The Young Elites

  “Why don’t you duel with them?” I ask her. Today, she has a cat with her, a huge, feral one with a low growl.

  Gemma grins at me, then looks down at the cat. It untangles itself from her legs and comes ambling over to me. I shrink away from its wild face, but it rubs its head against my leg and settles at my feet.

  “I’m no fighter,” Gemma replies, folding her arms. “Father thinks I have beautiful hands, and he doesn’t want me to ruin them once I find myself a proper suitor.” She holds up her hands for emphasis, and sure enough, they are indeed fine and delicate. I’d forgotten for a moment that Gemma, unlike Lucent and the ex-soldier Dante, is a proper-born lady. The only thing that had spared her the Inquisition’s wrath after the horse race incident. I also feel a rush of jealousy that her family seems perfectly kind and encouraging. It’d never occurred to me that some might actually love their malfetto children.

  The cat wound around my legs hisses at me before returning to Gemma. Stupid creature, I think grudgingly. I look at Gemma. “Why do you always have different animals with you?”

  “They follow me. Sometimes I have an easier time bonding to certain animals, to the point where I’ll do it accidentally. This fellow tailed me all the way from my father’s villa.” She scratches the animal’s head fondly, and it purrs back. “He won’t stay forever. But I’ll enjoy his company in the meantime.”

  I turn my attention back to the dueling. We watch the fight for a while, until Gemma clears her throat and I look back down at her again. This time, her carefree expression has given way to something more serious.

  “I never properly thanked you for what you did in the racing square,” she says. “That was reckless, and brave, and breathtaking. My father and I are both grateful.”

  Her father must be a patron of the Daggers, the way she talks about him. Her kind words stir warmth in me, and I find myself returning her smile. The darkness in me fades for a moment. “Glad to help,” I reply. “You seemed a bit unhappy out there.”

  Gemma wrinkles her nose. “Not my best moment.” Then she laughs. It is a bright, ringing sound, the laugh of someone who is loved. In spite of everything, I can’t help laughing along with her.

  “You’ve grown rather fond of Gemma,” Raffaele tells me the next day, as we walk together in the underground catacombs. Today, his hair is tied high on his head in an elegant dark knot, exposing his slender neck. He wears a bold blue robe trimmed in silver. I can only see the part of him illuminated by lantern light, and the sight unnerves me, making me feel like the darkness is trying to swallow us whole.

  “She’s easy to like,” I say after a while. I don’t like admitting it. I shouldn’t be getting close to any of the Daggers at all.

  Raffaele turns to give me a brief smile, then looks away again. “The tunnels branch once more here. Do you see?” He pauses to hold up the lantern, and in the gloom, I see the path before us split into two, the walls lined with endless rows of urns. Raffaele chooses the right-hand path. “We now walk underneath the Piazza of Twelve Deities, the city’s largest marketplace. If you listen close, you can hear some of the bustle. It’s a shallow spot.”

  We both pause to listen, and sure enough, eventually I make out the faint shouts of people hawking their goods: stockings and sweets, dental powders and bags of honey-roasted nuts. I nod. All my recent time with Raffaele has been spent learning the catacombs. It turns out that the main underground cavern is connected to a wider maze of tunnels. Much wider.

  We continue walking, memorizing one branch after the next, a honeycomb of quiet paths that run parallel to the bustling surface world. I watch the frescos on the walls shift with the ages. The walls feel like they’re closing in on me, ready to entomb me with the ashes of past generations. Without Raffaele’s help, I know with absolute certainty that I would die down here, lost in the maze.

  “This path leads to a hidden door under the temples,” Raffaele says as we pass another branch. “The opposite path will take you to Enzo’s northern villa.” He nods to the dark tunnel up ahead. “There was even a path that used to run under the Inquisition Tower, although it has been sealed for many decades.”

  I fall silent at the mention of the tower. Raffaele notices my discomfort. We walk in the darkness for a long time without saying anything.

