Chapter Four

Darius angled his wings, coming in for a landing on the balcony outside the tower that housed his rooms. Enchantments meant to keep others out rippled around him about ten feet beyond the balcony's alabaster railing, and he flared his wings to slow himself, his hawk's talons scraping against the stone of the railing. The doors opened seemingly of their own accord, manned by an invisible magical construct, and he spread his wings once more to glide into his chambers.

As the doors shut behind him, magelights in the antechamber to his bedroom came to life, filling the room with a soft golden glow. With barely a thought, his shape changed in seconds from a tawny hawk to a much more imposing form— that of a muscular young man, broad-shouldered and dark-haired, with enormous blue-black wings. It was his birth form and required no real thought to assume or maintain, though he had made slight alterations over the years. His wings, for instance, had been a gentler tawny color as a child, and they'd had a softer shape as well; he maintained the use of a desert hawk's form as a nod to that. He was a prince, however, and so he'd needed to make conscious decisions about how he presented himself. His wings were now a striking shade of black that shimmered deep blue in direct light, and they were angled like a falcon's, their edges sharp.

He walked briskly to one of the chests around the antechamber's periphery, opening it to reveal stacks of clothing. Technically, he could approximate some types of clothing as part of his form— in the case of his last shift, his tawny hawk's feathers could have become a soft brown tunic, for instance — but that required more concentration, and he had more flexibility of style with actual clothing.

He withdrew a pair of fitted trousers cut in a military style from the cedar chest. He'd begun wearing the style shortly after his father had been killed in battle. Looser clothing like robes and kaftans were far more typical among both humans and his own kind, but Darius wasn't concerned with general fashion; he was the prince of a dynasty of demons, and if he was visually distinct from the others, so much the better. Particularly if he was distinct in a way that suggested that he wasn't to be trifled with.

Not that it was really necessary; everyone knew that he was well-trained in combat and related skills. At the same time, though, his family— his entire species, really— had no shortage of enemies. In a different world, perhaps he wouldn't have chosen to sculpt his appearance based on intimidation, but that world wasn't his. It never had been.

He donned a red tunic with short sleeves and a back that was cut low to accommodate his wings, tying it with a precise knot on one side, then closed the wooden chest and exited the antechamber, entering the bedroom through an elaborately carved door. He stopped to collect his signet ring from a small box at the bedside, then put it on. It was very unusual for a demon to be able to shapeshift with enough precision to impersonate another, but theoretically possible, so anyone of rank tended to carry a unique identifier.

He glanced around the bedroom. It was sparse for a prince, but then, he could count on one hand the number of times since reaching adulthood that he'd actually slept here; most nights, the guards outside were protecting an empty room. Still, he rumpled the bed linens to look as if they'd been slept in. It was best that no one think to question the matter of where the prince of the Shadowborn City rested. Demons had long maintained that they held their true forms sacred and didn't allow anyone but their mate to see them. It was close enough to reality and a convincing enough lie to stop most people from wondering if there might be another reason that the city's demonic overlords were so careful about keeping the places they slept secure.

Darius left the bedroom through another antechamber, this one leading to a spiral staircase. He descended, his wingtips brushing the walls as he walked. When he exited, he raised the hand bearing the signet ring to the two guards who stood at stiff attention as he passed, though he didn't otherwise acknowledge them. Normally he would have, but he was already later than requested for his audience with the queen. Besides, he had an unpleasant supposition about what his mother intended to speak to him about, and that was enough to make anyone surly. The guards were something of an affectation anyway; very few people would dare attempt to harm a demon. Barring young administrators armed with broomsticks, apparently, he amended mentally.

He frowned to himself. For some reason, he couldn't shake the image of the young woman in the Sanctuary from his mind. He generally tried not to pay much attention to human women— any interest there could only lead to trouble— but he was finding something about her very difficult to dismiss.

He shook his head once, still walking at a brisk pace. The encounter had been a bit odd, admittedly, but it wasn't anything he needed to dwell on. Maybe he was just struggling to move past the affront his dignity had suffered.

As he entered another hallway, one whose walls were decorated with a sweeping mosaic, he slowed his pace. He stopped in front of the tiled mural, considering it for a moment as he often did. The mosaic piece was one of the most intricate he had ever seen, and some might think that strange, in a private hallway. But though it had been commissioned long before Darius' birth— long before his mother's birth, even— he thought he understood why one of his kind would have wanted to be able to see it frequently, and with the luxury of contemplation that privacy allowed.

