Struggling to survive, Kat and Marus fall in love in a way that’s emotional and evocative despite the desolate world Perera has built for them. The novel has a dark, eerie, fairy-tale feel. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, the story is tremendously provocative, with an ending that offers hope of a brighter future.
Chapter One
Before Katsumi Ito had reached the outpost, heat lightning flashed over the foothills. The pony’s ears went back, and Kat’s arms prickled as the fine hairs on her skin stood upright. They were halfway up the hillside, so perhaps the next flicker of lightning would be a stab from the sky that would kill her instantly.
Not likely. Not with the way their luck was going.
David Farlander, who had volunteered to come with her, took a tighter grip on the pony’s bridle, and they trudged on. The trail snaked up the hill, and rainfall would make it a mudslick, even if the boulders here and there stayed in place. She would have made better time if not for all the tribute the pony carried. Her rifle was strapped to the saddlehorn only because she was never without the weapon; the gifts of food and furs and silks were all that could save her people’s lives.
A heavy lid of clouds shut off the sun, and the sky rumbled, but the pony picked up the pace. Perhaps it caught a glimpse of the outpost at the summit of the hill and mistook that for shelter. They were almost there when a pebble skittered away underfoot.
She recovered at once, and the pony’s wide hooves gave it better balance, but the possibility of a landslide set her more on edge, and she eyed a boulder to one side of the top of the trail. The huge stone looked unbalanced, and David led the pony carefully around it.
The path leveled out. Kat was no stranger to hard work, but her legs ached as she climbed the last stretch of the journey.
“Thanks for your help,” she said to David. She couldn’t have gone alone, because if she’d been bitten by a snake or crushed in a rockfall along the way, the tribute still needed to reach the Prince.
David moved so he was between her and the outpost, his back to it. She could barely see the scatter of stars branded into his face, thanks to the darkness of his skin and the gloom overhead, but the single-minded intensity in his voice was only too clear when he spoke.
“You should kill him,” he said.
That was like telling a terminally ill person, You should fight the cancer. She started to move around him, and he put a hand on her arm, halting her.
“We have a way.” Releasing her before she could tell him to do so, he pulled open the ties of his waterproof jacket. A stick of dynamite was strapped to his chest.
Kat took a hasty step back. “What are you doing?”
“The only thing we can do.” Like all the Farlanders, David was unshakably calm; sometimes she wondered if they took drugs to deaden their emotions and produce that cold effect. “Take this and kill him.”
Obviously he couldn’t do it himself, because the Prince might see the deliberately inflicted scars on David’s face, recognize him as the fanatic he was, and attack first. But that didn’t make Kat eager to go along with the plan, much as she would prefer the Prince dead.
“There’s no guarantee that will work,” she said. “Unless he dies instantly, he’ll destroy the town and slaughter everyone.”
“There’s no guarantee cringing and feeding him will work either. Get him into his human form and if he’s close enough when this detonates, he’ll be killed.”
Right, it was that easy. “And how do I get him into his human form?”
“Seduce him.”
“What?”
“Hide this on your body and entice him.” David spoke as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “When he’s close enough, light the fuse.”
“And he’ll be so distracted by my looks he won’t notice me light a fuse sticking out of—where exactly did you want me to hide it again?” She pushed loose hair back from her forehead and felt the dampness of fresh sweat on her skin. “David, it’s been over two days since we found out he was here. Over two days without tribute. We can’t afford to waste more time.”
He didn’t seem to have heard the last part, because he smiled in a way that might have been meant to reassure her, but instead made her feel as if she’d been patted on the head like a child. “You underestimate yourself. Several men would have fucked you by now if not for your position. And your marksmanship.”
“Whether that’s true or not, the Prince isn’t a man.” She didn’t want to be reminded of her position either, because she no longer had it. She’d resigned, and Ranjit Blake was now captain of the guard. Whoever took the tribute to the Prince risked being killed first, and what was the use of a dead woman holding any post?
David shrugged. “He’s close enough. If he hates us no matter what we do, then he’ll murder you on sight, tribute or no tribute. But if he’s one of those who enjoys being fawned over, you have a chance.”
It was obvious he wouldn’t give in, and the argument was wasting more time. Not to mention making her feel as though rocks were being piled on her shoulders, so she nodded.
