Original -- The Night Serpent

[tierfal]

Title: The Night Serpent
Rating: R
Word Count: 22,019 23,410 (now with 95% more closure!)
Warnings: language; violence; mostly-mild gore; mostly-tactful sex; snark; insanity
Prompt: "The Night Serpent" for the Figure Skating Romance Challenge at pulped_fictions
Summary: It is a sad day when a threat against the Archduke's life, a string of murders, and the incomprehensible interplay of sex and status are the least of everyone's problems.
Author's Note: This is for eltea -- not just because she encouraged me to draw from the shared characters we've developed for years; not just because she made up the entire plot; not just because she brainstormed with me constantly, encouraged me endlessly, and made this thing happen. For all of that, yes, but also because an ocean and an eight-hour time difference hasn't stopped her from being the best and most supportive friend this weird girl could ask for. ♥ (3/4/10 - The end sucks way less now, because I actually had time to write stuff for it!) If you take the time to read this crazy thing, I cannot thank you enough. ♥


THE NIGHT SERPENT
Aeratre Mordax, archduke of Valford, regent of neighboring Taliff, heir apparent of his great uncle’s not-inconsiderable fortune, et cetera and so on, was increasingly certain that someone in his court wanted him dead.

This was a problem.

In the meantime, Aeratre had other problems, including the petulant young viscount currently sharing his bed.

Over the course of twenty-four years of undiluted arrogance and entitlement, Aeratre had taken more lovers than he could be bothered to number, but Skamett was something rather special. For one thing, the boy might as well have been made of lightning-all brightness, all sharpness, all sudden flame and searing brilliance, confined in pale, fragile skin. For another, he was small and slender, with a kind of careless grace that Aeratre strove not to envy; and with white-blond hair streaked with honeyed highlights; and with ice-blue eyes, which mandated more striving still. Aeratre was not at all unattractive-fair-haired himself, but darker in complexion; broader in the shoulders, typical-but Skamett was like an opus slowly crafted. He was delicate; elegant; refined.

Or he was until he opened his mouth.

For a third and very significant thing, Skamett hated Aeratre’s guts.

Aeratre folded his hands on his chest, admiring the canopy of the bed.

“I think someone’s trying to kill me,” he remarked.

“No,” Skamett muttered into the pillow. “I can’t imagine why.”

“Fuck you,” Aeratre told him contentedly.

“Yes; I got that part. Can you tell whoever’s trying to kill you to hurry up with it?”

Aeratre shoved idly at an angular shoulder-blade revealed by the draping sheet. “If I knew who it was,” he noted, “it wouldn’t be an issue, would it?”

Skamett rolled over only enough to give him a sardonic look. “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “No one wants to kill me.”

Aeratre wasn’t so sure about that. He was a smug bastard, but he wasn’t stupid, and he noticed more than people gave him credit for. He noticed, for instance, the sick self-loathing that skirted the angles of Skamett’s elfin face, the hopelessness, the shame. They were emotions he himself had long since given up on, but he understood them, and he recognized their power to destroy.

Shrugging inwardly, Aeratre stretched, reached out to ruffle Skamett’s sweat-dampened hair, and smirked at the black look the gesture earned.

“I’ll figure it out,” he decided, “and let you know.”

-
A deep red evening bruised violet and faded to bluish-black. Four moons rose, three white, one a rich yellow-gold. Spring, Winter, Fall, and Summer, they were called, to correspond with their proximity in any given season; it was believed that the moon under which one was born dictated personality, tendencies, and perhaps even what was to come.

What had come now was the first evening of the Festival, the five-day stretch of feasting and freedom that followed the cycle of seasons, belonging to none of them. Thirty days to a month and three months to a season, according to the astronomers, left five days unaccounted for, and the Festival had long since been instated to make up the difference.

The girl in blue tugged on a ringlet, half-listening to her companions. It was the usual chatter-Archduke Eligible, which was a popular phrase to punctuate half-voiced giggling; I’ve got the footing to the dance this year was another; and the girl in green was fond of proclaiming, I’m Spring-born, and he’s Autumn; every Season guide ever written says we’re a match!

The girl in blue wasn’t concerned. She knew she looked nice, even wonderful, and that the whims of the world would never come under her control. It was impossible to predict what would unfold from here; some tiny choice or flare of chance might determine everything. If the Archduke was going to notice any of them, he would; if he was going to look right past them, he would; reading the skies made no difference when they couldn’t change what was written. There were but a few factors they could influence, and the rest would fall as fate decreed.

-
Aeratre lifted his goblet, then waited for a natural moment to set it down again. He didn’t particularly feel like tempting fate tonight; it was far too easy to poison wine, and the more a prospective victim drank, the easier it would get.

If it had been him, Aeratre wouldn’t poison wine before a feast. There were too many chances for goblets to get mixed up before the reveling had well and properly begun, and it would be simple enough to slip a liquid or a powder into any drink he wanted once the celebrations had become distracting.

He would have discouraged himself from thinking like this, but it might well save him at this point.

He decided, however, that he was going to gamble on the food-it looked far too good to pass up, risk of assassination or no. The feasts in his court usually were to die for, and Festival fare was no exception.

It was very likely that Aeratre should not have been finding all of this so amusing.

After half an hour of succulent meats and acrobatic entertainment, Aeratre had settled in his chair, fingers tapping on its arm in time with the tambourines, and was starting to feel very thirsty. He turned to Tyrus, who was situated on his right side and looked like he wanted to strangle himself with one of the tumblers’ swirling ornamental ribbons.

Tyrus had dark hair that tended to fall into his dark eyes and a look about him like he was waiting for something, probably something bad. He was tall, strong, and intimidatingly focused, and he was startlingly quick physically and intellectually alike. Scars raced up and down his hands, white lines tracking one another towards his knuckles, intertwining hallmarks of the weapons training that had always been his life-and which had become his livelihood when Aeratre had hired him as a fencing tutor half a decade previously.

“I think someone is trying to kill me,” Aeratre remarked.

Tyrus stared at him for a long, long moment, and then he wordlessly placed his own goblet in front of his employer.

