As Shadows Fade

Page 24

One would think that sleeping only four or five hours each night after a grueling day of riding, and then bedding down in small, rented rooms with Vioget and Victoria-one too close, and the other too damn far away-that he would be too exhausted to dream.
But, alas, no.
He staggered awake from the nightmare, his hand still gripping the sword to slice off Eustacia’s head-and the image, not of hers, but of Victoria’s face, turned toward him, awaiting the fatal blow.
Max rolled off the thin bed and pulled slowly to his feet, heart still pounding, fingers still shaking. When he turned groggily and slammed his temple against a low beam in the dingy little room, he didn’t bother to hold back a bellowed curse. At least the blow helped to knock the nocturnal wisps from his mind.
Victoria looked at him curiously, but had better sense than to say anything. They’d fallen into a bit of a routine in the morning, the three of them. Max and Sebastian dressed quickly, then left to saddle the horses and find something to break their fast while Victoria prepared to leave.
Of necessity, for both riding astride and sharing a room with two men, Victoria had dressed in men’s clothing since crossing the Channel.
And she’d cut her hair.
Rather, Max had cut her hair.
They’d argued about it on the first morning, in Normandy.
“You’ll need to hide your hair better if you think to pass as a man,” Max had told her. Breeches and a shirt and coat were all good, but they’d been fashioned for the sharp angles of a man’s body, not the curves of a woman’s.
“Cut it off, then,” Victoria told him, lifting the rope of a braid and letting it flop against her shoulder. “You’ve already told me I should.”
“But no, you needn’t go to such an extreme. Tuck it inside your hat or coat,” said Vioget from across the room. “It would be a shame to cut such lovely curls. Why, when they’re unbound, they reach nearly to your-”
“Waist. How crude to mention it,” Max cut him off. Their eyes locked and antipathy flared.
“I’ll do it myself,” Victoria snapped, yanking the braid taut with one hand, and reaching to her waist for the knife. The blade glinted suddenly in the early dawn. “Bloody damn fools.”
“No, wait,” Max said, grasping her wrist. He hesitated… but in the end, it had to be done. “Let me. You’ll cut yourself.”
A bloody weak excuse, but she relaxed her arm and allowed him to remove the knife from her fingers. His hand settled on the top of her warm head. Before he could think twice, reconsider, he sliced the long, thick plait right at the base of her neck.
The braid fell away, sagging in his hand, and he watched dark curls spring up softly around the tender skin of her neck and shoulders. She turned, tipping and tilting her head as though loosened from some great burden and smiled at him. “It feels so light.”
“A bit safer, too,” he said, unable to keep from staring at Victoria with the mass of soft, rumpled tresses that fell into her eyes and face and made her look as though she’d just risen from bed.
“And very, very lovely,” interjected Vioget. “Not boyish at all.”
“Then what was the point?” laughed Victoria.
None too gently, Max smoothed what was left of her hair back into a low tail. “This,” he said, fastening around it the leather cord he would have used for his own hair. “Wear a hat, and you’ll look like nothing more than a young man.”
“A very pretty one at that,” agreed Vioget. Who always seemed to need the last word.
Now, after more than a week of rapid travel, Prague loomed ahead. The orange-red roofs of close-set buildings burned bright in the lowering August sun behind him, and the wicked-looking black spire of the unfinished St. Vitus’s Cathedral jutted above the sea of terra-cotta roofs. Beyond, across the sparkling Vltava, Max could barely see the dual towers of Tn Church.
“I presume you know where to find Katerina,” he said, turning to Vioget.
“Most assuredly.”
Max nodded and gathered up the reins to his horse. “I will leave that to both of you, then. You’ll find me at Tn Church on the evening of the day after tomorrow.” He’d already begun his fast this morning, and would be on his knees in the cathedral before the sun completely set. That would suffice as his first day of fasting, according to Wayren.
Vioget looked as though he meant to say something, but for once held his tongue. Max glanced at Victoria but couldn’t allow his attention to linger. “Be safe,” was all he said, and urged his mount forward.
Whatever she replied was lost in the scattering of rock and rubble beneath his horse’s hooves as they leapt forward.
Max didn’t look back.
Victoria watched him go and resisted the urge to kick her own horse into a gallop after him. She’d see Max again in three days, and before then, she and Sebastian had to find the vampire Katerina. She couldn’t afford to be distracted or worried. There would be time for that later, she told herself. Nevertheless, she watched him grow smaller on the road ahead of them with a pervading sense of loss.