The image was of a great dragon, its wings spread wide and haloed by the sun behind it. Beneath the dragon was the city of Karazhen, its walls and spires and harbor bathed in shadow. The moment shown was instantly recognizable to anyone on the continent. Everyone knew the story of Diantha, founder of the royal family. In her time, demons who survived to adulthood were almost impossibly rare; from the moment their nature was uncovered, they were harried and hunted like animals. Diantha would have been notable for her survival past childhood alone. But one day, her fate had crossed with a human general who had defected from nearby Sabria, one whose cause was sliding inevitably toward defeat. She had allied with him, on the condition that she be able to establish a place of refuge for others like her within the territory that he claimed. He agreed, and with a powerful demon on his side, his fortunes had begun to change.

In the end, when the fighting was over and the lands of his new kingdom claimed, the general told her that she would receive as much land as she could cover with the wings of her dragon form. She had taken him at his word, taking a much larger version of the form than he had ever seen and launching herself into the sky. She had bathed the entire peninsula in shadow, claiming the city and its harbor as her own. The stories said that the general had initially been angry at her audacity. He wasn't a fool, though, and perhaps secretly he admired her intelligence as he did her strength in battle. He told her that he would honor his word, but that her claim to the city would be far less likely to be contested by others if it was jointly held by a man whose military strength was by then greatly renowned. Diantha had agreed, and the two together had claimed the Ivory Throne.

The mural depicted a great triumph, but to Darius, it wasn't a boast of demonic strength; it was a reminder of the fragility of what they had here. A reminder of how different the world would be for someone like him in any other time. The city had been strong and stable for three hundred years, yes, but it had been only by the barest twists of fate that Diantha had survived to adulthood, and only by her own strength and cleverness had she been able to grant that same opportunity to others like her. The world beyond their borders was a hostile place to demonkind— in most places, they were still hunted and reviled. It was a stark reminder of what could happen if attitudes ever shifted here, if the human subjects of these lands ever came to believe that they could do better without their inhuman overlords.

Darius instinctively made a warding sign against ill fortune, then almost shook his head at himself. Sometimes he thought that he dwelled too much on this, but maybe that wasn't possible. His family couldn't afford missteps in ruling, couldn't afford any but the barest smatterings of discontent. Ensuring that the city-state of Karazhen was safe and prosperous, along with its similarly ruled sister-states along the coast, wasn't just a matter of the success of the coalition. It was a matter of survival for his species.

Finally, he turned away from the mural and continued toward his mother's private library. She'd been known to occasionally allow scholars to access it to copy rare texts that her father had collected— he'd been much more a scholar than a warrior— but in general, it was a place that she preferred to keep private for audiences with her family and inner circle.

He reached the door to the library, nodding acknowledgement to the two guards that flanked it as they stepped aside to allow entry. The doors were red-toned olivewood, their panels carved with the traditional emblematic representation of the Elemental Rifts, and they swung open at his touch.

To his surprise, his foster brother Kai was there as well, lounging at a desk beside one of the latticed shelves that held dozens of scrolls. There were a few unrolled in front of him, which he was pretending to ignore, though Darius was certain they'd held Kai's full attention before Darius' arrival— despite cultivating a flippant persona, Kai was actually quite scholarly, a trait Naratha had encouraged in him. Kai was wearing his usual form, a dark-haired human with ash-grey wings and scaled ridges on either side of his brow. Darius gave him a nod of acknowledgement, then turned to his mother.

Naratha, queen of the Shadowborn City, was standing on the balcony overlooking the sprawling port city, angled slightly away from the two princes. She too was wearing her preferred form, that of a tall, dark-haired woman with noble features and wings with strikingly iridescent scales that glittered blue-green in the sun. She'd told him once that the wings were a dual homage, their draconic appearance a reference to Diantha's most powerful form, and their color to the sea on which their city's prosperity was founded. When Darius had been younger, he'd been bothered by the fact that he had no idea what his own mother truly looked like, but the discomfiture had faded. He'd come to see the wisdom in knowing that a person's physical appearance was some of the least valuable information about them.

Darius cleared his throat, and Naratha turned to face him. She raised one eyebrow as she looked him over.

"You've taken pains with your form today," she said archly. Darius refrained from glancing at himself in consternation; if he'd subtly altered his appearance in any way, it hadn't been a conscious choice, and he didn't want her to realize that he'd been less than deliberate about it. "Is there a winsome young woman soon to be honored with your charms?" she asked.