Aeratre beamed and drank deeply. It also spoke to Tyrus’s constitution that he managed to refrain from rolling his eyes.

Skamett demonstrated no such restraint.

Aeratre smirked at him. “Foiled your plan, did I?”

“And crushed all my dreams,” Skamett replied, his voice so acidic Aeratre thought the wine might spontaneously sour. “Why do you even think you’re in so much danger?”

Aeratre sought in his doublet and retrieved the note he’d tucked there. He handed the fragment of paper to Skamett, sipping at Tyrus’s wine and watching the dancers flit like insects turning on the wind.

Skamett went silent-not surlily, for once in his life-and then looked up at Aeratre, more serious now.

“What’s the Night Serpent?” he asked warily. “If you’re fucking with m-”

Aeratre hushed him hastily.

“Language,” he reprimanded. “And please use your inside voice while discussing confidential matters of state.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Skamett answered innocently, pale eyes wide.

Aeratre’s stomach made an unpleasant lurch, and a flicker of sadistic glee darted through Skamett’s expression. Aeratre held the twinge of revulsion at bay, clearing his throat and proceeding with the response he had originally intended.

“I don’t know what the Night Serpent is,” he said. “But if it’s ‘closing in,’ I’d rather not wait to find out. What do you think that’s written in?”

Skamett gave him a dubious look, then cast an equally dubious look at the note. Aeratre took it from him and passed it across to Tyrus, who sniffed it.

“Could be,” was the verdict.

Skamett was making a face of pure disgust so beautifully detailed that Aeratre wanted to cancel the rest of the festivities and drag the viscount back to his bedroom.

“Why in the hell would somebody write you an ambiguous note about ‘the Night Serpent’ in blood?” Skamett inquired.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Aeratre mused. “It was in the pocket of the trousers I put on this morning-”

Skamett snorted audibly; he had been an eyewitness to Aeratre’s reluctant reveille just after noon.

“-but the laundry isn’t exactly under lock and key,” Aeratre went on, “so it could have been virtually anyone. I suppose our first task is to make inquiries there in case the laundry maids have noticed anything suspicious.”

“‘Hello, ladies,’” Skamett began, tone so bright it sharpened the sarcasm to a gleaming point. “‘Seen anyone with bandaged wrists and a skulking look who got too close to the Archduke’s trousers? What’s that? You don’t know anyone who hasn’t gotten into his pants?’”

Tyrus went into a coughing fit trying not to laugh.

Aeratre smiled sweetly at Skamett, whose eyes blazed defiance, his pointed chin angled up. The boy was calculating, though, searching for clues, hoping despite himself that he hadn’t gone too far.

It was very, very lucky for Skamett that Aeratre had such a soft spot for the brave little dynamo and his dangerous wit.

“Your mouth is going to get you in trouble one of these days,” he commented. “Or perhaps it already has.”

Skamett donned his You’re a terrible person whom I will see in hell face, and Aeratre smirked.

“Join us at the laundry tomorrow, Tyrus?” he asked.

Tyrus abruptly stopped using his knife to draw aimless designs in the sauce on his plate. “If you wish.”

“What,” Skamett cut in, “you were all worked up about a note written in blood that someone snuck into your clothes, and now you’re putting it off?”

“No one will be there now,” Aeratre pointed out, taking another draught of Tyrus’s wine. “We can go first thing tomorrow.”

“You mean after lunch.”

Aeratre waved a hand. “When I feel like it.”

“Maybe the Night Serpent will kill you when it feels like it,” Skamett muttered mutinously.

-
Skamett had tried to hold back with the wine, but something about proximity to Archduke Asshole tended to make him want to get so drunk he couldn’t remember anything.

There was a mystery.

He wasn’t much more than tipsy, though-the hall wasn’t wavering, and his feet were staying under him; it was more of a pleasant ambient blurring than anything else. It had made the time pass faster, which was all that he had really wanted, and he and Tyrus had sat around in silent, synchronized misanthropy while Aeratre socialized.

Fortunately, the task of being a good host, threats on blood-stained paper notwithstanding, had conveyed Aeratre well into the wine himself, and when the night wore down, he dismissed Skamett with nothing more or less than a tight squeeze of the viscount’s shoulder and a lazy smile.

Skamett kicked vindictively at the carpet that mitigated the stones of the castle floor. It wasn’t that he wanted to spend the night with Aeratre; he never wanted to; but neither did he particularly want to be alone.

Maybe he should invite Tyrus over for a pity party sometime. They could find a place to sit and belittle everyone who walked by.

Skamett’s mind latched onto the idea and immediately started feeding him details. There was that broad window on the third-story hall; they could look out over the courtyard and make a running commentary. Aeratre’s court was filled with people of his type-Skamett didn’t know how many he had hand-picked and how many had ascertained the trend and merely fitted themselves into it, but the nobility here were largely young, important, and half-blind with vanity. For a load of second and third sons and daughters, shunted here to curry favor with the region’s single most influential man, they imagined themselves to be remarkably significant. Skamett could have gone on for hours about the prominent ones, who plagued Aeratre consistently enough that everyone knew them by their perfumes, let alone by appearance or raised voice.

The question was whether he would talk about the servants. They scared him, because a man of his status was supposed to tread on them indiscriminately. They were so accustomed to that sort of treatment that they wouldn’t have minded if he had, but it wasn’t that about them that made Skamett want to crawl beneath the covers and strip off his skin.

They pitied him. He saw it in their eyes, in their gestures, in the obliging smiles and the quick bows and curtseys. He was the castle’s best-kept secret among the courtiers, but every servant who walked these halls knew exactly why his bedroom was so often empty. He knew nothing-not what they thought of him otherwise, not how many of them might once have been in his place; only that they all understood exactly what his feeble dignity was patched up to conceal.

He could tolerate Aeratre’s patronization and contempt, and Tyrus’s unique talent for mixed denial and resignation had become almost comfortable, but the unspoken sympathy was too much.