“Give it here.” She didn’t have to use the dynamite unless she believed there was a chance of success, after all; she just had to keep David satisfied so he didn’t try to kill the Prince himself. He wasn’t likely to consider any other alternatives first, and the way she saw the situation, it was possible to go from servant to assassin, but not so easy to do the reverse.
He handed it over. “There’s something strange about this one.”
“You know something about him I don’t?” She packed the dynamite carefully in a saddlebag.
“No. Just that he didn’t come to us. He could have smashed down the gates to let us know a Prince has taken over this territory and wants tribute. But he’s skulking in a tumbledown ruin.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate him. He probably killed what was skulking in it before.” There was a good reason the outpost was abandoned, and why no one had tried to station a lookout on that vantage point. The Princes were hardly the only monsters in the land.
“Oh, we never underestimate them.” The we obviously referred to the Farlanders. “But what does he gain from living in such miserable conditions?”
Kat took the pony’s reins. “What’s your theory?”
“That he’s antagonized two or more of his kind, and he’s hiding from them. More reason to kill him.”
It always came down to that, so she said nothing. Overhead, the sky went a bleached dazzling white before the thunder cracked, and the pony’s head reared, almost yanking the reins out of Kat’s grip.
“Go on!” she said, but David had already retreated down the hillside. If nothing happened to him along the way, he would return to the town to let everyone know the tribute had been delivered. She would have given anything to go back with him, but she headed for the open gate.
From a distance, there was nothing remarkable about the stone fort built high on a hill. No flag flew from the watchtower, because when Solstice Harbor had first been settled in the sheltered ground between the foothills and the sea, over the ruins of an older town, her people had discovered the outpost already occupied by a great creature that lay dormant. So they left the place undisturbed, but scouts surveyed it daily, alert for any signs of waking.
Instead, one of them reported seeing a Prince in the outpost—except now there was no indication the Prince was still there. The windows were blank dark hollows. She imagined finding the remains of both him and the creature, mutually finished off in their fight to the death.
It was the sweetest of visions, but she didn’t dwell on it, because it wasn’t likely. The Princes were much more powerful than mere monsters. Or humans, for that matter.
So although she would have liked to look around first and see what she was walking into, if the master of the outpost took her for a spy, he could grind her like a grain of wheat between millstones. She led the pony past the gate, and they were within the wall as the first drops of rain struck.
The door of the stocky structure before her was wide open, as if the Prince had seen her coming. At least, she hoped he’d done that. There was an outside chance his kind could be bribed with tribute—they were half human, after all—but now she wondered if the Prince had simply left, perhaps after waking the creature for good measure. Her palms were slippery beneath her worn leather gloves as she took the pony into the outpost.
Inside, it was so dark she might have been underground. She listened for any sounds, but the rain grew noisier outside, rattling off the tin roofs of the outbuildings.
Call out. Do not, do not make him think you’re sneaking in.
“I come with gifts.” Her voice sounded strengthless, and she swallowed. “Tribute for the Earthborn Prince!”
No answer.
If the creature had woken and was moving towards her, glass would have clinked against stone, a sound audible despite the rain. She felt sure the pony would have been yanking at its tether too, preferring to strangle itself than to stay.
All right, if she wasn’t going to die immediately, first things first. She couldn’t do a damn thing until she saw where to go, so she fumbled a candle from the saddlebag. Beeswax, not tallow; only the best for the Prince.
She lit the candle and braced involuntarily. Her shoulders hunched and her body drew in on itself before she saw she was alone. Nothing loomed up beside her in the circle of the candlelight. The tightness in her chest eased and she breathed a little easier.
She stood in what might have been an entrance hall. Closed doors on either side led off into what she guessed were barracks, perhaps an armory, and there was a set of steps that must lead up to the tower. But ahead of her, a large set of double doors was flung wide in an obvious beckoning.
He had to be beyond those.
She found a hook in the wall and knotted the pony’s reins to it. Take off the saddlebags and packs? No, he might grow impatient. Her heart beat so fast she felt light-headed, but she forced herself to walk to the double doors.
The large room inside was clearly a dining area for whoever had used the outpost, because benches were drawn up to bare trestle tables and at one end was a huge fireplace, hollow and empty. She turned to the opposite side of the room.
Windows let in the only light apart from her candle, and rain streamed down their cracked panes. Before them, seated on a chair, a dark figure watched her in silence.