Darius leaned against a pillar richly carved with a lotus flower motif, determined to keep his mind from the dove keeper in the Sanctuary. What manner of woman was willing to defend sparrows from a demon prince? Not that she would have known his identity, but still, any demon outranked most humans here by orders of magnitude. He gave himself an internal shake, then offered his mother a bland smile.

"Shouldn't I present myself well for an audience with the Queen of the Shadowborn City?" he asked lightly.

She smiled in turn. "Formal today as well, my son?" She turned away from the balcony, looking at him directly for the first time. "If there is a young lady, be discreet, at least," she said briskly, nodding to Kai, who gathered up a sheaf of paper into a loose stack. "We wouldn't want to offend your betrothed, would we?"

Darius stifled a groan at the confirmation that his suspicions about the reason behind her summons had been absolutely correct. Technically, he didn't have a betrothed yet, but that wasn't for lack of trying on anyone's part, and it looked like the undertaking was about to begin afresh.

"Are you really going to insist on this again already, Mother?" he asked wearily.

Her smile, still bland, remained unchanged. "Am I going to insist that our bloodline continue and the city not fall into chaos and anarchy? Why, yes, my dear son, I believe I will."

Behind her, Kai smirked slightly. Darius sent him a look. His foster brother, in his opinion, was taking entirely too much joy from Darius's discomfort on this matter.

There was no use fighting any of this, Darius knew, but his last attempt at courtship had been so utterly disastrous that the idea of subjecting himself to another round made him want to dive off the balcony, and who knew if he'd decide to spread his wings on the way down or not. In fact, the last three serious attempts to find a match had been excruciating.

It wasn't that the women his mother had chosen as prospects were in any way flawed. On the contrary, they'd been beautiful, charming, and intelligent, well-suited to politics and leadership. Any one of them should have been an excellent fit. But he'd been unable to make himself agree to move past the contractual phase of betrothal. It was foolish of him, he knew, but the fact of the matter was that he was a prince. He knew— and every eligible woman knew— that he could have his pick of brides. He'd therefore been monitored since childhood, and any prospective consort would have been coached extensively on how to best attract and hold his attention.

It would have been gratifying, he supposed, if any of it was real.

Kai cleared his throat, raising the sheaf of papers in one hand. "I have reports on four luckless young women here, including sketches of each, if you'd deign to look them over?"

"Luckless?" Darius asked with a frown.

"Well, yes, since they're prospects for the unenviable task of being bound to you for the rest of their lives…"

Darius rolled his eyes and crossed to the desk to tug the papers from Kai. "If you had any hand in selecting these girls, I don't think I'm going to consider myself any luckier than they will."

Kai laid a hand to his chest in feigned offense. "Are you implying that I would choose women you'd hate for my own amusement?"

"Let's just say I'm not ruling out the possibility," Darius replied, looking at him sideways.

"Boys," Naratha said dryly. "Kindly focus." She nodded to the documents in Darius's hand.

With a quiet sigh, Darius began flipping through them. He ignored the sketches— in his experience, art done with the purpose of flattering the subject had no guarantee of accuracy, and what did it matter for women who could change their appearance anyway?— in favor of examining the summaries of the women's backgrounds. Two daughters of lesser noble houses within the city that he'd likely crossed paths with at some point, a high-born woman who showed promise at the military academy in the nearby city of Sarthen, and…

"First generation Enclave-born?" Darius asked, his brows drawn together as he perused the final paper. Although the term was perhaps no longer strictly accurate, a number of smaller demon-ruled settlements had grown up in the protective shadow of Karazhen in the centuries after its founding. They'd been collectively referred to as ‘Enclaves' for so long that the name had remained for many years after some of them had become powerful cities in their own right, though none truly rivaled Karazhen in size or strength.

"Born to former foundlings who were adopted into middle-ranked nobility in Zharen and later proved themselves extremely valuable, yes," Naratha said. "She's been taken under the magistrate's wing as something of a protégé. You'll note her talents, also."

"Her skills tilt heavily toward water," Kai supplied. "She's never been formally tested for strength but there have been plenty of positive indications. She'd likely perform impressively in the Trials. If that gift were introduced into your own bloodline, it could be formidable. She's also strong in soul-speaking."

That explained why someone raised so far from their center of power— and born to a family of middling influence, no less— was even being considered. Technically, any unattached young woman of demon heritage was eligible, but it would be na?ve to think those were the only true factors.

"Alethia of Zharen," he read. The name sounded familiar, and after a second, he had it. "Wasn't she the one who…?"

