The Young Elites

  He places a gloved hand against the small of my back and stops me. I stand still for a moment, trembling in his grasp. Rain shines on his lashes. His other hand tilts my chin up. I only have time to glance once at his face before he brings his lips down to mine. Then he’s kissing me, really kissing, reaching deep down for more.

  Heat explodes inside me, flooding every vein in my body, a fire so intense that I can’t catch my breath. My mouth opens, gasping for air until he seizes my kiss back. The hand he uses to lift my chin now runs along the naked line of my jaw, careful and caressing, but even as he restrains his deadly abilities, I can sense the raw power churning under the surface. He pins me to the damp wall so that his body is pressed solidly against mine. In this moment, I can’t seem to remember anything. I push myself up on my toes and wrap my arms around his neck. I can feel the contour of his chest through his doublet and linen, the body hidden beneath the Reaper that makes him human.

  His kiss goes on and on—I have trouble keeping my thoughts straight now. My hand slides from the back of his neck to the part of his throat exposed by his shirt. I push the linen farther aside, revealing bare skin, then the smooth line of his collarbone, then the curve of his brown shoulder. My fingers run across a scar there. He takes my hand, pulls it away from his skin, and pins it firmly to the wall over my head. His kisses wander down to my neck. Heat ripples in rings across my skin each time his lips make contact. My toes curl. I’m going to fall, I’m sure of it—but he holds me steady. The edges of my skirts are sliding higher, leaving wet streaks on my legs. His gloved hands. Soft leather against my skin. Then another wave of liquid fire bubbles through my body, and I can think of nothing else. The tiny raindrops landing on my lips and skin are pinpricks of ice against the heat coursing through me. I delight in the contrast. When I squint into the drizzle, I see the steam of my breath curling up into the night sky. A strange tingle runs through my toes. I cannot think—I’m losing control over my powers. Threads of my energy start to snake out of my chest, searching for Enzo’s heart, wrapping its strings around his own, clouding them with darkness.

  This is dangerous. A small light of warning flashes inside me, and with all my strength, I force my illusions back under control. “Stop,” I whisper, pushing away.

  He pulls back immediately, taking the heat of his energy with him. My body cools. He looks confused, as if he can’t quite remember what’s just happened. His eyes search my face. The moment ends, and all of my dark thoughts return in a rush, leaving me weak and nauseous. My skin tingles. What had my energy been trying to do? I can still feel the remnants of its dark threads, still eager to seek out Enzo, to overwhelm him.

  “I’m not seventeen yet,” I decide to say. “I cannot give myself away.”

  Enzo nods. “Of course.” He suddenly seems to recognize me again, the familiarity returning to his eyes, and the expression puzzles me. He gives me a small smile that seems tinged with apology. “Let’s not anger the gods, then.”

  He guides us out of the courtyard and back into the hall. We walk in silence, my heartbeat keeping time with our footsteps. Finally, we reach my chamber door. Enzo doesn’t linger. Instead, he gives me a courteous bow and bids me good night. I watch him go until he turns a corner and disappears. Then I enter my chamber.

  The room is dark, the reflections of rain on the windows painting moving shadows against the walls. I stand against the door for a while, replaying our kiss in my mind. My cheeks stay hot. Long minutes drag by, until I have no idea how long I’ve been here like this. Had I run my hand along the naked skin of his throat, the line of his collarbone, his exposed shoulder? Had my energy surged out of control, seeking to wrap itself around him?

  I have to tell him.

  I’m an official Elite now; I should be able to tell the Daggers everything. Enzo had confided in me that he had some sort of history with Teren—if I should tell anyone about what Teren whispered to me, I should be able to tell him. Suddenly, I find myself moving toward the door again. I step out, then follow the corridor the way I’d come. I will never have another chance like this.

  The sky is completely dark by the time I make my way back down the corridor, the candles lining the hall are already lit, and the sound of rain beats steadily against the roofs. I head down to the cavern. Laughter and conversation drift from the space. Everyone must still be down here, and by the sound of it, the wine’s still flowing freely. My hands tremble as I walk.