Kat was on her knees at once, hoping that would look more like deliberate obeisance than her legs giving way—though her reaction was almost as much relief as it was fear. Now she knew she faced a Prince, someone who might be bribed, even if she couldn’t bring herself to use the form of appeasement David had suggested. Locks of loosened hair fell around her face as she bent her head.
“Highness.” She kept her gaze on the floor. “I ask your pardon for coming into your…” home? territory? “…your presence uninvited, but we send tribute. To you.”
“Bring it in, then.”
The deep masculine voice was relaxed and confident, as if he’d never feared anything in his life, as if there was nothing untoward about her groveling on the floor. She couldn’t see the Prince’s face—which was for the best; she hoped he couldn’t see hers either—but he had sounded almost amused.
Don’t show anything. It would be bad enough if he killed her for open disrespect, but he could crush the town as well.
“At once, Highness.” She got to her feet and fixed the candle in a blob of wax on the edge of a table. Then she hurried out and unloaded the saddlebags.
She felt more at ease out of his sight, especially since there was nothing to fear in the rest of the outpost. The Prince wouldn’t have tolerated any other monster in a place he’d claimed as his own, so at least the creature—what people in Solstice Harbor called “the spiderglass”—was dead.
And thankfully she was strong enough that she didn’t need to run back and forth carrying the gifts. She swung packs of food over her shoulders, then hefted two bolts of dyed silk and furs cured supple-soft, thick and sleek to the touch. The dynamite stayed safely in the saddlebag—for the time being.
When she went back in, he looked as though he’d grown to twice his height, and she nearly dropped the furs. No, she hadn’t provoked him to take earth form. He would have been much, much larger, and she could have smelled the earth if he had changed.
He was standing now rather than being seated, that was all. She dared another look. Silhouetted against the windows, his figure was tall, the span of his shoulders wide.
A fleeting possibility flashed across her mind, that a human might pass himself off as a Prince to trick people into paying tribute. But her scout had gone to the outpost, and when he’d arrived, panting, in Solstice Harbor, he’d said he’d seen a man there. And worst of all, he had noticed the man’s eyes.
So she sank to her knees and laid the gifts on the floor, hoping he wouldn’t expect her to put them at his feet. The lovely blue and red of the silk were muted in the gloom, and she fumbled the packs open, as numbly as if her hands had been soaking in ice. There was freshly baked bread and a jar of honey, salt cod wrapped in leaves, a wicker basket filled with thick saucers of despined cactus, and seabird eggs cushioned in straw.
No one knew much about the Earthborn Princes, but as Mayor Stuyvesant said, if they took human form, perhaps they felt hungry. Besides, it was safer than giving them nothing. Kat tried to arrange the jar and basket and packages to present them to their best advantage without making it obvious she was doing so, but when soft footsteps moved across the room she drew back at once. On her knees, head bowed, respectful.
The windows turned bright and opaque with lightning, and the crash of thunder was directly overhead. Outside, the rain splattered down. Despite the coolness of the air, sweat slid down her spine.
She risked a glance straight ahead and saw bare feet before the spread of gifts. For the first time it occurred to her that he might not be wearing clothes, not that anything could make her look up. His feet seemed…well, no different from any man’s feet.
“Is this all?” he said.
He’s not pleased. “We can provide more, Highness,” she said, fighting to stem a tide of resentment. People in the town struggled to feed themselves, and now their meager stores would be diverted into a monster’s mouth. Even the few beautiful things they owned, like pearls gathered from an oyster bed offshore, would probably have to be given up.
If there was any way to catch him off-guard so she could kill him, she would take it. “We’ll give you whatever you want.”
A bolt of silk moved slightly as he nudged it with a toe. “And what do you ask in return?”
Your mercy. Except the Princes, like their mother, had none. “Your forbearance, that you allow us to live.” If only Mayor Stuyvesant was there; she was so much more eloquent. “We offer anything that is ours.”
“Anyone as well? If I want slaves, will I get them?”
“Yes.” The word escaped a strangler’s grip on her throat, but it was the truth. She had been authorized to do and offer whatever was necessary to keep her people safe, but how she longed to fight for the town rather than handing anyone over as a sacrifice. Anyone else.
“Though perhaps I won’t need more than just the one.”
He sounded detached, as if musing about some remote possibility, and it was more his aloof tone than the words which jerked her head up, terror ebbing momentarily beneath a jolt of sheer anger. She bowed at once, struggling to choke down her reaction.
“Look at me,” he said.
