The third man was the worst. He had been a guard and was still wearing most of his uniform, stripped of his rank and insignia. He had been denied an impalement, but this was not mercy: thick wires pierced him at two or three dozen points, but only to support and bind him; his eyelids had been cut away so that his eyes could be lubricated by the viscous liquid that dripped from the pipework frame to which he was wired. Although he himself was not decayed, his belly had been opened and the pale daylight showed signs of predation. He had made no effort to speak, but now and then, his eyes shifted in their lidless sockets to look at Lan.
The morning lengthened. Lan listened to the burning man crackle and watched the newborn Eater drool around his impaling spike as he stared at her. As the air warmed, enterprising birds fluttered down to perch on the former guard’s belt and peck breakfast out of his entrails. Muted voices drifted down through open windows as the halls of Azrael’s palace began to fill with servants going about their daily routine. As the sky lightened, Lan couldn’t help but think of Norwood and what she would be doing right now, if nothing had changed. Her day would have started with sweeping out the hearth of the women’s lodge for Mother Muggs and filling the woodbin. Then she would have to hurry over to Mayor Fairchild’s house and in through the back door to do the same for them before heading out to the pens to tend their pigs, goats and geese. If Missus was feeling Lady-of-the-Manor, Lan might be given a box-lunch of whatever was left over from the family’s breakfast to eat later, but even if not, Lan could usually steal a bit of cheese or crust of bread in the chaos that was the Fairchilds’ kitchen. Either way, she would be fed by now and hard at work in her own rows in the greenhouse.
She needed to stop thinking about food, because it only made her hungrier. For that matter, she needed to stop thinking about work, because not being able to move around made even those back-breaking chores seem desirable. And she especially needed to stop thinking about home, because she didn’t have one.
So Lan was kneeling there, not thinking, when the garden gates opened. Two Revenants came for her, unlocking the chains from her supporting frame but leaving them attached to her shackles. She couldn’t help screaming a little when they lifted her; her joints, like rusty hinges, screamed along with her.
The Revenants did not wait for her to find her feet, but simply dragged her between them out of the garden. The burning man writhed, reaching the stump of his last arm toward them, hissing out steam that might have been words if he had lips to shape them. The Revenants ignored him. They had come for Lan. They had no other interest.
Through the fine rooms and grand corridors of the palace, they walked and Lan was carried. Eventually, she was able to stop moaning, although she had no strength to walk and was shivering too violently to even try. Her world was pain and crystals and cramps and golden light and tears and the occasional glimpse of beautiful, dead faces.
Gradually, the wide halls narrowed and grew darker. The chandeliers and sconces were replaced by plainer fixtures, more widely spaced along windowless walls. They came to a stair, an empty hall, another stair, and another hall, this one occupied by a dozen pairs or more of pikemen, forming a kind of living, or unliving, corridor that ended in a heavy door banded with iron. Lan closed her eyes and did not open them again until she felt herself dropped. Her chains clanked as they were affixed to some new anchor and then her guards left her.
When she opened her eyes at last, she appeared to be alone. The room was vast, opening into several wide niches, but all were empty and dark under unlit sconces. In fact, although she could see several fixtures, the only light in the room came from a fireplace on the opposite wall. Like the built-in alcoves lining the walls, the fireplace was plainly intended to be decorative, but its ornate mantel was empty and its brass screen had been pushed carelessly aside. No matter, as the flames appeared to be coming from vented pipes and made no sparks; there wasn’t even a fake log to pretend to be burning. The room’s one remarkable feature was a high, glittering fountain that poured water endlessly from several openings into a dark pool partially shielded by joined panels of opaque glass bordered by a wooden lattice. On the other side, tucked away as if to hide them, were Azrael’s many masks, each one on its own featureless wooden block, arranged on a plain slab of a table. As for the rest of the furnishings, there was only an unwieldy wardrobe set in the far corner where it was all but invisible.
So it was his room. It had to be. Hardly what she imagined for the ruler of the world, at least until she looked behind her to see a bed the size of the drying shed back in Norwood. It had a roof and pillars and curtains of its own, like it was a house. Its bedding shimmered in the firelight, all black and gold. She counted ten cushions, all shapes, no two exactly alike. It was a bed the way Azrael’s palace was a house or Haven was a town.
It was a bed…and Lan was chained to it.
Once more, the heavy door opened. It was Azrael. He didn’t look at her as she struggled to rise from her ungainly sprawl, but went to the fountain, peeling away layers of finery as he walked. The flesh beneath caught every shadow and showed every scar. His back had been so torn by ancient whips that the bones of his spine protruded, curiously lustrous against the dull grey color of his skin, more like pearl than ivory. Lan stared, clutching at her forgotten chains, as the true Azrael—Azrael the immortal, Azrael the eternal, Azrael, lord of the beautiful dead—bared himself, but when he turned around to face her, she quickly dropped her eyes.
“Modesty,” Azrael observed. “Tell me, is it a virgin who has come so fearlessly to this dragon’s lair?”
“No.”
“All to the better.” He turned away, unfastening the delicate catches of his mask with a blind deftness that bespoke much practice. As he moved behind the screen, she saw his silhouette take the mask away and set it aside on the table with all the rest of them. He rubbed the face beneath—not a snake’s head or a skull, but not human either—and stepped down into the pool. “I have no use for virgins and no patience for instructing them.”
Lan stared at the tiles between her bent knees and listened as Azrael bathed. She realized she could smell herself—the stink of the streets and her own sweat, unwashed God alone knew how many days. Weeks, for certain. Maybe months. Water was too precious now for anything as frivolous as bathing, but her mother had told her stories of being a small child in a huge white bathtub with water up to her chest, painting herself with bubbles. They used to make toys, she’d said, toys just for playing with in the water.
She stank of smoke. Smoke and charred, dead flesh. For a moment, she almost thought she could smell peach blossoms with it, the way she had smelled them that day…when the fire burned.
“I hear no protest.”
Roused from her memories, Lan did not immediately understand. “What am I supposed to be protesting?”
“My rapacious will.”
“What good would that do?”
“You might be surprised.” Azrael dunked himself entirely under the water, coming up with a huge splash that sent droplets over the screen to fall as far as Lan. They were warm at first, but swiftly cooled. “I am aware that my appearance suggests a brutal embrace, but I take no pleasure in fear or pain. Screams and struggles annoy me. You might easily delay your fate, if not escape it wholly, with well-executed resistance.”
“Screams and struggles annoy me too,” said Lan. “They’re pointless. I’ve never seen an Eater turned back by tears.”