  Finally, we stop before a dead end. Raffaele runs his fingers delicately along the edge of the wall. He finds a small groove in the stone, and then gives it a good push. The wall swings slowly to one side, and light streams in. I squint.

  “And this,” Raffaele says, taking my hand, “is my favorite path.”

  We step through the open wall and find ourselves standing at the entrance of a tunnel, the ancient stone steps sinking straight into the water of the canals, a quiet, hidden spot that looks out over the main harbor and the beginning of the Sun Sea. Distant gondolas glide by on golden water.

  “Oh,” I breathe. For an instant, I forget my troubles. “It’s beautiful.”

  Raffaele sits on a step right above the water, and I follow his lead. For a while, we say nothing, listening instead to the water lapping gently against the stone.

  “Do you come here often?” I ask him after a while.

  He nods. His multicolored eyes focus on a faraway pier, where the hazy silhouette of the palace rises. Light outlines his long lashes. “On quiet days. It helps me think.”

  We sit in comfortable silence. Off in the distance, the songs of gondoliers float toward us. I find myself humming along, the melody of my mother’s lullaby coming instinctively to my lips.

  Raffaele watches me with his small smile, his eyes bright with interest. “You sing that song often,” he says after a moment. “‘The River Maiden’s Lullaby.’ I know it. It’s a lovely rhyme.”

  I nod. “My mother used to sing it to me when I was very little.”

  “I like it when you sing. It calms your energy.”

  I pause, embarrassed. He must be able to sense my heightened sense of unease for the past few days, as my next appointment with Teren draws near. “I’m not very good. I don’t have her voice.” I almost tell him about my sister, how Violetta’s voice sounds closer to my mother’s—but then I remember where my sister is right now. I swallow the words.

  Raffaele doesn’t comment on my energy this time. Maybe he thinks the thought of my mother saddens me. “Can you sing it for me?” I ask him, to distract myself. “I’ve never heard you before.”

  He tilts his head at me in the way that makes me blush. My alignment to passion stirs. His eyes go back to the water. He hums a little, then sings the first few verses of the lullaby. My lips part at the sound of his voice, the sweetness of the melody, the way the lyrics hang in the air, light and clear and full of longing. When I sing it, the song comes out as individual notes, but when he sings, the notes change to music. I can hear my mother in the words. A memory comes back to me of a warm afternoon and our sun-drenched garden, when my mother danced with me to the lullaby. When she caught me, I turned around to hug her and buried myself in her dress.

  Mama, Mama, I called up to her. Will you be very sad when I grow up?

  My mother bent down and touched my face. Her cheeks were wet. Yes, my darling, she answered. I will be very sad.

  The melody ends, and Raffaele lets the last note disappear in the air. He glances at me. I realize that tears are blurring my vision, and reach up to hurriedly wipe them away. “Thank you,” I murmur.

  “You’re welcome.” He smiles back, and there is genuine affection in his expression.

  For a moment, I sense something I’ve never sensed outside of the Dagger Society. Something I’m finding only now, surrounded by young strangers that remind me of myself. Kindness. With no strings attached.

  I can see a life for me here, as one of them.

  It’s a very, very dangerous way to think. How can I be their friend, with what I’m doing? The clos
er I get, the harder it will be the next time Teren expects me to deliver what I’ve promised him. But the longer he stays away and the stronger I get, the bolder I grow. I return to watching the scenery with Raffaele, but my mind spins. I need to find a way out, to find Violetta without giving Teren his information. And the only way is to work up the courage to tell the Daggers the truth.

  Raffaele’s sessions with me evoke gentle passion—but nothing I do with anyone comes close to my training sessions with Enzo himself.

  Enzo pushes my emotions hard. He teaches me how to create a convincing illusion of fire, how a flame flickers, how the color of it changes from red to gold to blue to white. I weave and weave until I exhaust myself.

  “Your strikes are unfocused,” he snaps one night as he teaches me the basics of sparring with a wooden sword. “Concentrate.” Our clashes echo in the empty cavern. He knocks the weapon out of my hand with one effortless blow, then kicks it up in the air and flings it back at me. I scramble to catch it, but my weak vision means I miss it by a good several inches. The wood hits my wrist. I wince. At this hour, all I want to do is go to bed.