  I reach the hall leading into the cavern, then pause behind the final pillar that overlooks the room. Here and there, I catch a glimpse of Enzo’s crimson hair. The sight of him sends my heart pounding. I’m one of them now. They are my friends and allies. They deserve to know. I start to step out.

  Then I stop.

  Dante has pulled Enzo aside. They exchange a few words, and then Dante nods toward my hallway. They walk in my direction, seeking out the corridor for a private chat. I tense. They’ll discover me here. For some reason, fear or curiosity or suspicion, I shrink back into the shadows and conjure a curtain of invisibility around myself. I paint the illusion of an empty hall over me, blending myself in with the shadows of the wall and pillar. Then I hold my breath.

  What are they talking about? Beside me, my father’s ghost appears without warning, his shattered chest heaving, his mouth twisted into a dark smile. He places a skeletal hand on my shoulder and points at their approaching figures. Do you see that? he whispers in my ear, turning my insides to ice. Let’s listen to what your enemy has to say to your love.

  I want to ignore his voice, but when Enzo and Dante finally reach the hall and come to a stop barely a dozen feet away from me, I catch their conversation. They’re talking about me.

  And Moritas rose out of the Underworld with such fury in her eyes that all who saw her fell to their knees, and all wept,

  begging her forgiveness. But Moritas had no desire to forgive.

  She called on the earth, the earth trembled, and the mountains

  buried the village in ash and stone.

  —An account of the destruction of Teaza Island, by Captain Ikazara Terune

  Adelina Amouteru

  My heart hammers loudly against my ribs. I pray to the gods that they can’t hear it.

  “—but the point is, she was recognized,” Dante says. The mere sound of his voice sends a tremor of anger through me, bringing back with it the memory of his threats during my training. “And not only was she recognized, I saw them talking to each other.” He scowls. “Has she told you what words she exchanged with him?”

  “He had her pinned against a wall. She tried to attack him.”

  Dante grits his teeth. “They talked for longer than that. Where is she now?”

  “She’s resting,” Enzo replies.

  Dante waits for him to say more. When Enzo doesn’t, he continues in a growl. “You’ve killed your own before, when they’ve endangered the safety of our entire group.”

  Enzo stays quiet, as if reminded of something he would rather forget. My hands clench together.

  “Her presence here now endangers us all,” Dante goes on. “We still have some days to go before the Tournament of Storms, and Adelina can’t be recognized again.”

  “She may be the only way for us to get close enough to the king and queen.”

  “She may be the one sabotaging us. Is it strange that the Inquisition banned malfettos from entering the Tournament on the same day Adelina left to watch the qualifying races against your wishes?”

  “If she wanted to turn us in, there would be Inquisitors swarming all over us right now.” Enzo folds his arms behind his back. “It would have happened already.”

  Dante looks at him sideways. “Is that all, Your Highness?”

  Enzo narrows his eyes. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I saw you escorting her away. All the other Elites suspect it. I’ve known you for years—I can see the truth on
your face.”

  “There’s nothing to see.”

  “She reminds you of Daphne, doesn’t she? That little Tamouran face?”

  A cloud of numbness sweeps over me. Daphne. Who is Daphne?

  Through the fog that envelops me, I sense an overwhelming tide of anger rising in Enzo’s heart, pushing and straining to lash out. The energy makes me gasp—I clamp a hand over my mouth to silence it. My heart pounds a frantic warning.

  “You’re on dangerous ground,” Enzo says to him in a quiet voice.

  Dante hesitates, wavering for a moment, but then scowls and plunges on. His voice takes on a surprising switch, a transition from his arrogant, bullying condescension to something with genuine concern in it. “Listen. We all liked Daphne. Best non-malfetto I ever knew. She nursed me back to health—I’d have died if it wasn’t for her. You think I didn’t notice all the times you abandoned your estates or the Fortunata Court in order to go find her? Think we didn’t know you wanted to marry her?”