Maybe he would take advantage of his night off to write another letter. Dear Mother: Having a lovely time representing the lineage. Have toured the gardens; will include some sketches. Weather has been agreeable. Hope sisters’ marriage prospects have picked up. Did you know the Archduke likes to bite me when he-

Someone had collapsed in the hallway. The candlelight played on a sprawled form, little more than shadow from where he stood.

Skamett hesitated; he and trouble had an old and inharmonious relationship.

He moved cautiously nearer, the soles of his boots soundless on the carpet, straining for a better look. It was a woman-a young woman with dark hair, wearing a green velvet dress. She was facing away from him, curls spilling over the floor, one arm under her head, a pale elbow peeking out.

“Hello?” Skamett hazarded, closing in. She was only wearing one slipper; her hair gleamed reddish. “I-this is a really stupid question, but are you all right?”

He reached her unmoving form, paused a moment more, and then leaned over to try to see her face.

Admittedly, if he’d been sober, he probably wouldn’t have screamed.

-
Tyrus rubbed his face. Every day was a long day around here, but a corpse in the hallway just after midnight marked a whole new level of exhausting.

Aeratre covered a yawn and crouched before the body, all at once registering dismay, disgust, and just a hint of very human fear.

“You didn’t see anyone else?” he asked Skamett, who stood off to the side, pale-faced, with his arms wrapped around himself. The young viscount shook his head.

Tyrus pushed his hair out of his eyes and then settled his hands on his hips. “My guess would be that she left the feast early. It looks like she’s been here for a while.” Sure enough, the pool of blood had sunk into the carpet and avidly started staining brown. Tyrus understood quite well how bodies were constructed and assembled, the ways they moved, the ways they broke-it was a critical element of success in his work-but it somehow always startled him just how much blood a human being contained. Sometimes he found the component parts almost more impressive than the whole.

It was something that struck you when an ordinary girl’s throat had been slit-when the balance of life had been upset, and the result was so much blood, spread and smeared, that all proportions of the world seemed wrong.

None of them knew her name. She had meant nothing to them until they’d seen her stretched out on the floor, her dark eyes wide and dull, one white hand reddened by a futile attempt to stem the flooding at her neck.

“Drafty section of the place,” Aeratre observed, “and the rug’s thick. It wouldn’t be too difficult to creep up behind someone, especially if they’d been into the wine.”

Someone cleared his throat.

Aeratre’s shoulders jerked, Skamett stifled a gasp, and Tyrus turned abruptly, his hand jumping to his belt only to find no sword hilt waiting.

Fortunately, the newcomer was an expected one-Hallum, the Archduke’s advisor, an older man whose thinning gray hair and increasingly shuffling steps couldn’t dull the vibrant spark in his bespectacled blue eyes. Hallum had served the Mordax family for decades, as far as Tyrus could tell; at the least, he’d been installed in his tower, gauging the stars and guiding the monarchs, long before Aeratre had inherited his services with the post. The venerable old man was still tall and upright despite his age, and jokes in the court circulated to the effect of his being too interested in the world to die.

“Ah,” Aeratre said of their arrival, choosing not to acknowledge the somewhat embarrassing reactions of surprise. “Thank you for joining us.” He motioned vaguely to the blood-streaked form. “I’m afraid none of us remembers who she is.”

“Oh, my good heavens,” Hallum murmured. The robe he had thrown over his nightclothes rippled as he knelt, slightly creakily, to examine the body, lifting a handkerchief over his mouth. “And you’ve only just found her here?” At the confirmations, he bent to examine the slash across her throat, a grotesque mirror of her dumbly parted lips. “We’ll have to tighten the watch, of course-I presume, Archduke, that you’d rather not frighten the court, if it can be avoided.” Hallum’s forehead furrowed, and he coughed delicately into his handkerchief, sitting back on his heels. “I suppose the most we can do for now is to get her out of the way-we shouldn’t want anyone chancing across her; panic would only make this worse. Tomorrow, Archduke, you and I should write up a new schedule for the guards.”

“You think this is going to continue?” Tyrus asked bewilderedly.

Hallum looked up at him gravely, tucking his handkerchief back into a pocket in his robe. “I think,” he replied, “that unmemorable young women don’t often attract crimes of passion. I think this is the beginning of something much larger, gentlemen.”

Aeratre stood, eyes cold, features expressionless. “Very well. Hallum, please alert the guard. We’ll take her to the cemetery; a bit of investigation in the morning should identify her. Tyrus, with me. Deter anyone who tries to come this way. Skamett, you look like hell; go to bed.”

A glance confirmed that Aeratre’s estimation was accurate, presuming that hell was weak in the knees and almost as pale as the corpse.

Skamett swallowed and nodded, his eyes threatening to take over his face, but he didn’t move. Tyrus grappled with his instinctual rejection of all things social for a moment, and then he stepped around the body and put a hand on Skamett’s shoulder.

“It’s all right,” he said very quietly. “Nobody does well with the first one.”

Skamett searched his face. “But-what if-”

“If you’d come earlier,” Tyrus told him, “it would have been you.”

“No,” Skamett insisted, though he somehow went a shade paler. He’d be translucent in a minute. “No, what if-the note. In Aeratre’s pocket. The Night Serpent.”

The Archduke and his advisor looked up abruptly from their private consultation, the former grimacing, the latter struck with dread.

“What,” Hallum asked slowly, “do you know about the Night Serpent?”

“Only that it’s coming,” Aeratre answered, digging for the scrap of paper and proffering it. “And that it has the most ominous title I’ve ever heard.”

Hallum shook his head hard enough that Tyrus expected the man’s glasses to go flying. “I’ll bring the guard. Once we have this sorted out, we should talk of this in my quarters, Sire.”

“Excellent,” Aeratre said, though none of this was excellent as far as Tyrus could tell. “We’ll convene there as soon as we’ve taken care of this.” The Archduke ran a hand through his hair and sighed, gazing at the murder victim on the floor. “Now comes the fun part,” he remarked. “Do you think her family would believe me if I said she fell off a battlement?”

Tyrus stared at him, and Skamett, lingering by the wall, made a weak noise.