"Threw the Zharen tin mine's overseer into a chasm?" Kai finished for him brightly. "The very one. Lovely girl. Assertive."

Darius made a face. The event in question had occurred about three years earlier, and he didn't remember the details. "What drove her to do that, again?"

"Some petty disrespect, allegedly," Naratha said with a shrug. "But he'd been intractable in the past, so I think it more likely she'd been waiting for an excuse. And it should be noted that the mines did increase in productivity after the change in management."

"Come on, you know there are plenty of administrators you'd love to pitch off a cliff," said Kai, leaning back against the wall. "And having someone around who's actually done it might make things run a little smoother."

It was impossible to know if Kai was joking or not. Suddenly weary, Darius handed the papers back to him.

"Fine. Her," he said. They both looked at him in surprise. "Extend her an official invitation to visit," he said to Kai.

"Are you certain you wouldn't rather…" his mother began.

"Why would you put her forward as an option if you intended to talk me out of it the second I chose her?" Darius asked impatiently. She pursed her lips for an instant before smoothing her expression, and suddenly he understood. She'd put an Enclave girl up for consideration in the hopes that it would make the City-born options look more desirable by comparison.

The realization made him feel, if anything, even more surly, but he kept it from his face. His mother didn't need to know that he'd caught on to the subterfuge. He knew he should probably reconsider, trusting her judgement, but the fact that she'd resorted to that kind of game made him determined to dig his heels in.

"Someone from an Enclave will bring fresh perspectives," he said briskly, pretending he hadn't noticed her shift in expression. Not to mention that demons from the Enclaves tended to be less manipulative than those raised in Karazhen. "I think it's worth exploring," he added. "I look forward to meeting her." That was a lie, but he found himself not caring very much.

Naratha sighed. "Go on and see to it," she said to Kai, who stood. He gave a bow to Naratha, but there was a hint of a smile playing at his lips when he left the room. Doubtless he was already planning on taking wagers from other nobles about what Alethia of Zharen would do when Darius inevitably sent her on her way.

"Wait, Darius," Naratha said, when he turned away to leave as well. He paused, turning back to look at her. She tilted her head in an invitation to join her on the balcony. He approached, coming to stand beside her to overlook the city. It was a beautiful sight from here, all gleaming white stone and red-tiled roofs stretching from the hilltop to the veridian crests of the waves of the sea. The harbor, the pride of the city, gleamed. He could have such a view at any time from the sky, of course, but he had to admit there was a particular charm to seeing it framed from within the palace.

"Is there something else you wanted to discuss?" he asked her, his lingering annoyance tilting his manners back toward formality.

"There is another matter, yes. More urgent than the other, I'm afraid." She stopped speaking, looking outward with a pensive expression. He looked at her carefully. His mother was a shrewd and calculating woman, and he knew her to be deeply thoughtful as well, but rarely did she allow others to see her in her more introspective moods. She preferred to give the impression that her decisions were arrived at promptly and forcefully.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she asked softly. "This haven of ours."

"It is," he agreed. She remained quiet for another moment. "Is something troubling you?" he asked.

"The oracles have reported a burgeoning threat," she said quietly. He frowned, his mind quickly flicking through possibilities. He might have a singular function among the city's elite, but he made a consistent effort to be aware of all of the administrative issues the city faced. So far as he knew, the city's priests and priestesses had done excellent work in their magical wards and blessings. Crops were plentiful, and the supply lines had faced little trouble from bandits or other interruptions.

His mother tapped one long-nailed finger against the alabaster banister. "This threat comes from within the city," she said softly.

He looked at her directly, waiting. That, he knew, most likely meant that she had received word of a conspiracy among the merchants, or perhaps members of the Senate or Lower Assembly. It was rare, but it did occasionally happen. It was more typically someone motivated by self-interest or greed than someone with any real disdain for the nature of the city's nobility, but that didn't make such things less of a problem. The fact that she had called him to discuss it meant that she had a task for him. Sometimes, it meant that someone needed a meeting with a demon prince to remind them of their place. More often, it meant that someone's life was already forfeit.

"Who?" he asked quietly.

"No one of consequence," she said with a small flick of one hand, the motion as dismissive as if she were brushing away a gnat. She paused. "Yet."

Yet . Such a perilous word, when dealing with fate and destiny. "You said it was the oracles who informed you," he said. "What did they see?"

Her lip curled. "A human," she said. "Prophesied to one day rival Diantha herself in greatness."

