Salvator sauntered inside and several clerks and guards shuffled in behind him to stand along the walls. “Business, if you can call it that. We caught your afternoon performance by the waterfront. I imagine if we were all quiet enough, we could hear the endless encore even now.”
Radu sighed. “These damn immortals. You know, for weeks, we’ve tried to learn his secret. How does he do it? Why can’t he die? Interrogations, torture. Nothing worked, of course.”
“You want to know why he’s immortal?” Salvator shrugged. “I suppose I can see the appeal, especially for a handsome young fellow like yourself. Couldn’t you simply ask your own immortal about it? The Damascena?”
Radu smiled. “You know as well as I do that she does not serve me, does not answer to me in any way. Ask her about immortality? Ha! If I could simply find her, it would be a memorable day. That woman has been a mystery to the Emperors of Eran for ages.”
Salvator chuckled. “It’s good to know we have that in common. And it’s very good to know that you couldn’t pry any secrets from your prisoner.”
“Hmph.” Radu settled into his chair and glanced at the papers on his desk. “Koschei is like a stone. He’s a brute, dressed in half-rotten skins and bloody furs. The only thing of any value we found on him was this.” The prince reached inside the neck of his starched shirt and pulled out a slender black chain from which dangled a small golden pendant.
Salvator squinted at the lumpy trinket. “What is that?”
Radu frowned at it. “I’m not sure, really. It looks like a human heart, vaguely.” He tucked it back into his shirt. “It seemed important to him, so naturally I tried to destroy it. Perhaps it’s a gift from his mother, yes? But my smiths cannot melt it down in their hottest forges, and they cannot smash it with their strongest engines. Ridiculous, isn’t it? So, here it remains.”
One of the clerks slipped out of the room.
Salvator went over to the window and stared at the darkening clouds over the Strait. “I don’t know exactly what you hoped to accomplish with Koschei, but it is having an effect.”
“Ah.” The prince nodded. “Your men are angry and afraid. Some of them will no doubt attempt an ill-fated rescue mission tonight under cover of darkness. They will be slaughtered.”
“The Hellans look scared,” Salvator said. “The Vlachians seem angry. But none of that compares to what’s happening in the witch’s tower. Koschei’s mother is… well, see for yourself.” He pointed at the distant city skyline.
Radu came around the desk and stood beside him. “What is that?”
Across the water, a pale gray cyclone rose from grounds of the Palace of Constantine. It spiraled up into the dark sky where a light scattering of clouds were just beginning to shift and turn around the vortex.
“I’m told it’s aether,” Salvator said. “And any man who gets too close to it falls to the ground, screaming like a child. We had to evacuate half the palace.”
Radu cast him a doubting glance. “Why would you tell me this?”
“Hm?” Salvator raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I simply thought you’d want to know. After all, you butchered Koschei outside our walls to prod some sort of reaction from us, didn’t you? Well, there it is. Koschei’s mother is reacting.”
The prince sighed. “Baba Yaga? I’ve heard the stories, of course, but I left Vlachia when I was very young, long before she visited Vlad. I never met her, or Koschei, at the time. What is she like?”
“She’s quite distasteful.” Salvator paced away from the window. “She’s selfish, childish, unpredictable, and most importantly, she has a startling array of strange abilities that are making life in Constantia very unpleasant at this moment.”
Radu nodded sternly. “Good.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t good at all, Highness,” the Italian said. “You see, our aether expert has told us that when the sun sets and the temperature falls tonight, the aether will grow thicker. Much thicker. And that annoying little tornado over the palace will become a massive storm, hurling aether across both cities, and then you too will have men lying in the streets, screaming like children.”
The prince paused. “I don’t believe you.”
There was a knock at the door. “I’m afraid you should believe him, Your Highness.”
Salvator turned. An older gentleman stood in the doorway dressed in long, heavy green robes and in the thick black sash around his waist was the familiar scabbard and grip of a seireiken.
So the Sons of Osiris are here after all.
The Italian stepped quickly forward and held out his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, Signore…?”
The shorter man shook his arm free of his sleeve and embraced the offered hand. “I am Master Iruka of Alexandria, advisor to the holy prince.”
Salvator carefully gauged the man’s handshake, noting the rough palm and warm skin, and the thick veins around the wrist.
A fighter. A strong one.
“Salvator Fabris, ambassador from Her Grace, the Duchess Nerissa.”
“A pleasure.” Iruka nodded curtly as he slipped his hand back into his long sleeve as he turned to the prince. “My lord, what the ambassador has said is true. If that is indeed a storm of aether, when the sun sets it will surely grow larger and more powerful. And there will be nothing I or anyone else here can do to stop it.”
Radu frowned very intently at the man in green. “And when it reaches us, you believe we will all be reduced to screaming children, lying on the ground, as Signore Fabris claims?”
“If that is what the aether is doing to the Hellans, it will certainly have the same effect on our own people.” Iruka bowed his shaven head.
Radu glared at both of them as he circled back around his desk and dropped heavily into his chair. “Immortals, aether, plagues! Vlad is grasping at straws. He knows he cannot defeat me, he knows that Constantia must fall and the Church with it. The empire will rule both banks of the Bosporus. It is inevitable. Why can’t he see that!?” He gripped the arms of his chair.
“I don’t presume to speak for your brother,” Salvator said calmly. “But I’ve come to know him fairly well these past few months, and I can say with some certainty that he will defy you simply to defy you, Highness. If any other man sat in your chair, Vlad would never have left Vlachia to join the war and Constantia might already be conquered. Vlad is not here for the city, or for the Church, or even for Lady Nerissa. He’s here to fight you. To spite you. To punish you.”
“Really?” Radu looked up, his body beginning to sag as he slumped lower in his chair.
“Yes. You left your country and your family and your faith,” the Italian said. “And he took that very personally.”
“That’s all very interesting, but it has little bearing on the matter at hand. Iruka, how do I defeat a storm of aether?”
The Aegyptian bowed his head once more. “I am sorry, Your Highness. But these are uncommon arts. Aether-craft is still a rudimentary science, at best. No one of my order could possibly defeat someone as powerful as Baba Yaga.”
“You don’t have to defeat her,” Salvator said. “She’s a dreadful creature, but not a mysterious one. You’re torturing her son right in front of her, and she’s throwing a fit. The only difference between her and a fishwife is that when a fishwife stamps her foot the heavens don’t roar in agreement with her.”
“So what?” Radu glared up through his black brows. “You want me to free Koschei to stop Yaga’s tantrum? Just let him go? Give Vlad back his greatest warrior, an unkillable Rus juggernaut? Never.”
“We could come to some arrangement,” Salvator said. “An exchange of assurances. You return Koschei, and we send him and his mother back to Rus. We remove both of them from the equation. That would satisfy everyone, wouldn’t it?”
Radu laughed, his face suddenly transformed from a dark scowl to a youthful smile. “You expect me to simply trust you? To trust that you will send away Koschei the Deathless, that he will never return to slaughter my men on the field of battle?”