  To marry her.

  Dante’s voice stills. “You think I didn’t mourn her too? That I didn’t want to murder every Inquisitor in the city for her?”

  Enzo listens in silence, his face a portrait of stone. There are walls around his energy now, barring me from his emotions. I fight to concentrate on my illusion of invisibility. Why aren’t you calling him a liar, Enzo? Because it’s all the truth, of course. No wonder Enzo sometimes looks at me as if I were someone else. It’s because he is seeing someone else. Another girl who once lived, whom he once loved, whom he loves still.

  Dante leans over. The anger in him swells. “Adelina is not her. She’s got the fire, I’ll give her that, and—markings aside—the face. But they are completely different people, Reaper. And I can tell you that while everyone trusted Daphne, nobody trusts your new girl. We all tolerate her, at best.” Dante pauses to hold up two fingers. “She’s gone against your orders, and she’s been spotted talking to the enemy. You’ve killed for less than that. You’ve given her advantages that you don’t give others. You’ve softened to her. I don’t like taking orders—but I still take them from you. I haven’t taken them for years just to see you fall all over yourself for a girl who reminds you of a dead sweetheart.”

  The look that Enzo now gives Dante is enough to make the latter take a careful step back. “I’m quite aware of who Adelina is,” the prince says in a low voice. “And who she’s not.”

  “Not if you think you’re in love with her, Your Highness.”

  “My affairs are not your business.”

  “They are if she’s a distraction from our goals.”

  Enzo narrows his eyes. “She is nothing to me,” he snaps with a careless gesture of one hand. “Nothing more than a Dagger recruit. Just part of our plans.” The ice in his voice hits me hard. Nothing more. A rip appears on my heart.

  Dante snorts at his words. “If that’s the truth, then you should have no trouble taking some advice from another one of your Daggers.” He gestures at himself.

  “And you’re suggesting?” Enzo says.

  “On my honor, I will tolerate her so long as you tolerate her. Use her as you will. But after you’re on the throne and finished with your fun, you should get rid of her. She won’t stay loyal to you long.”

  I tremble at the darkness awakening in Enzo’s heart, a fury that blacks out all the excitement drifting over from the other Daggers and patrons, a rage that envelops the cavern.

  “I appreciate your concern,” he says after a moment, emphasizing the words in slow, ominous notes. “But our conversation here is done.”

  “Suit yourself, Your Highness,” Dante says in disgust. “You may have sentenced us all.” He turns away to head back to the group. Enzo stays where he is, his expression guarded, his eyes trained on the Spider’s back, thinking. It occurs to me, with all the agony of a twisting knife, that he might be considering Dante’s words.

  Finally, Enzo also returns to the others. I don’t. I stay where I am, crouched in a shuddering heap at the entrance of the chamber, shrouded in invisibility, alone as the gathering continues. The words I prepared to say to the Daggers have withered on my tongue. The memory of the kiss I shared with Enzo so recently now leaves me cold and shivering.

  I feel no anger. No jealousy. Just . . . emptiness. A bone-deep sense of loss. Somehow, the echoes of Gemma’s wisecracks and the patrons’ laughter sound menacing to me now. Gemma has treated you well. Raffaele took you under his wing. I hang on to these thoughts in desperation, searching for comfort, trying to convince myself that Dante’s lying. I can’t.

  They are only good to me because they need me. Just like Enzo. Kindness with strings attached. Would they have befriended me if I were worthless?

  Finally, I rise to my feet and head back to my chamber. My illusion ripples around me. If someone were here in the hall, they would see a current of movement in the air, a strange shadow gliding along the corridor.