He looked at her sharply. "Here?" he demanded.

She shrugged, the motion causing the iridescence of her wings to shimmer in the sunlight. "The oracles did not specify where . You know how difficult it is to get any real detail out of them," she said with a touch of exasperation in her voice, and he nodded in rueful agreement. "But given that this human is a subject of Karazhen…"

He considered carefully, trying not to allow the primal fear at the prospect to distract him from thinking this through calmly. As powerful in magic as the demon rulers were, they were not invulnerable. History and the near extermination of their kind had shown him that.

"This is a true prophecy, then?" he asked. "Not the shadows of possibility, of probability?"

"The oracles say this human's fate is twined with ours," his mother said. "With our family's. It is not possible to prevent this destiny. Only to shape it."

Darius thought for a few seconds before speaking. "If this person is destined to lead," he said slowly, "perhaps it would be wise to smooth that path. Take them as a protégé, teach them. Foster them." He met his mother's eyes. "To shape their greatness in a way that does not threaten ours."

She gave a small, wistful smile, touching the side of his face in an affectionate gesture. "Darius," she said softly, lowering her hand. "Tell me… when you walk among the humans, when you are not disguised as some harmless creature… what do you see in their eyes?"

He regarded her steadily, knowing full well what answer she expected, and unwilling to give it immediately.

"Awe, sometimes," he said. "Respect."

"And beneath that?" she prompted.

He thought of how they would hurriedly step away from him, their bows, the way they would avert their eyes, terrified of giving offense.

"Fear," he admitted at last. "They fear us."

She nodded. "They honor us because they know the terrors we can bring," she said. "We protect them and provide for them. We teach the elemental arts to those who can learn. We direct those same powers against the enemies of this city. And for that we have their loyalty. But beneath that, deeper in their souls? They know very well that those same powers could be turned on them in an instant." She looked to the middle distance, gazing out over the city. "How long do you think we would survive if the humans came to believe that they did not need our protection?" she said softly. "If they felt that they could adequately tend to themselves?" She paused, giving a meaningful glance over her shoulder. "If one of them sat on the Ivory Throne?"

The question was obviously rhetorical, but still, he found himself reluctant to let his mind take the path that hers clearly already had. "Did the fates decree that this human would rule, necessarily?" he asked. "Or simply rise in greatness?" There had been no shortage of powerful humans in their city's history.

"Greater than Diantha herself, Darius," she said in gentle reminder. "That, to me, does not suggest one who will be content to serve our house."

He didn't respond immediately, simply weighing her words in his mind. "What is your decision, then?" he asked at last.

"I am entrusting this to you," she said. "I have made arrangements for her death to be a simple matter."

He turned, taken aback. "Her death ?" he protested. "You said yourself that her fate could not be prevented. Only shaped."

"And shape it we shall," she said, her tone very level. "As you noted, the realm of her greatness was not specified. Let her be a ruler of spirits and shades; I care not what she does in the land of the dead. Perhaps I will suffer for this when I join her there. I accept the risk of repercussions in the Land of Ash. But in this land, this life?" She met his eyes, her gaze cold and direct. "I will not see our kind hunted again."

He closed his eyes for a moment against the pain those words brought. He'd been raised in the safety of Karazhen, yes, but he'd seen the haunted cast of the eyes of children that had been rescued and brought here. He'd heard the stories of brutality that had been inflicted on the ones who were less lucky.

A secondary matter struck him. "She, you said?" he asked, unable to keep the reluctance from his voice. "This human the oracles spoke of… it's a woman?"

His mother gave a small, twisted smile. "I would think, given your heritage, you would have no difficulty recognizing how dangerous a woman can be."

He wasn't certain if she was referring to herself or to Diantha, but either way, it was an inescapable point.

"It isn't about the danger," he said quietly.

"It should be," she replied. She nodded toward the necropolis in the distance. "She will be there, alone and bound, tonight. Treat her with the honor due to such a sacrifice, and ensure her death is painless. Prophecy or no, she has done nothing to warrant suffering."

"Yet," Darius said quietly.

She closed her eyes for a moment. "Yet," she agreed. She turned to face him. "Do you accept this task, my son?"

Darius did not consider himself to have the heart of a killer. He had no interest in taking life where other methods would suffice. To kill someone who had done no wrong would wound him deeply. But he didn't see a different path. Not truly. For his mother was right; a human destined for that level of greatness was a threat to the only haven his kind had. He looked grimly toward the necropolis.

"I accept."