"As you say, my lady." He stopped checking her out and stared so hard at the field she thought his eyes might pop out of his skull. "Everything will be as you say."
The other guard came back leading a monster-size red horse with a black-and-silver saddle on its back, and handed her the reins.
She stared up into black eyes backlit with some kind of red glow. "I don't know how to ride a horse."
"It is all we have, my lady." The guard bowed again. "Do you wish me to accompany you as an escort?"
Liling wished for some riding lessons. "No." She had seen horseback riding enough on television to understand how to mount. She shoved one of her feet into the loop thing at the horse's side and swung onto its back—which was so far off the ground she nearly had a heart attack once she'd settled herself in the saddle.
The horse shuffled under her. Feeling the moving mass of powerful muscle made her heart crawl up her throat, but her hands and legs settled themselves like they knew precisely what to do, and the horse responded to her touch as if she were a pro.
She looked down at the guards and pointed across the field. "What's that place called?"
One paled. The other gulped and said, "Brumal, my lady."
"It mean's Death's Hold," the while-faced one muttered.
I'm not going anywhere that has death as part of the address. Just as she decided that, the other, obviously suicidal part of her grabbed the reins and thumped the sides of the big red horse with her heels.
Liling thought she squeaked something out of sheer horror. It came out like a "ha," and the horse took off like a four-legged rocket.
Until this dream she had never ridden a horse, for the same reasons she had never played with dynamite or handled poisonous snakes. On the commonsense scale, potential pain, injury, and death always outweighed any likelihood of fun, excitement, and thrills.
Considering the way the ground and the sky were jumping around her, she expected to fall off versus ride the horse. Instead, she bent over and settled in somehow, moving her body in sync with the animal. Her jaw ached, but she couldn't unclench her teeth until they were three-quarters of the way across the field and coming up last on the ivory castle.
What did the guard call it? Brumal. Death's Hold.
Uneven slabs and chunks of white rock covered the ground, and she tugged on the reins and slowed the horse to a walk. No need for it to break a leg, and she wanted some time to have a look before knocking.
The architecture wasn't the same as the black castle across the way; nor was everything a snowy white. Various white and ivory shades of marble, plaster, and what she thought might be quartz had been used to build it. It seemed very old, and yet showed no signs of aging. The stone appeared as if it had been quarried and cut yesterday.
Nothing moved, and no one came out to meet her.
She counted eleven towers, four in the front, with thirty-foot-high retaining walls stretched out on either side of them, encircling the main structure. The towers and turrets were narrower and taller, the stonework fussier, and nothing was symmetrical or proportionate. She couldn't understand why she couldn't focus on any single detail for more than a few seconds without her gaze jumping to something else. Brumal didn't shift or change in any sense, but it didn't want her to look at it. Finally she glanced at the ground to rest her eyes, and dragged in some air. The horse did a two-step under her.
"Don't move," she told it, and freed up her feet before swinging a leg over and dropping to the ground.
By not looking at the rest of the ivory castle, she discovered she was able to focus on the four front towers. Between them was a narrow drawbridge-type gangway behind a huge iron gate.
She led the horse over to stand in front of the quad of towers, and shouted, "Is anyone there?"
No one answered, but heavy metal cranked and the iron gate between the front towers began to lift. Blade-shaped spikes edged the bottom of the gate. It stopped midway, leaving just enough room for Liling and the horse to ride through.
Right under the spikes.
"Think if we try to go in, they'll drop it on us?" she asked the horse. The horse didn't answer. "You're a lot of help." She swung up onto its back. "Next time I'm calling a taxi."
A row of petite, dark-haired women in plain white nightgowns stood inside the tower passage. Each of them wore bridal veils over their glossy hair and pretty faces. Each of the women had the exact same face.
Ahead of Liling stood a man dressed in mostly midnight blue armor. He held a sword in each hand, and white feathers covered one of his arms, making it appear like the wing of a bird. On his golden head sat a crown made of apricot roses with brown-spotted leaves. The long, wicked thorns on the stems of the roses were cutting into his flesh. Drops of blood slid down his face, flowing red tears.
"Valentin." Liling walked slowly up to him.
He held the two swords out between them, as if he meant to attack her.