  “My apologies, Your Highness,” I retort, ignoring the pain. Curse him to the Underworld—he always attacks on my blind side. I know he tries to anger me on purpose, to strengthen my power, but I don’t care. “I’m a merchant’s daughter. I haven’t exactly trained for dueling.”

  “You’re not dueling. You’re learning basic defense. Young Elites have enemies.” Enzo points his sword at me. “Again.”

  I strike. I conjure a dark silhouette of a wolf and fling it at him, hoping to throw him off. It doesn’t. He dodges my blow with ease, then lunges back, clashing with me twice until we’re close to the cavern’s wall. He whirls and yanks a dagger straight out of his boot. This second blade stops a hairsbreadth from my neck.

  My fury heightens. What’s the point of pitting a lamb against an expert assassin? I conjure an illusion of smoke that explodes around us. Then I do a move he taught me—I grab his dagger and aim for his throat.

  His hand clamps hard on my wrist before I can make contact. Heat rushes through me. Something sharp taps against my chest. When I look down, I see a sword point hovering over my ribs. “Don’t forget one weapon just because of another,” he says. A flicker of approval flashes in his eyes. “Or you’ll find yourself skewered in no time.”

  “Then maybe you should know which weapons are real,” I reply. The dagger I’m holding near his throat vanishes in a puff of smoke. The real dagger I’d taken from him is in my other hand, which I now press against his side.

  Enzo studies me with a thoughtful expression. Then he smiles—a genuine smile, full of surprise and amusement. It warms his entire face. My fear is abruptly replaced by joy, the satisfaction of finally pleasing him. He carefully drops the wooden sword, pushes my hand away from his side, and fixes my grip on the dagger’s handle. Heat rushes through me. His chest presses against my shoulder and side; his gloved hand covers mine. A surge of passion cuts through my darkness, and the color of the smoke around us changes from black to red.

  “Like this,” he murmurs, molding my hand into the correct grip. He says nothing about the shifting color of the smoke.

  I stay silent and do as he says. The warmth trickling from his fingers to mine feels as delicious as hot water over an aching body.

  “Create a dagger again,” he whispers. “I want a good look at it.”

  With my anger still churning and his touch sending shivers through me, I gather my concentration. The pull is easier now. Before our eyes, the outline of a dagger appears. It wavers and shimmers, not quite whole, and then I fill it with details, painting in the crimson handle, the grooves on the hilt, the smooth shine of the blade and the blood channel that cuts down its center. Solidifying it. The blade’s edge sharpens to a severe point. I rotate it in midair until the point faces us.

  There’s hardly a difference between the illusion and the reality.

  I look to my side to see Enzo’s gaze fixated on the false dagger. His heart beats through the fabric of his robes, rhythmic against my skin. “Beautiful,” he murmurs. Somehow, I think I hear two meanings behind the word.

  He releases me, then sheathes his daggers with one flourish. The smile is gone. “Enough for today,” he says. He doesn’t bother meeting my gaze, but his voice is different now. Softer. “We’ll continue tomorrow.”

  A sudden impulse hits me. Teren’s face swims in my thoughts, then shifts to a vision of my sister. I don’t know where this impulse comes from, whether it’s my alignments with passion or ambition, but I reach out to him with my energy before I can stop myself. Enzo pauses, then glances back at me with a raised eyebrow. “Yes?” he says simply.

  Silence. All of my pent-up tension from the past two weeks now comes to a head, and I find myself struggling to get the words out. Tell him. This is your chance.

  Tell him the truth.

  Enzo watches me with a patient, piercing look.

  The words are right there, right on the tip of my tongue. The Inquisition has forced me to spy on you. Master Teren Santoro is holding my sister hostage. You have to help me.

  And then, as I stare into Enzo’s eyes, I remember the heat of his power. I try again to speak. Again, the words halt.