“What?” Aeratre asked.

-
“Sire,” Hallum said.

Aeratre looked up from the intriguing object he’d been toying with-it had a circular base intricately engraved, and gleaming bronze gears gave way to narrow shafts and wires that supported little models of planets and their moons. In the fickle candlelight, it had proved irresistible to his inattentive hands.

“Please don’t touch that,” Hallum requested, cringing heavily.

“What is it?” Aeratre asked.

“An orrery,” a new voice reported cheerfully. It belonged to a young man about Aeratre’s age, who wore an apron and bore a tea tray, and who was on the rounder side, with plain brown hair and warm brown eyes. “It’s a model of the universe. Everything orbits right if you turn the crank.”

“Which,” Hallum cut in, “I would thank you not to do; it’s a delicate object. You remember my assistant, Menegh?”

“Of course,” Aeratre lied through his teeth.

Smiling, Menegh offered tea to an extremely jittery Skamett, who was sitting on a cushioned bench and jumping at shadows, looking like his haunted eyes would pop out of their sockets. The viscount mumbled his appreciation and hid his face behind the teacup, wisps of steam wafting against his forehead and curling around his ears.

Aeratre focused his attention on Hallum, who had drawn an extremely thick tome from one of the turret’s innumerable curving shelves. Tyrus politely declined the tea, but Aeratre took a cup on his way to examine the book Hallum was opening on a high table strewn with star charts and calculations.

“There’s a legend,” the advisor began, and Aeratre resisted the urge to walk out then and there. “It would have us believe that when our planet’s four moons fall into a particular pattern…”

The old man’s hands were weathered and lined, but there was still a command to them, and his fingers moved steadily. They found the page they’d been flipping in search of, spreading the leaves of the book to display a detailed rendering of the condition in question-three white moons and one yellow one arcing over the world, the image fretted with diagrammatic lines.

“…the Night Serpent will feed.”

Hallum turned the page, and the next revealed a ghastly picture of some giant muddle of darkness overpowering the sky.

Aeratre paused. “This is insane,” he decided.

Menegh examined the image, peering over Tyrus’s shoulder. “What is that?” he asked.

Hallum laid a hand on the page, smiling apologetically. “The description is none too specific,” he replied. “And it’s only a legend, Sire. It’s quite possible-likely, I would say-that some trickster thought it was an entertaining tale and fancied giving you a scare.” He adjusted his spectacles, the glass glinting as the candles’ flames guttered, and looked down at the nebulous monstrosity, black on a background of violent red. “I wouldn’t mention it at all if the moons weren’t about to move into precisely the configuration that this legend describes.”

Aeratre looked at Hallum, then at the book, then at the orrery, gleaming in the inconstant light.

“Do you think something is actually going to happen?” he demanded.

Hallum flipped the page, then set it back. “I’m not sure what to think,” he answered patiently. “And perhaps we will all be better-suited to thinking after we’ve had some rest?”

“Absolutely,” Aeratre said, setting down his tea and starting for the door. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning to discuss how to organize the guard. Tyrus, I’ll send for you. Goodnight, everyone.”

With the peremptory salutation and a few short strides to the door, Aeratre was out and headed for his bedroom at last. Aeratre was all for excitement-especially of the sexual variety-but there was such a thing as too much for one day.

His chambers were still lit when he arrived, though the candles were burning low by this hour. Much as he enjoyed being waited on, he hadn’t summoned any servants; tonight he just wanted to strip off his festival tunic and collapse into his bed.

Instead, he peeled it off carefully, laid it over the back of his good desk chair, replaced it with a soft nightshirt, and unthinkingly started sorting through the various statutes and missives already piling up on the desktop. Festival was supposed to be a time of looseness and relaxation-and to a great extent, it was-but the larger machine could never truly cease to move. Aeratre had to ensure that there was a kingdom to come back to.

Eventually, he recalled that he had arrived with the sole purpose of burying his face in his pillow and holding off tomorrow’s trials as long as humanly possible, and he made a weary circuit of the room, blowing out the candles until only the the three on the table at his bedside remained. That was light enough to defend himself by if the murderer stalking the halls managed to slaughter the guards that flanked his door.

Naturally, however, just as he had begun to succeed at smothering his thoughts enough for sleep, there was a tentative knock at the door.

Aeratre peeled his face from the pillowcase and glared blearily in its direction. “Enter,” he permitted, quite prepared to give the responsible party an earful about the rights and prerogatives of Archdukes who had had too much wine and not nearly enough rest.

The door opened, framing a fragile figure dwarfed by cold stone and the muffling hush of tapestries. Aeratre wouldn’t have needed the cast of the candle in the boy’s hand to recognize Skamett’s shape in an instant.

The candle seemed to be totally useless; it couldn’t even put any color into Skamett’s face.

Wordlessly, the viscount closed the door, crossed the room, and set the candle holder down on the nightstand by the opposite side of the bed. He merely sat for a moment, his back to Aeratre, his head high, his hands folded in his lap.

Aeratre reached over and smoothed a wrinkle out of the boy’s linen shirt, dragging his fingers over ribs and shoulder-blades and knobby vertebrae. With a decisive suddenness, Skamett turned, his expression blank, and climbed up onto the bed, where he crawled beneath the covers and curled up in Aeratre’s arm.

Aeratre said nothing. Skamett had never once come to him before.

-
Skamett started awake.

The senseless, formless terror diminished when it met Aeratre’s presence and the last flickers of candlelight. The shadows were still too dense for his liking, though, and as he settled again in the crook of Aeratre’s arm, that was why he first assumed that the distant yelling was part of a lingering nightmare.

But then it didn’t stop. Instead, it grew louder, ringing of a confusion laced with disbelief, and Skamett sat up to listen. He set one hand on Aeratre’s chest and pushed.

The Archduke mumbled something that might have been “ponies” and opened his eyes.

“What is that?” Skamett demanded, body tilted towards the noise.

“Your imagination,” Aeratre grumbled, rolling over, “so imagine something el-”

Skamett shook his shoulder, not gently. “Will you fucking listen?”