It took all her strength, but she lifted her head again. Not to obey. For once, not that. But if he was going to split the floor beneath her to bury her alive—that was a favorite punishment of the Princes—she’d meet her death with some semblance of dignity, even if she was on her knees.
She still couldn’t meet his eyes—or lack thereof—immediately. Instead she took in the rest of his body, the hard-muscled legs so close she could have stretched out an arm and touched him. Or shot him. With a paralyzed lack of surprise, she noticed he had a man’s sex organs. Dark hair curled around the base of his penis.
Then again, his nudity was only to be expected, because his kind were like animals and felt no shame in being unclothed. And there was no navel in the flat belly. Oh, he was an Earthborn Prince all right.
Somehow, seeing that helped. Now she knew for certain she was facing the second-most dangerous being in the world. The worst had come to pass, so there was nothing more to do but brace for what would happen.
She followed the length of his torso upward with her eyes. No hair on his chest, but dark stubble covered his jaw. Standing there naked, he might have been a perfectly sculpted statue, except a statue wouldn’t have any beard.
With an effort, she dragged her gaze up and met his eyes.
They were open, looking straight at her—though she didn’t know how he saw anything through them. The sockets were completely filled with mud of a deeper brown than his skin, liquid and flowing. It should have spilled out to fall thick and viscous on the floor, and yet it remained exactly where it was.
One brow twitched as if he’d been waiting for a shocked reaction, and she hoped she hadn’t given him one. She’d heard about that trait, although she’d never been close enough to a Prince before to see it so clearly. But it made sense: if the eyes were the windows of the soul, the Princes’ eyes showed their true selves.
Windows of the soil, more like.
“That’s better.” He sounded as if the two of them were acquaintances having a chat. “I prefer seeing the faces of the people I’m talking to.” Then why is this place so dark? she wondered, but he went on. “And as long as you obey me, you have nothing to fear. You have my word.”
The word of a Prince was worth less than the contents of a cesspit, so she only nodded, hoping he would take her silence as profound awe. He tilted his head as if to study her from a different angle through the pools of mud.
“You don’t believe me.” He sounded more curious than annoyed, but from what she’d heard about the Princes, that could change at any moment. “Why not?”
She searched for the best way to answer without insulting him. “Forgive me, Highness, but do I have reason to?”
Dark brows drew together over those unsettling eyes, but there was no tension in the tall lean body, and she felt sure the frown was a look of concentration. “You think I’m trying to lull you into a false sense of security, maybe have you lead your people into a trap?” He shook his head, his expression relaxing. “You’re wrong. I intend to stay here for a while, so I’ll want more than these crumbs and rags. Killing your kind might rid my mother’s land of vermin, but it wouldn’t provide me with any long-term benefits.”
Crumbs and rags. Thankfully her rifle was in the other room. What he’d said made her want to shove the barrel under his chin and fire, and reload, and never stop until he was dead or she ran out of ammunition, whichever came first.
Or use the dynamite on him. That would kill her too, but she didn’t give a shit. She clenched her teeth until her jaws ached, willing herself to be calm, and then relaxed the muscles in her face one by one, enough that she could speak.
“If you want more, I can go back to the town now and let them know,” she said.
He laughed, but oddly, it didn’t remind her of David’s condescending smile. The Prince looked genuinely amused instead, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to laugh.
“No, that won’t be necessary.” He sat on a bench, apparently indifferent to splinters against his bare skin. “You can go back tomorrow, provided you return to serve me.”
“Are you certain, Highness? I wouldn’t want you to endure any hardship.”
A trace of a grin lingered at one corner of his mouth, quirking it. “I’m touched by your concern, but living like a human for one night won’t kill me.” There was an undertone of mocking irony in his voice, but before she could do more than fume silently, he went on. “Get up. And since you’ll live here until I’m done with you, I need something to call you.”
She took a little more time to rise, partly because it might have been disrespectful to bolt up, and partly because her knees were stiff. At moments like that, she felt all of her thirty-five years and more.
“My name is Katsumi Ito,” she said.
“Mine is Marus.” He studied her as if trying to look beyond her face to see her thoughts—or perhaps human eyes seemed equally strange to him. “Just Marus. I know I’m a Prince, so you don’t need to keep reminding me of it.”
Kat nodded, not knowing what to say and not wanting to use his name either. She stood with her hands at her sides, waiting for him to give another order.
“So what will you do now?” He leveled a look at her.