  I reach my chamber, lock my door, release the illusion, and crouch against the foot of my bed. Here, I finally unleash my emotions. Tears run down my face. So much for thinking that I can tell them everything. Time passes. Minutes, an hour. Who knows? The moonlight shifts its slant through my windows. I am back again in my childhood bedchamber, running away from my father. I am back against the railings of my old home’s stairway, listening to my father sell me to his guest. Or maybe I’m listening to Dante denouncing me before Enzo. They’re talking about me. They are always talking about me. I have made a full circle and I have not escaped my fate at all.

  My father’s ghost appears through the wall beside me. He kneels before me and cups my face in his hands. I can almost feel the whisper of his touch, the cold shiver of death. He smiles. Don’t you see, Adelina? he says gently. Don’t you see how I have always looked out for you? Everything I’ve ever taught you is true. Who will ever love a malfetto like you?

  I clutch my head and squeeze my eye shut. Enzo is not like them. He believed in me. He took me in and stood up for me. I recall the way he had danced with me at the Spring Moons, the way he protected me from Teren. All our days training together, the gentleness in his kiss, his affectionate laugh. I repeat this to myself until the words blur together into something unrecognizable.

  But did he really do those things for you? my father whispers. Or for himself?

  I have no idea how late the night has turned. For all I know, dawn could be arriving soon. Or perhaps only a few minutes have passed. All I know is that, as the time drags on, the true part of me is slowly but surely giving way to something bitter. What was once sadness is making way for anger. The darkness creeps in. Exhausted, I welcome it.

  I rise from my crouch. My feet move toward the door. I head out into the hallway again, but this time I don’t go in the direction of the others. My feet point instead toward the opposite path, the one that leads me out of the court, into the streets, and down to the canals.

  Toward the Inquisition Tower.

  Teren Santoro

  The lights in the palace burn low tonight. Teren makes his way down the empty halls, tracing a very familiar path. His boots echo faintly against the floors, but he steps lightly, and the sound is almost imperceptible. At the end of the hall is the king’s private bedchambers. But guards are always posted outside of the doors. Teren takes a detour instead, wandering down a narrower hall and pushing through an invisible panel in the wall that will take him directly into the bedroom.

  The secret door swings open without a sound. Teren’s eyes go immediately to the bed. By the light of the moons, he can see the king’s snoring figure rising and falling under the blankets. Beside him, Queen Giulietta sits upright in bed. She so rarely visits the king’s chambers that the sight of her in here feels foreign to Teren. She meets his eyes and motions him closer.

  The smell of wine is a pungent cloud around the king.

  Teren steps closer. H
e gives the queen a questioning look.

  She stares at him levelly in return.

  Teren removes a knife tucked at his waist. It is an unusual weapon—so small and thin that it looks like something a doctor would use in surgery. He hoists it in one hand. With his other hand, he produces a heavy wooden mallet from within his cloaks.

  Teren learned this as a child, when his father lay on his deathbed and he stood by, crying, while a doctor put his dying father out of his misery. It had been quick and painless. Most important, it had been free of blood or obvious wounds. When the Inquisition buried his father, it was as if he simply died in his sleep, his body intact and seemingly untouched.

  Now, Teren positions the needlelike knife over the inside corner of the king’s right eye. He hoists the wooden mallet over the end of the knife, then pulls the mallet back. Giulietta watches him in silence.

  Giulietta is the rightful ruler of Kenettra. The gods ordained it by marking Prince Enzo, cursing him as a malfetto. The gods gave Kenettra this weak king, the Duke of Estenzia, a nobleman not even of the royal bloodline. But Giulietta is pure. She should rule Kenettra. With Adelina’s help, Teren will destroy the Young Elites. And with Giulietta’s support, they will rid the entire country of malfettos. Teren smiles at the thought. Tonight, Giulietta will cry out for her guards and tell them the king has stopped breathing beside her. They will pronounce the king dead of natural causes, of excessive wine or of heart attack. And tonight, Teren will begin a true purge of the city’s malfettos.

  He gathers his strength. Then he slams the mallet down on the knife’s handle. The knife strikes true. The body goes rigid, twitching. Then, gradually, the movements fade.