Sharply, Aeratre shifted to face him again, his eyes dark and unkindly gleaming, and opened his mouth to deliver a scathing rebuke.

That was as far as he got. A cry from outside killed the words before they left his tongue, and then the Archduke was scrambling out of the bed, shoving his feet into his boots, and racing for the door. Like a pull-toy on a short string, Skamett ran after.

Aeratre bolted for the stairs and took them two at a time. At this hour, the castle walls, too long forgotten of the sun, emanated an unrelenting chill. It was all Skamett could do to keep his balance, careening up the steps, disoriented, still tangled in the trailing threads of interrupted sleep.

Skamett was gasping for breath by the time they topped the wall, though Aeratre seemed to be immune to physical weariness in his agitation. The Archduke halted the moment they reached the battlement, and Skamett staggered to a stop, trying not to crash into his back. Aeratre was staring at the sky.

Swallowing, Skamett followed suit.

The sky was red-a deep red two shades shy of black, but brightening. The clouds churned, curling, twisting, writhing and shredding as the stars gave over to a lengthening torrent of flame.

A charge in the air set every hair on the back of Skamett’s neck to prickling, and the ambient shouts of querulous surprise dulled to a vague wash of confusion in his ears.

A fiery rent opened in the reddening fabric of the sky-a tear into oblivion, wisps of cloud evaporating, the milky roundness of the full Spring Moon stained crimson-dark. Skamett’s skin tingled. There was more to come.

Part of him wanted to take Aeratre’s hand, just to have something to cling to as world fell to pieces, but he couldn’t look away from the unfurling horror above.

The sky shimmered, bloodily streaked, and something slithered from the gaping hole in the heavens.

It was a snake-a serpent of unimaginable size, drawing itself free of the shreds of universe from which it had emerged. Undulating, black and inconceivable, it wove across the broken sky until it reached the glowing purity of the furthest, fullest moon.

The Night Serpent opened its tremendous jaws and devoured it.

The silence that landed then was so heavy that Skamett’s bones ached. There was a distant, faint sound of rushing, a roar like water far away, and the Night Serpent dove into a graceful loop, darting back into the flaming gap in space whence it had come. Red taint seeped after it, draining from the sky into the tear, and left behind a black sky broken by a scattering of stars.

Aeratre let out a slow, ragged breath he must have been holding all this time.

With difficulty, Skamett spoke through the knot in his throat-a snarled mess of deep, instinctive dread.

“Now what?” he asked.

So faintly Skamett wouldn’t have detected it if not for the flutter of long, light hair, Aeratre shook his head.

“Fucked if I know,” he said.

-
Somewhat predictably, he supposed, Aeratre spent the vast majority of the next day doing damage control.

He ran the soft feather of his best pen along his jaw, absently imagining that it was Skamett’s hand instead.

“Of course we’re not canceling the Festival,” he responded, ignoring the way Vern’s frown deepened. “You can’t cancel a section of the calendar.”

Vern was Aeratre’s first cousin on his mother’s side, two years his senior and a pillar of good advice on every matter except those touching Festival. Vern had inherited the Demcre line’s quick temper with their dark hair, and he hated the five-day reprieve of the Festival with a passion.

Aeratre suspected that this was because his cousin’s refusal to admit to favoring men meant that the poor man never got laid. The emphasis this week placed on licentious liberty wasn’t kind to the lonely.

“There’s been a murder in your own halls,” Vern countered, pink rising in his narrow face, “and you’re not even going to postpone some ludicrous dancing?”

Vern had had something of an Incident with the ‘ludicrous dancing’ a few years previously-an Incident involving too much wine and not enough balance, which had resulted in a fractured arm and a story Vern studiously avoided recounting.

Aeratre glanced over at Escevan, the captain of the guard, who stood straight-backed by the door and seemed to remember the story in question, if the way he was trying to grin behind his beard was any indication.

“At this juncture,” Aeratre remarked to Vern, “we don’t want to jump to conclusions. If we cancel any of the festivities, we’ll have to explain why, and people will panic-which is the last thing we need, especially if there’s a murderer on the loose. I think our best course of action now is to leave them their distractions and do our best to protect them.”

Vern turned his attention to Escevan, who had fortunately gotten his amusement under control.

“We’ve tightened patrols,” he reported, “and added whole blocks of new shifts. My Lord the Archduke and Lord Hallum saw to that earlier this morning, and we’ve already begun implementing the changes.”

“Fine,” Vern conceded reluctantly, focusing his dissatisfaction back on his cousin.

“It’s the only real reprieve they get all year,” Aeratre added, putting his feet up on his desk and idly dragging the feather up his cheek. “The court would find somewhere else to celebrate if we banned it in the castle, and they’re safer when we can keep an eye on them. Even then,” he mused, chewing on his lip, “at the moment, a murderer seems rather small in comparison with the fact that a giant creature from the skies just ate one of our moons.”

“At least we can do something about the murderer,” Vern muttered.

“Can and are,” Aeratre reminded him. He considered, then swung his legs off of the desktop again and put his feet down on the floor. “Vern, I want you to get the town crier working for his pay-he’s to tell anyone who will listen that what happened last night was a disastrous event, but nothing meant as a punishment or a portent. Festival will continue, they are not in any danger, and the issue is being examined by the finest astronomer in the land.” He set his quill down on the desk and started for the door.

“Where are you going?” Vern inquired, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

Aeratre paused with his hand on the doorknob. “To see if the finest astronomer in the land has a chance in hell of helping us,” he answered.

Vern sighed.

-
Skamett was, incredibly, attempting to sleep in his own room.

His attempts had yielded little so far, but there wasn’t really anything he was supposed to do until the Festival brouhaha later that evening, which freed his afternoon for quality time with his pillow.

He’d been blind with terror the night before-he’d been overwhelmed by scrabbling, animalistic fear; the fear with no name, because everyone knew it, and it couldn’t be reduced to words. Everywhere he’d looked, everywhere he’d turned, there had been dead bodies, un-dead bodies, blood-splattered girls with glazed eyes, slack-jawed but murmuring-Why didn’t you save me?