Liling held out her hands to show him they were empty. But fire sprang up from her palms, orange-red, hot and hungry. The crown of roses around his head began to wither and blacken, tightening around his skull.
He drove the two swords into the stone floor between them.
"Choose," he told her, the blood on his face turning to real tears.
Liling looked at the blades in the stone. One sword was covered in blood: the other glowed scarlet. She took a step back. "I can't."
"Choose."
"Valentin, please."
He walked past her, blind to her, his eyes filled with ice. As he passed through the rows of veiled women, their faces changed, becoming exact copies of Liling's. One by one they turned their backs to him and laced the walls.
"Valentin."
"You take away the sins of the world." He did not look at her. "Have mercy on us."
Water began to well up around her feet, covering them, creeping up around her ankles, swirling and churning, dragging at her as she tried to run, and then the water came at her from all sides, pounding her, beating her back and forth, and the world disappeared as an enormous wave swelled and curled and came down on her, swallowing her scream.
* * *
Chapter 13
Kyan ignored Melanie Wallace for most of the afternoon as he guided the boat down the river. She seemed content to sit on the deck and sun herself, alternately thumbing through her economics text and scribbling notes. That she chose to lie on her belly just in front of the helm where he couldn't help but see her was a minor annoyance. He concentrated on the scents coming off the water, avoiding shallows and navigating through dense patches of water lilies.
Occasionally he watched her as well. He justified it by reasoning that his observations of an American-raised female could prove helpful when it came to dealing with his target.
"Hey."
Kyan looked at the girl, who was peering at him. "What is it?"
"I have this assignment for my philosophy class." Melanie sat up and stretched. She had unbuttoned her shirt, and the movement made it gape open even more. "This dude Albert Einstein said, 'We must learn to see the world anew.' I have to write an essay on that."
Kyan caught a glimpse of a black mark on the inside curve of her left breast, like the edge of a tattoo. "So?"
She dropped her arms. "So what do you see in the world that could be called new?"
"Nothing."
"Dude, this counts as, like, sixty percent of my grade," she advised him. "If I turn in a one-word essay, I'm, like, totally flunking the semester."
She had the typical American attitude of seeking answers only to serve ambition. "The world is nothing new," he told her. "Everything is as it was at the dawn of creation."
She made a show of looking around. "So where are dinosaurs, and the cavemen, and shit like that?"
"They are still here. You build your cities on top of them. You dig up their bones and display them for the amusement of schoolchildren." He looked out at the river. "You burn them in your gas tanks and fight wars to control the land they once walked. They have not gone; they have only changed." His voice went rough. "Everything changes, but everything is the same. Nothing new."
Melanie gave him her full attention, her blue eyes solemn. "That is seriously fucked-up, dude."
Kyan felt amused. "Do you mean to put that in your paper?"
She muttered something uncomplimentary to native Chinese, and reclined as she returned to her reading.
An official stopped the boat once in the late afternoon to check its contents and to question Kyan. The young man, a reed-thin youth whose new uniform sat stiffly on his scrawny frame, seemed more interested in Melanie's breasts than Kyan's intentions.
The girl smiled and talked with the young official as he made some sort of awkward overture. She gave his arms and shoulders coy little touches and laughed a great deal. Kyan couldn't follow most of their conversation, but it seemed to satisfy the official, who returned to his own diminutive craft and continued down the river.
"Do you think you could have frowned a little more at that guy?" Melanie asked as she came to retrieve a bottle of water out of her bag.
"Did I not frown enough?"
"Way you were acting, he thought you were a dope smuggler." She took a drink from the water bottle before holding it out to him. "Don't look like that. It's not like I have cooties."
He didn't understand the last word she uttered, until she sighed and translated it in Chinese. "I would not have hired you if you were carrying body lice."
"I am so glad Granny came over here to marry a white guy," Melanie said, before she put the bottle back in her bag and returned to her spot on the deck.
Kyan watched her as he took the bottle from her bag, uncapped it, and let the water inside touch his lips. Her mouth had left traces of her taste on the water. The girl had a sweet, simple taste, like candy. He closed the bottle and replaced it, licking her from his lips.
At that moment she looked up from her book and her eyes narrowed. "You're staring at me again."