The Young Elites
Page 12

My heart skips a beat.
It’s a white half mask, made of porcelain and cold to the touch. Diamonds trace along its edges and twinkle in the light, and trails of bright glitter paint elaborate patterns across the mask’s pale surface. Tiny white plumes arch at the point where it curves up toward the temple. I can only stare. Never in my life have I worn something so finely crafted.
“I commissioned this for you,” Raffaele says. “Care to try it?”
I nod wordlessly.
Raffaele positions the half mask over my face. It fits snugly, like a long-lost possession, something that has always been a part of my body. Now snow-white porcelain and lines of shining light conceal the spot where my eye used to be. The mask covers it all. Without the distraction of my marking, the natural beauty of my face shines through.
“Mi Adelinetta,” Raffaele breathes. He leans down close enough for his breath to warm the skin of my neck. “You are truly kissed by moon and water.”
As I stare silently back, I feel something powerful stir inside me—a buried fire, subdued during childhood and long forgotten. I have lived all my life in the shadow of my father and my sister. Now that I’m standing in the sun for the first time, I dare to think differently.
The broken butterfly has been made whole.
Faint voices come from the hallway outside. Before either of us can react, the door opens and Enzo strides in. I can’t keep my cheeks from turning bright red, and I turn my face partly away, hoping he doesn’t notice. His eyes settle first on Raffaele. “Is she ready?”
Then he notices me. Whatever words he meant to speak now halt on his tongue. For the first time since I met him, a strange emotion flickers across his face that hints at something underneath.
Raffaele studies him. “At a loss for words, Your Highness? I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Enzo recovers in an instant. He exchanges a quiet look with Raffaele. I look between them, uncertain what conversation has just passed. Finally, he turns away from us—and it seems as if he purposely avoids meeting my stare.
“She starts tomorrow,” he says before he leaves.
Teren Santoro
As the sun sets over Estenzia, Teren locks himself inside his chambers. His jaw is tight with frustration.
Several weeks have already passed since Adelina’s escape from her execution. He’s not found a single trace of her. Rumor has it that she came here to Estenzia—at least, that was all his Inquisition patrols could gather. But Estenzia is a large city. He needs more information than that.
Teren undoes the gold buttons of his Inquisition uniform, strips off his robe, and removes the armor underneath. He pulls his thin linen undershirt up over his head, baring his torso to the air. The orange glow of sunset from his window highlights his shoulders, the hard, muscled contour of his back.
It also illuminates the maze of crisscrossing scars that cover his body.
Teren sighs, closes his eyes, and rolls his neck. His thoughts wander to the queen. The king had been dead drunk at his council meeting today, laughing off fears of his hungry people’s rising anger at his taxes, impatient to return to his afternoon hunting trips and brothels. Throughout the whole meeting, Queen Giulietta looked on in silence. Her eyes were cool, calm, and dark. If her husband irritated her, she didn’t show it. She certainly didn’t show any signs that she had invited Teren to her bedchambers the night before.
Teren closes his eyes at the memory of her in his arms, and shivers in longing.
He looks down at the whip lying by his bed. He walks over to it. He had to have the weapon specially made: It consists of nine different tails, each tail equipped at the end with long blades—rare foreign platinum for weight, tipped with steel—honed so finely that their edges could slice open skin with the faintest whisper of a touch.
On any normal man, a weapon like this would shred his back into ribbons of meat with a single strike. Even on someone like Teren, with skin and flesh hardened by demonic magic, the metal whip wreaks havoc.
He kneels on the floor. Lifts the whip. Holds his breath. Then he snaps the whip over his head. The blades rake deep into the flesh of his back, ripping jagged lines across his skin. He lets out a strangled gasp as pain floods him, robbing him of his breath. Almost immediately, the cuts start to heal.
I am a deformed creature, he mouths silently, repeating the words he once said as a twelve-year-old boy, an Inquisitorin-training, kneeling before the sixteen-year-old Princess Giulietta.
He remembers that day so well. She was newly married to the powerful Duke of Estenzia. Young Enzo, still crown prince to the throne, lay in the infirmary, the lucky survivor of drinking poisoned soup. And the old king was already dying.