He’d been sick with it. He’d vomited a few times, but he hadn’t felt empty when he’d thrown up everything he’d had to give. It had stuck, cold and clinging, and he couldn’t get it out. He couldn’t make it leave, and there was nowhere to run from something lodged inside of him.

Tremors had bred tremors, and desperation had outweighed dignity. He’d barely even made it through the halls, hounded by the shadows’ wicked fingers prying at the edges of his candle’s light-the corridors were unfriendly at high noon; past midnight, they were hostile. His heart had been in his throat the whole way; he’d fought down a mounting sigh of relief when he finally saw the guards, and his knees had almost given way when Aeratre had raised his fat head, and permission had dawned in the too-familiar eyes.

Skamett supposed it was better to be pathetic than to be paralyzed.

The last fragments of his shattered self-respect aside, being with Aeratre had helped. He’d actually been able to sleep, a little-not well, and not for long stretches, but he hadn’t lost his mind. He was sane. He was whole. He was here.

He was totally exhausted.

It was all right, though, for now. The sun on his back was vaguely comforting, and with it, skirting the curtains, came a drowsy end-of-summer heat, pervasive but not quite stifling. Warmly swathed, Skamett was just beginning to drift towards softer dreams when there was a knock at the door.

Life was a heinous bitch who had it out for him.

He heaved himself up and knuckled at his eyes. “Come in.”

He hadn’t really been awake enough to anticipate his visitor, but if he had, he wouldn’t have expected Menegh to back into the room, arms around a pale blue vase full of sunflowers.

Eyes bright, the servant managed to deposit his burden on an end table, which wobbled slightly in protest. Menegh rearranged a few of the flowers, smiling at them, and Skamett cast around in the rumpled duvet for his voice.

“I’m not going to tell you who they’re from,” Menegh supplied merrily before he could ask. “Suffice to say somebody thought you needed cheering up.”

Skamett sat dumbly, watching Menegh’s deft hands turning the flowers’ faces outward. Who the hell would have sent them? Aeratre would cut off his own hand before he romanced his favorite whore.

Almost against his will, he thought of Tyrus’s hand on his shoulder-of the warm, firm pressure and the softening of the intelligent dark eyes. Was that possible? Skamett would never have thought-but then, all of this was unthinkable; last night had ushered in events so unbelievable that they’d all been floundering, and maybe other unbelievable things were the best way to get to land.

He toyed with the idea, guiltily at first. Tyrus’s hands-strong hands, sure hands, steady and beautiful in their way. Most people wouldn’t think so; most people would see the white scars and shun them, but Skamett found that there was something wonderful in hands like that. They were all the stronger for all the hazards that they’d endured-they were experienced. He wanted to run his fingers over every pale ridge of knitted flesh; to kiss them, catalogue them, feel their contours on his skin-

He was still in the middle of a room, and Menegh was still arranging the flowers.

Life. Heinous bitch. Skamett wrapped his arms around his knees.

“You’re not allowed to tell me who they’re from, then?” he asked Menegh, not expecting much.

The other young man grinned. “That wouldn’t be very discreet.”

Thinking there might be some clue, Skamett slid off of the bed and went to examine the gift. The flowers were wonderful, not that he knew anything about flowers-he knew enough to recognize their health and vibrancy and to appreciate it. He wanted to finger the petals, but they’d probably fall off, and it would be awkward, so he touched the edge of the table instead.

“Are you often a liaison?” he inquired, glancing sideways to try to gauge a reaction.

Menegh grinned broadly, amiable and innocent, revealing nothing-which spoke to his discretion, all right.

“I primarily assist Hallum,” he replied, plumping a last blossom contentedly, “but today’s my birthday, and he said he didn’t want me to spend it cooped up with him, researching.”

“Happy birthday!” Skamett bid him. “Festival-born, then?” He smiled to himself; his sisters talked about the Season-sign nonsense constantly, to the point that he had absorbed more than he’d meant to. “Isn’t that supposed to be the luckiest?”

Menegh winked. “Must be. Three years ago today, I was working for a florist, and Hallum walked in. He watched me working for two minutes and then offered me this job, which not only includes room and board but also means I’m up to my ears in astronomy.” He thumbed a smudge from the vase. “It’s fascinating, and people love to hear about it, at least for a while, if you tell them how it’s going to affect-” Grinning, he raised both hands and wiggled his fingers, putting on an ominous voice. “-their future. People ask Hallum to read their stars all the time.”

Skamett poked one of the flowers, which bobbed gently in response. “Since you’re the expert,” he noted, “is there any truth to all of that?”

Menegh set one hand on his hip and tapped a finger on his lips, considering Skamett.

“You were born in summer,” he concluded. “Middle-summer, I would guess. That’s hot weather that comes and goes-tough to interpret. Maybe you’re excitable but easy to disappoint?”

Skamett realized that he was making a slightly ridiculous expression of surprise and fought his face into submission again. “You can tell all that?” he asked, more interested than he would have liked.

“No,” Menegh answered, grinning back. “Somebody brought your wreath for tonight, and I improvised the rest.”

Skamett looked where Menegh was pointing, and, sure enough, there was a wreath perched on the desktop. It featured slender, pale green leaves and was dotted with yellow flowers so sickeningly cheerful that Skamett wondered if Aeratre had had a hand in this.

“I hope they don’t expect me to wear that shit,” he remarked.

Still grinning, Menegh folded his arms. “Everyone else will look just as ridiculous,” he pointed out.

Skamett glanced over, starting to smile despite himself. “I bet you my Festival tunic Aeratre doesn’t wear one,” he said.

Menegh laughed. “You’re on.”

-
Tyrus was wearing a wreath.

Tyrus was going to plead “humiliation” if he had committed a homicide by the end of the night.

For the moment, he contented himself with slouching in his chair and playing with the knife beside his plate.

Come to think of it, knives and wreaths was an extraordinarily unwise combination. Whoever had designed the Festival traditions had not thought it out.

