“I lost,” he muttered. As if that was all that mattered. As if, in all the years Alucard had been sparring with his soldiers, any of them had ever won.
He thumped Yarosev on the back, sending up plumes of dirt. “You kept fighting. Even when you were down.”
Isra stood watching from beyond the circle. Their eyes met as Yarosev returned to the other recruits. She nodded. Alucard dusted off his palms. It had been a nice way to warm up.
He turned back to the gathered soldiers. Spread his hands again, gave a little flourish.
“All right,” he said. “Who’s next?”
* * *
When Alucard left the training ground an hour later, his shirt was singed, his trousers streaked with dirt, his hair coming loose from its braid. And yet, climbing the steps back into the courtyard, he felt better than he had in weeks. Now all he needed was a good strong drink and a hot bath, both of which the palace would afford.
There were several ways into the soner rast. He had learned half of them when he was a young noble, courting Rhy in secret, and the rest since joining the royal house. There was the main entrance on the southern bank, with its pale stone steps and grand gold doors; and the northern gates, accessed from the courtyard where the soldiers trained. Then there were the secret doorways built into the bridge’s base; a balcony two stories up, reached only by the royal orchard; and a variety of bolder climbs one could take, back before the place was warded to the teeth. Alucard remembered one perilous night when he climbed the northern fa?ade in moonlight, and nearly plummeted into the Isle.
These days, there was no such need for secrecy.
As Alucard approached the northern gates, the guards sank into low bows, their armor gleaming and their gazes down, red capes pooling like blood beneath them on the stone. He pressed his hand flat against the doors, letting the spell carved in the gilded surface read the memory of his touch. A lock turned somewhere inside the wood, and it swung open, welcoming him home.
The sun had dropped low, and with it, the palace had slipped into its evening rhythms, softer, quieter than it was during the day, when servants bustled and voices rang, and every room played host to something.
Alucard rolled his neck as he climbed the stairs to the royal wing, slowing when he reached the top of the steps and saw a rabbit.
It sat, nose twitching as it nibbled on the edge of a rug.
Alucard stared down at the animal. The animal stared up at him. This continued until he heard the swift padding of bare feet, and the rabbit bounced away as a small girl rounded the corner.
“Luca!” she shouted before flinging herself into Alucard’s arms.
Tieren Maresh, who went by Ren, was barefoot, and half-dressed, her tunic unbuttoned and her black curls mussed.
Alucard set the child down, attempting to straighten her nightclothes. “Now, what did we say about letting animals roam?”
“But I can’t keep him trapped in my rooms,” said Ren, horrified. “Cages are for things you own, and the Aven Essen says you cannot own a living thing.…”
Exactly, thought Alucard, as the rabbit hopped out of reach and began to munch unmolested on the tassels of a cushion. It was not generally custom in Arnes to keep animals as pets, for just that reason. Hawks and crows and other such birds were meant to fly without restraint. Bears and big cats to roam wild as any other creature, hunting as nature allowed. There were exceptions—foundling kittens or pups, the occasional injured beast, and the horses they rode or used in work; even those were treated with as much reverence as possible. But in general, to collar a beast and put it in a cage ran counter to the cardinal rule of Arnesian magic: to never bind a mind or body, to never control a living thing. It was a reverence that set them apart from the other Londons, allowed their magic to thrive where theirs wasted, or withdrew.
But Ren’s love of animals seemed to circumvent the laws of nature, and led to a host of unusual royal companions.
Rhy liked to remind Alucard that it was his fault.
After all, it had begun with Esa, the pampered cat who’d stalked the decks of the Spire alongside him. He might have left her to spend her remaining years at sea, too, but Lila Bard refused to keep the beast aboard the Spire when she took it over, citing a mutual distaste. Alucard suspected they were just too similar in nature, but regardless, Esa had come to live at the palace, left to wander as she pleased. And when Ren was born, the cat had feigned disinterest, but those amethyst eyes were always watching, and wherever the child toddled, the cat was somehow there.
Next had come the owl, when Ren was two. A massive snow-white bird that had landed on the balcony outside her rooms. She had coaxed the thing inside, and by the time a servant noticed the massive owl perched on a chair, and tried to set it free, the bird had refused to leave. For a year it had stayed there, in the princess’s rooms, fed on whatever she managed to pocket at dinner, and when at last one spring, it flew away, Ren had let it go.