“High—? I mean, I beg your pardon?”
“If I wasn’t here and if you had to stay the night, what would you do?”
If only you weren’t here. “I’d find a stable for my pony.”
“There’s one outside. Might not be anything to eat, but a cistern’s beside it, and the rain sluices into that.”
Kat was suddenly aware of how long it had been since she’d had a drink of water. She hadn’t been able to eat anything for breakfast either.
“I’d rub the pony down and bring in water,” she said. “Build up the fire and have something to eat before I found a place to sleep.”
“Go on with your work, then. You won’t be disturbed.”
The high-handedness was only to be expected, but to be left in peace to take care of the pony and of herself was an unusual leniency. She took a step back, then another. He didn’t move, so she turned and left the dining room, the skin between her shoulder blades prickling as if he stared at her the entire time.
She breathed more easily as she led the pony outside. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and there was just enough moonlight to find the stable. It smelled as musty and forgotten as the rest of the outpost, and the hay inside might have been there for years. Nothing even the pony would eat, but it made a good enough bed.
She found a bucket when her shin clanged into it, and she filled that from a cistern sluice. After she took off the pony’s tack and harness, she let it drink, then rubbed it down as best she could, trying to think what to do about the dynamite.
Finally she slid the stick into an inner pocket of her jerkin. If the Prince expected her to wait on him, that was reason enough to get close, and he’d even given her permission to build up the fire.
There was nothing else to take when she went back in, except for her rifle. A gun could harm a Prince in flesh form, but in his earth form, it would be about as effective as firing into a mountain. Besides, the weapon was far too valuable to leave in the stable.
After she refilled the bucket, she carried that and the saddle blanket back to the dining room. He was still seated, but the food she’d brought was laid out on the table before him. More candles had been lit, and they cast a warm glowing circle that held back a little of the gloom.
Why had he done that? She hadn’t expected it of a Prince, especially one indulging himself with human servility, but best not to draw attention to it. Instead she set down the bucket and leaned her rifle against the wall.
“You’ll want wood,” he said. “There’s some in the outbuilding to the left, and it should be dry.”
“Thank you,” Kat made herself reply before she went out again. Her hair was damp from the rain by the time she found the building, though she was so dusty she would have welcomed a bath. She carried an armful of firewood back into the outpost. Strange that the wood wasn’t old and musty like the hay in the stable, but she wasn’t about to argue with small mercies.
She pulled off her jerkin so she didn’t accidentally detonate the dynamite, then lit a fire and built it up. Sitting back to enjoy the warmth would have been pleasant, but she could tell the Prince’s not-eyes were fixed on her and she got up hastily to continue working.
As the fire grew to a blaze, she found a kitchen she wouldn’t have kept a pig in, though she salvaged a dented kettle and tin cups. She filled the kettle and hung that over the flames, wondering if she could lure him over to the fire and toss her jerkin in. The dynamite would explode at once, maybe kill him before he could revert to his earth form.
But short of stripping off and acting like she wanted him—which would make him suspicious at once—how could she make him come closer? He didn’t strike her as a fool. And she had never felt less alluring, travelworn and streaked with dust as she was.
“Something I wondered,” he said, and she turned quickly. “Am I the first to have discovered your settlement?”
Kat nodded. “The first Prince.” Solstice Harbor had been built for concealment, located on a long spit of land shielded by the mountains. And for six years, that had worked.
“Good.” He leaned against the table’s edge, long legs stretched out and eyelids half-lowered over the wells of mud. He didn’t seem to be bothered by either his nakedness or her presence, and his voice was as quiet as if he were speaking to himself. “I like this place. Peaceful and sheltered.”
She had once loved Solstice Harbor for the same reasons, and she wondered if he was mocking her. He had to be. If a Prince was pleased about discovering a human settlement that had survived, it was because he now had a chance to destroy it himself.
“I suppose that’s why no one lived here,” Marus said. “So you wouldn’t give your presence away with rising smoke or light in the windows.”
“No, it was the creature.” Bubbles started to plink in the kettle, so she wrapped a rag around the handle to lift it off the fire. “It was dormant when we arrived, but that could have changed at any time. Good thing you killed it.”
The thud of the kettle on the nearest table was the only sound in the room. A cold realization snaked down like a lump of ice into her stomach as she looked up. Blank pools of mud fixed on her, and there was no expression on his face.
“You didn’t?” was all she could say.
He rose. “What creature was this?”