There was a small consolation to be found in the fact that almost all of the men in the room looked just as discontented as Tyrus did-and Skamett, who also favored the slouch-and-hope-to-disappear strategy, kept shooting positively murderous glares at Aeratre’s wreath, with its crackly old leaves and bright red flower buds.

At least Aeratre was either enjoying himself or faking it admirably. The Archduke had swung half a dozen ladies through the traditional dance, and he was currently leaning against a nearby table, one hand planted on it for support, the other hefting a goblet as he made conversation with a red-haired woman in a light blue gown. Her smile was a little overwhelming, and her Winter wreath was decked with bare twigs, clusters of white berries, and green pine needles artfully arranged. A dark-haired fellow in a Summer wreath was attempting to incinerate Aeratre with his eyes, but he didn’t look like a serious threat so much as a jilted suitor, so Tyrus paid him little heed.

Other than Skamett-who, as far as Tyrus could tell, fought a daily battle for the will to live-Tyrus was undoubtedly the most miserable man in the room. There was a simple reason: Tyrus had been born in Spring. Spring wreaths bore pink flowers.

Unconscionable.

Distantly hoping it might inspire him to gratitude, Tyrus looked over at the only partygoer less enthusiastic than he was. Skamett was drinking deeply from his goblet, white fingers spread around the bowl, pale eyes flitting over the occupants of the hall. There was nothing unusual about the way the jumpy young viscount scanned the crowd-until something he saw made his blue eyes widen, and he choked on his wine, coughing violently. Torn between pounding him on the back and following the trajectory of his gaze, Tyrus instinctively chose the latter.

An unfamiliar lady had entered the room, a pinched-faced retainer at her side. She couldn’t have been much older than Skamett, though her hair was a darker blonde, sparking gold in the light even though her simple clothing was travel-stained.

She was very pretty, and she reminded him of someone.

And then Tyrus knew.

At that point, it was only a matter of waiting for Skamett to jolt out of his seat and scramble around the end of the table, threading his slight form between groups of courtiers laughing and drinking, strutting their finery. Though he wasn’t entirely sure why, Tyrus followed, quick enough to see how the young woman’s face lit up when she caught sight of Skamett.

The viscount’s dismay was in every line of him-his hands, his eyes, his shoulders, his spine. He let the lady pull him into a tight and heartfelt hug, and then he held her at arm’s length, and her smile faded as his horror sunk in.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. His wreath had slipped down over his forehead, but he didn’t release her to push it back.

The lady attempted at another smile. “Well, I wasn’t making any progress at home-why not come to the center of things?”

Skamett’s eyes flicked to Tyrus at the periphery of his vision. Tyrus hadn’t thought the boy’s dejection could deepen any further, but apparently he’d been wrong.

“Dan,” he said desolately, “this is Tyrus. He’s a friend of mine. Tyrus, this is Daniera Cavillor.” He swallowed, and the smile that followed was so bitter Tyrus wanted to step back. “My youngest sister.”

“Older than you,” Daniera shot back, grinning. “Or has all this time at court gone to your head?”

“No one cares about my head,” Skamett replied. Before the blinking young woman could ask him to clarify, he took her hand and tugged. “You look exhausted,” he told her, shooting Tyrus a pleading look. “I’m sure we can figure out how to get you settled for the night.”

“Let me worry about that,” a smooth voice interposed.

Tyrus watched Skamett’s heart break a little more as Aeratre bowed low, brushing his mouth across the back of Daniera’s hand.

“You’ve never visited before,” Aeratre remarked, offering a languid smile. “I’d remember you. Are all the children in your family so arresting, or are you the lucky ones?”

Daniera’s cheeks went pink, and she bit her lip on a grin as she ducked into a curtsey. “I’d hardly say I’m-arresting, my Lord.” There was a daring spark in her eye. “Not least because it’s not a word I often use.”

Aeratre was so pleased that Tyrus felt ill on Skamett’s behalf. “Oh,” the Archduke purred, “but look at this; here we are talking, and you must be starved.”

Daniera’s thick eyelashes dipped against her cheeks. “My Lord, I couldn’t possibly-”

“I insist.”

“I haven’t dressed for Festival, I’m afraid-”

“You look wonderful to me,” Aeratre interrupted blithely. “All it needs is… what Season are you, my dear?”

More rosiness leapt into Daniera’s cheeks. “Autumn, My Lord, but-”

“Perfect,” Aeratre decided, removing his wreath, shaking his hair loose, and proffering it to her instead.

Daniera had reached a new shade of red. Behind her, Skamett’s face was entirely white, fists clenched at his sides. “I couldn’t-”

“Here,” Aeratre told her warmly, “there is nothing you cannot do.”

The girl took the wreath and donned it, not that she’d ever had a choice. Aeratre settled one deft hand under her elbow and guided her off, promising introductions and an excellent meal.

Her erstwhile retainer sniffed and brushed at the dust on his tunic.

“I’ll see to her quarters,” he announced. Skamett dismissed him with a nod, and they were alone.

Tyrus watched Aeratre’s fingers run down Daniera’s arm as she laughed warmly at something he’d said.

It was kind of sad that Skamett was always the most miserable man in the room.

-
Aeratre loved Festival. There were things you could do that you wouldn’t get away with the other three hundred and sixty days of the year.

Well. In theory, anyway. The Archduke could do pretty much what he wanted when he wanted, without a whisper of a consequence-but during Festival, he didn’t have to be subtle about it in the slightest. That was a pleasant change.

Speaking of pleasant things, the evening had gone better than Aeratre could have possibly imagined. He saw one girl in blue sitting in a corner, looking worried, with her wreath in her hands, but no one seemed to be aware of the murder that had marred last night, and he hadn’t heard any bitching about serpents coming from the sky and consuming celestial bodies.

That was just about a miracle.

Daniera Cavillor was rather miraculous in her own right-appearing without warning, like a bolt from the blue, fresh-faced and bright-eyed. She was a fine girl, well-spoken, intelligent, graceful, modest. She also had a very fine figure, and she liked him.

