. “An alliance?”

  “A wedding.”

  Maud blinked. “Even so?”

  “Yes. The son of the Serak’s Preceptor will marry the daughter of the Kozor’s Archchaplain. They required a neutral location in which the ceremony can be performed.”

  “Naturally.” It was a sword-edge wedding. Nobody trusted anyone, and everyone was waiting for an ambush. “Did House Krahr offer them such a haven?”

  “There was no way to reasonably refuse,” Lord Soren said. “We dominate the quadrant and Serak is only one hyperspace jump away from us. The wedding is in eight days. It would’ve been more appropriate for Arland to have been on the planet to assist with preparations, but since he’s been otherwise occupied, we’ll be arriving about the same time as the wedding guests.”

  “Correct me, but isn’t there another vampire-controlled star system, closer than this one, to the Serak system?”

  “There is.”

  Something was off about this wedding. “One wonders why two Houses with such lack of trust want to be bound.”