She and Sebastian rode in silence for a time, and the city’s features became clearer even as the lowering sun cast longer shadows in front of them. Through the trees she caught glimpses of the single bridge crossing the Vlatava River, and Victoria watched closely for a sign of Max’s tall figure. But it was growing dark, and the riders all looked the same to her.
Victoria shook herself mentally and tightened her resolve. There were important matters to be dealt with, ones that could have far-reaching impact if she didn’t succeed. She looked at Sebastian and asked, “You’re quite certain this Katerina has the Ring of Jubai?”
He looked at her, a grin tipping the sides of his mouth. “It would have been a waste of time to bring us here if I weren’t, would it not?” He shrugged. “According to my grandfather, once Katerina obtained that ring from Germintrude, she never took it off. It was her way of spiting Lilith, I think.”
He pointed to the snaking river and the single span over it. “The Stone Bridge,” he told her. “Katerina was turned because of that bridge.”
“You did claim to know the story,” Victoria said, glad for the conversation to keep her mind off Max. Why did he have to ride ahead of them? They were still going to the same place.
“I do know the story, perhaps better than any other mortal,” he told her. “Perhaps if I tell you, it will distract you a bit-hmm, Victoria?”
His sidewise look made her heart pang quietly, for he wasn’t completely successful in hiding his own hurt.
“It’s a beautiful bridge, is it not?” he asked with a gallant sweep of his hand. “When the sun rises, it casts a lovely burnished glow over it.”
She could see people and carriages moving across the bridge, which stood in the river on ten arches that made it look like a graceful centipede. At the leg of every arch, statues rose on either side of the bridge. Other than that, the span was unfettered by wall or decoration. Simple, clean, elegant.
They drew nearer, and Victoria looked up at a single ornate spire that rose atop a hill above them. “Prague Castle is there,” Sebastian told her. “And that is St. Vitus’s Cathedral, which they have been building off and on since the thirteen hundreds. It’s still not completed.”
“And what of Katerina?”
“You’re not interested in the history of Praha, as the natives call it?” Sebastian asked. “I’m merely attempting to fill your mind with something other than worry.”
“I’m not worried. Not at this moment.”
Sebastian looked at her. She realized how dark it was getting, for she couldn’t see the details of his face, or the gleam in his eyes. “Perhaps you should be, Victoria.”
“What do you mean?” Fear seized her. What did he know? Something about Max going off alone?
And then she stopped herself. She very nearly stopped her horse, too, there in the middle of the road. What a fool. What a fool!
She was doing exactly what Max had warned about, had worried about. She was allowing her fear for him, her thoughts of him, to overtake everything else.
There were demons to fight. A horrible, unfamiliar malevolence that she’d never faced before… that had dared to abduct Wayren.
And Max… Max was more than capable of taking care of himself. She shook her head and felt the hair loosen from its tie at her neck. A chin-length strand fell into her face, and she brushed it back impatiently.
“Now there’s the Victoria I know,” said Sebastian airily, as though he’d watched her pull herself together.
She saw that they were just at the approach of the bridge. Great statues guarded the arched entrance tower.
“As I’d begun to tell you,” he continued as their mounts clopped onto cobblestones, “when the bridge was built, the masons added egg yolk to the mortar to make it stronger. People from all over the country sent eggs here to Praha in order to assist. And,” he added with a smile as their horses took the first steps onto the bridge, “one particularly helpful town thought to hard-boil the eggs before sending them in order to keep them from breaking during the journey.”
Victoria saw the glitter of lights ahead and along the bridge, but the orange roofs and cream-colored buildings had turned gray in the low light. She looked over at Sebastian. “They hard-boiled them?”
“Ah, so you were listening,” he said. “I thought perhaps I’d lost you. Yes, indeed. According to the tale I heard, the eggs weren’t so helpful for the mortar, but they were a fine snack for the builders.”
She gave a short laugh and at the same moment felt a familiar chill over the back of her neck. A vampire, perhaps two.
A surge of energy swept through her as she reached for the stake she kept inside her boot. When she rose upright in her saddle, she caught Sebastian’s eye and saw that he’d armed himself similarly.
With a quick sweep of her gaze, she identified the undead as a handsome young man near one of the statues. He rode on a large horse and smiled down at a woman who lugged a heavy basket on wide leather straps over her shoulder. She was well past Victoria’s age and, in the lantern light, looked haggard and tired. She’d be no match for a superhuman undead, but, given the option, the vampire would probably prefer fresh, younger blood.