Aeratre knew the rules of charisma and charm, and he knew how to use them as a weapon against anyone he wanted to.

He was feeling so generous that, after bidding a very affectionate goodnight to a fading Daniera, he sidled up next to Greval, an ex-lover of his who was swirling his wine and watching Vern hold up perfunctory conversation with an unattractive woman in a winter wreath.

“Give him a try,” Aeratre suggested. “He might surprise you.”

Greval smirked a bit. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“If you can get past the spines, he’s softer underneath.”

It wasn’t helping Aeratre’s argument that Vern looked like he wanted to melt through the floor into a dimension where Festival was outlawed, though he probably would have settled for seeing everyone in the room drop dead.

Greval considered. “I hope you don’t know that from personal experience,” he commented.

Aeratre shoved him, grinning, and wine sloshed on the floor. “You’re sick,” he said.

Greval was dark, with tight curls of shining black hair perfect for burying your fingers in, though they were currently surmounted by a jaunty Spring wreath. He was three years Aeratre’s senior, and Aeratre realized, with a strange jolt in his gut, that he missed the cocky bastard.

“I imagine the sickness is part of my appeal,” Greval noted-which was true; he’d taught Aeratre everything he knew. “He does look like he needs someone to… loosen him up.”

Aeratre rolled his eyes. “I’ll leave you to it. Good luck.”

“You know what rhymes with ‘luck’?” Greval asked.

Aeratre made a face and left the incorrigible man to his own devices, which were more than adequate for the job. A round of goodbyes later, he was unable to find his still-for-now-favorite Cavillor and too wearied by the day’s events to be terribly concerned. For all the sarcasm and contempt, Skamett came when he was called, like a pet instinctively aware of punishment.

When he was alone in the hall at last, Aeratre yawned, stretched, and popped his knuckles. Putting on a show was all good and well, but pretense was almost as tiring as murders and calamities after a while. The one major disadvantage of Festival was the five-day duration-it was exhausting to celebrate so long at a stretch.

As Aeratre turned one of the last corners towards his room, he heard a soft foot shift on the carpet. With dizzying suddenness, his blood beat in his ears, and he tumbled into a supernatural alertness, all his senses piqued. Cursing himself for his carelessness-he should have enlisted Tyrus’s company for the walk or waylaid one of the various guards he’d met en route-he slipped a hand into his doublet, fumbling for the short knife he’d tucked inside, trying not to slow his pace enough to indicate that he was prepared.

His fingers patted fruitlessly against the silk twice more, and he glanced down-was it possible a clever villain had lifted it off of him while he ate?

As he looked up, his pulse drumming, the faint whistle of the castle drafts deafening in his ears, there was a flash of movement, and someone slammed him up against the wall.

Any harder, and the blow would have knocked the breath right out of him; as it was, his assailant didn’t have the weight behind it-what he did have was two fistfuls of Aeratre’s collar and murder in his eyes.

Aeratre had been right about one thing. Skamett wasn’t a lapdog, though-he was a sleek, cornered animal out for blood.

“Don’t you touch my sister,” he snarled, knuckles pressing on Aeratre’s throat. “Leave her the fuck alone.”

Aeratre did the only thing he could do faced with wild eyes and pinned to the wall.

He laughed.

Then he laid a fingertip on Skamett’s nose and tapped it twice.

“Don’t be jealous, now,” he reproached, wrapping his other hand around Skamett’s wrist tight enough to cut off the circulation and get his point across. “You’re still at the top of my list.”

It was the truth. In the midst of this sudden show of fire, Skamett’s cheeks were shot with pink, his pale eyes huge and cold, and his hands were alabaster-white against the deep red of Aeratre’s doublet front. He looked half-crazed and wholly alive, and Aeratre had never wanted him more.

Skamett flinched as Aeratre’s grip tightened around his wrist. His eyes narrowed, and he uncurled his fingers, trying to jerk away. “If you even-”

Aeratre hauled him in and kissed him, hard. Skamett wriggled once, twisting his arm, but Aeratre’s grasp held, and then his little viscount thought better of rebellion.

Pushing himself up on his toes, Skamett reciprocated hungrily, tangling his fingers in Aeratre’s hair, his breath hot, his mouth demanding as he shoved Aeratre back against the cold stone wall, molding their chests together. He tasted like red meat and spice underscored with the tang of wine, everything blurred by urgency. His sharp knee interposed itself between Aeratre’s thighs, and he dragged his fingernails just a little too forcefully along the line of Aeratre’s jaw.

Aeratre’s brain did a strange wobble thing, which, come to wobblingly think of it, was a great deal safer than what other parts of his body were doing now.

He bit Skamett’s bottom lip to show that he was serious, and then he caught the hand curling against his neck and used it to tow his favorite Cavillor around last few turns to where his bedroom lay. The guards on either side of the door looked tactfully the other way, and Aeratre pulled Skamett inside and kicked the door shut after them.

There was one long, still moment, a fraught silence broken only by the guttering candles’ flames. Aeratre had Skamett by the wrist again-that would almost certainly bruise-and took the opportunity to look the viscount up and down. The buttery pale hair was in disarray, his lips swollen, his eyes hazy, his shirtfront wrinkled and creased.

Aeratre pushed him down on the bed and climbed up over him. Skamett met his gaze, fingers clenching in the comforter, and Aeratre grasped his tunic and peeled it off. The angle of Skamett’s shoulders changed-folding inward, sinking into the mattress, his hips following. He looked away as he disentangled the crumpled tunic from around his hands, and his narrow chest rose in a deep breath and caved in a soft sigh.

It was a surrender.

Aeratre smiled, settling the heels of his hands on the jutting hipbones, and bent to apply his mouth to the viscount’s throat.

Skamett was even better when he was angry-when he was a repository of submerged resentment and clouded rage. His skin was hot with rising blood; sweat smeared along his collarbones; he arched his back and gritted his teeth on every gasp. Aeratre always liked to hold him down, but it was a thousand times better when Skamett fought him, and hissed, and whimpered, and squirmed.

It was the perfect conclusion to a perfect night.

[PART II]