  Finally, I manage to say something. But what comes out is, “When do I go on a mission?”

  Enzo narrows his eyes at that. He takes several slow steps forward until we are separated by a couple of feet. My heart beats furiously. I’m a fool. Why did I say that?

  “If you have to ask,” Enzo replies, “then you’re not ready.”

  “I—” The moment is lost. The truth that had sat so closely on my lips now shrinks away again, buried underneath my fears. My cheeks burn with shame. “I’d think you’d want me to come,” I manage to finish.

  “Why would I want you with me on a mission, little wolf?” he says quietly.

  A surge of my passion courses through me, cutting through the tension warring inside my chest. “Because I impress you,” I reply.

  Enzo stays quiet. Then, one of his gloved hands touches my chin, tilting it gently up, while the other rests against the stone wall beside my head. I tremble in his grasp. What is this strange light in his eyes? He looks at me like he has known me before. I fight my urge to cover up the hideous, scarred side of my face.

  “Is that so?” he whispers back. He leans closer, so close that his lips now hover right over mine, suspended in the space before a kiss, taunting me. Perhaps he’s testing me again. If I move at all, we will touch. Heat rushes through me from his hand, flooding every vein in my body and filling my lungs with fire. My energy roars in my ears. I am in the middle of the ocean, buffeted on all sides by hot currents. At the same time, I feel a rush of something new, something I’ve only felt a hint of during my first test with the Daggers. The part of me that responded to the roseite gem, to passion and desire, awakens now. The energy from it rushes up into my chest, threatening to burst out of my skin, making my grasp on my powers unstable. Random illusions appear around us, flashes of forest and night and dark ocean. I’m grateful for the wall behind me. If I didn’t have that to lean against, I’m sure I would crumple to my knees.

  Is there something I need to know? I imagine Enzo asking. And for a moment, I’m so convinced he says this aloud that I nearly confess everything.

  Then Enzo steps away. The heat running through me dissipates as he pulls his energy back, leaving me cold and aching. My illusions vanish. For the first time since I’ve known him, he’s not the cool, confident, deadly Reaper . . . There is a flicker of vulnerability in him, even guilt. I stare back with the same confusion. My cheeks are still hot. What happened between us? He’s the leader of the Dagger Society, the crown prince, a notorious killer, the potential future king. And yet, I’ve somehow managed to unsettle him. He has unsettled me. The unspoken secret sits heavily be
tween us, a dark abyss.

  Then his moment of vulnerability fades, and he resumes the aloofness that I’m so familiar with. “We will see about your missions,” he says, as if nothing has happened. Maybe nothing has—perhaps our little moment has been nothing more than an illusion I accidentally conjured, like everything else that popped up around us. Like my father’s ghost.

  My shoulders sag at the close call. I say nothing in return. Perhaps I’ve narrowly avoided certain death.

  Enzo gives me a courteous nod, then turns his back and exits the cavern, leaving me alone with my pounding heart. When I look to my side, I notice that the wall where he had rested his hand is now blackened and charred with his handprint.

  Raffaele Laurent Bessette

  Any changes in opinion about her?” Enzo asks in a low voice.

  Raffaele turns away from the prince. Today they both stand at the entrance of the caverns, looking on as several of the Daggers train. Both of their gazes are focused on the same thing: Adelina, who sits in a corner with Michel and practices weaving threads of her energy into small, familiar objects. A golden ring. A knife. A piece of lace. With each gesture, Raffaele feels her energy shift. Watching her learn to create illusions reminds him of the energy he feels when he watches Michel at work. Trying to imitate life. As she goes, Michel critiques her work with a string of halfhearted insults, but Raffaele can tell that the young painter is impressed with her. Nearby, Lucent stops training now and then to shout out challenges for Adelina. Make a gold talent! Make a bird! Make a statue! Adelina obliges, her illusions growing in complexity. Lucent nods in admiration.

  “Adelina was right,” Raffaele finally replies, noting the growing friendships. Perhaps he had misjudged her in the beginning. “I was training her too slowly for her to work with her powers.”