Giulietta bent down, studied Teren thoughtfully, and placed her finger under his chin. She gently tilted his head up until his pale, colorless eyes met her dark, cool ones. “Why are you afraid to look at me?” she asked.
“You are chosen by the gods, Your Highness,” he said, ashamed. “And I am a malfetto, lower than a dog. I am unworthy of your presence.” He hoped she couldn’t guess his dark secret. That strange, demonic powers had appeared in him recently.
Giulietta smiled. “If I forgive you for being a malfetto, little boy, would you pledge your undying devotion to me? Would you do anything for me?”
Teren looked up into her eyes with desperation and desire. She was so pretty. Delicate, heart-shaped face framed with dark curls. Royal blood. Not a hint of a marking on her. Perfection. “I would pledge anything to you, Your Highness. My life. My sword. I am yours.”
“Good.” She tilted her head toward him. “Tell me. Who do you think should rule this country next?”
Teren leaned into her touch. The question confused him. “The crown prince,” he said. “It is his birthright.”
Her eyes hardened. Wrong answer. “You said you are a malfetto, and lower than a dog. Do you really want a malfetto as your king?”
Teren hadn’t thought about it like that. He used to wrestle and spar with Enzo in the palace gardens, when Teren’s father was busy leading the Inquisition Axis. They were friends, even, or at least friendly, always paired up in afternoon sword practice. Teren hesitated, torn between the idea of Enzo as pure-blooded royalty and the reality of him being tainted by the blood fever’s markings. Finally, he shook his head. “No, Your Highness. I wouldn’t want that.”
Giulietta’s eyes softened, and she smiled again. Right answer. “I am the firstborn. It is my birthright to rule.”
For a fleeting moment, Teren wondered if she was the one who slipped poison into Enzo’s soup.
She leaned closer. Then she said the words that would ensnare him forever. “Do as I say, little Teren. Help me rid this world of all malfettos. And I will make sure the gods forgive you for your abomination.”
The memory fades. Teren raises the whip again and again.
To atone for my cursed magic, I devote myself to the Inquisition all the days of my life. I will serve the queen, rightful ruler of Kenettra. Not only will I rid this world of Young Elites, but I shall rid this world of malfettos.
Blood runs down the pulped flesh of his back as his body tries desperately to keep up in healing itself. He sways in place, dizzy from the agony. Tears drip from his unnaturally pale eyes. His marking. But Teren only grits his teeth and smiles. His thoughts return to Adelina. She couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air. She was here, somewhere. He would simply have to search harder. Pay off every street urchin and beggar in the city. For the price of a cheap meal, they’ll tell you anything. His eyes pulse in anticipation. Yes. Thousands of spies. I have plans for you, Adelina. If Teren could have his own way, he would kill every Elite he could find. Then he would throw every malfetto in the city—in the country—into the dungeons. He would burn every single one of them at the stake. Abominations. If only he could make them understand.
I will find you all. I will use everything in my power to save your souls. I was born to destroy you.
In the good years, they wine and dine, laugh and love.
In the bad years, they draw their swords and
slit each other’s throat. —Excerpt from Relations between Kenettra and Beldain, The Travels of Elaida Eleanore
Adelina Amouteru
My life at the Fortunata Court quickly falls into place.
For two solid weeks, Raffaele teaches me the subtle graces of moving around the court. The art of walking. Of smiling. Of avoiding unwanted client advances as an underage consort-in-training. Simple in theory—but Raffaele’s effortless elegance is made up of a thousand tiny gestures that are shockingly difficult to imitate.
“You are comparing two weeks of training with many years,” Raffaele tells me, laughing, when I complain about how clumsy my walk looks next to his own. “Do not worry so much. You know enough for a novice, and that will get you by.”
And so it does. I become used to wrapping my hair in silks every morning, putting on my glittering mask, and wandering the halls of the court. Few pay attention to me, as long as I follow Raffaele’s advice. You are underage. You have no name, as far as the court is concerned, and you are not permitted to speak to anyone who wants to be your client. This should give you protection if you ever feel you need to shake off unwanted advances.
The freedom is nice. I spend my mornings down in the cavern, observing the other Elites whenever they gather. Gradually, I learn more about each of them. After Enzo and Raffaele, for instance, the Star Thief was their next recruit. Enzo named her after the scribe Tristan Chirsley’s Stories of the Star Thief, a folk hero who could steal anything, because she could steal the minds of beasts. Her marking is a purple shape that stretches across part of her face.
After her came the Spider, who used to be a blacksmith apprentice. The dark, irregular markings on his neck extend down to his chest. The Windwalker was exiled here from the snowy Skyland nation of Beldain. I don’t know the story behind that. One of her arms is covered in dark, swirling lines. The last one, the Architect, is a boy currently apprenticed at the University of Estenzia to a master painter. Capable of touching anything—a rock, a sword, a human—and unwinding it, then re-forming it in a different spot. Enzo gave him his Elite name after he designed the gem-locked door to the cavern. His fingernails have stripes of discoloration on them, lines of deep black and blue.
Altogether, there are six of them. I hope I survive to be the seventh.
I take lunches in my chambers alone, and wander the halls and courtyards when I feel restless. The others don’t talk much to me yet. I rarely see Enzo. Even a banished prince must still have princely duties, I suppose, but whenever I don’t see his face down in the cavern, I leave disappointed. Some days, I feel like the only one in the court’s secret corridors.
I come to look forward to the performances that happen almost every night, elaborate dances put on by the consorts that draw potential clients from every corner of the city. Almost all of the other consorts are marked. They wear decorative masks like me—many with their hair also woven into elaborate headpieces. Works of art.
My only goal now is to master my power, to be included in the Daggers’ missions, their secretive comings and goings. I start to forget that the Inquisition is hunting for me. I start to forget that I ever had a sister.
I only think of these things late at night, when everything is quiet. Perhaps she’s moved on without me, anyway.
Teren Santoro
Master Santoro.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“This is a street urchin who begs near the edge of the Red Quarter. He says he saw something at the Fortunata Court that might interest you.”
“Oh? Is that so? Speak up, boy—you’ll have a hot supper and place to sleep if I like your answer.”
“Y-yes, sir. Um. It was yesterday. I heard from other urchins that the Inquisition’s—s-searching for a girl with a scar across her left eye.”
“We are. And?”
“Well—I can’t be sure—but I saw—”
“You’re either sure or you’re not. What did you see?”
“I’m sorry, Master Santoro. I—I’m sure. Sure I saw such a girl, walking along the upper courtyards of the Fortunata Court. That fancy one—up on the hill—”
“Yes, I know the one. Get on with it.”
“Y-yes, sorry, sir. The girl’s hair was wrapped up in cloth, though, so I don’t know what color it was.”
“Wrapped, in a Tamouran fashion?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so.”
Teren sits back in his chair. He studies the filthy, shivering boy kneeling before him for a long moment. Finally, he smiles. “Thank you.” He waves a hand at the Inquisitors who’d brought the boy in. “A gold talent, a hot meal, and a room at an inn.” He nods once as the boy’s face lights up. “Never let it be said that I’m not generous.”
Once upon a winter
I met a man in the woods
The man beckoned me over
To see a satchel of goods
He offered three wishes
I asked for beauty, love, riches
And he froze me in stone where I stood.
—“The Greedy Ghost of Cypress Pass,” common folk song
Adelina Amouteru
Another night at the Fortunata Court. Another night of glistening robes and sensual dances.
Raffaele helps me prepare until I am breathtaking in silks and jewels, and then leads me out of the secret halls and toward the main lounging chamber. The chamber is lavishly decorated tonight, dotted with velvet divans, plates of jasmine sitting on low, round tables, arching curtains of silks hanging across tall windows. Vases of night lilies stand in each corner of the room, their dark purple petals open, their rich, musky scent filling the air. Consorts dressed in their finest gather in clusters. Some already have clients with them, while others giggle among themselves.