Page 32 of The Duke and the Disciple

Niklaus cackled, throwing his head back. “Fucking for science. That’s a new one to me. Don’t recall reading that anywhere in our charter.”

“For the love of the Ancestors, you’re making this far more than it is.”

“Am I?” His smile was gone. “Never mind that if your brother even had awhisperof suspicion about this, he would murder the man, how exactly are you going to explain who compiled the research notes and how? The Reliquary has the cohort’s names. We can’t make them up.”

“I don’t have all the answers now, and frankly, I’m exhausted, and this isn’t—” She lifted and lowered her shoulders with a weighty sigh. “I can only focus on one problem at a time.”

“Is it a problem though, Aes? I see the way you look at the man. Science, eh?”

A hot flush flooded her cheeks. “If you cannot speak about this like an academic, then we’re not going to speak of it at all.”

He shook his head and continued without her.

Aesylt took a quick moment to gather herself and followed.

Chapter7

Hoarfrost

They heard Hoarfrost before they saw it. Aesylt had been expecting its extraordinary guard force, but the Barynovs could have been hosting a party for all the village, for as loud and raucous as the sounds were, carrying up to them on their way down the tree-lined slope.

“Told you,” Niklaus murmured. He pulled to a stop at the start of their descent down the forest hill overlooking the modest keep at the north wood’s edge. “There’s no way in, Aes. You can see for yourself now.”

She squinted through the fog, trying to add visual confirmation to everything she was hearing. Red was the color of the Barynovs, a bright and bold color that contrasted with the icier blues and silvers of her home. The color was everywhere, on all sides of Hoarfrost. Standards, uniforms, painted posts... Against the stone and snow, it reminded her of the gory splash that had followed carnage. Of the Nok Mora.

With a shiver, she straightened. “How about the root cellar?”

“What about it?”

“They have six cellars, remember? The others are detached from the keep, but not the root cellar. You really don’t remember that was how Val would sneak us in after dark?”

Niklaus gazed at the ground. He toed his boot against a rotting log. “If they catch you, they might not kill you, but they will take you hostage. The war you asked me about? It will begin. Over you.”

Aesylt balked. “But I haven’t done anythingwrong,Nik. Val asked me to be his final witness, and I was. Nothing happened that could have caused whatever... whatever he went through out there. And if I don’t see him, if I can’t figure out what happened, this will only get worse for everyone.”

“I thought reading whispers didn’t work anymore.”

“It does... sometimes.”

What Nik wasn’t saying, because even in his anger he still loved her, was that her ability to receive messages from laying hands had gone away after the Nok Mora—not because the magic had left her but because it had been years before she’d let anyone touch her in more than a passing way. Before she’d dared touch anyone else. When she finally allowed it again, she was careful to close her thoughts off from receiving information. Wandering through the smoldering village alone, checking for breaths and heartbeats, reading their deaths in reverse... It was still just as real. The scent was never far from her nose. The horrors gripped her heart in perpetuity.

The truth was she had no idea if she could read Val or not.

“Even if you could, who in there will believe you? If you tell them youreadthe truth in his flesh, that would only make it worse. Ancestors save you if they ever knew what you used to do. The starwalking.” He jutted an arm toward the keep. “They’ve already decided. You’re a koldyna to them, and we both know how our people deal with dark witches.”

Niklaus was right, but she had no choice but to try. Drazhan would raze the Barynovs altogether in his fear of losing her, and they would take everything they could with them as they burned.

Aesylt crossed her arms and turned back up the hill. Hot tears burned her eyes but didn’t fall. They wouldn’t. She’d cried exactly twice since the dust of the Nok Mora had settled: once when Drazhan had returned home after many years away and then the other night, when she’d been certain her doom awaited her at the top of a damned tree. “You and I could go in circles about this for hours. But I’m going. It would be easier if we went together, but...” She lifted her shoulders and started down the hill.

“Wait!” he cried, part whisper, part scream. “Aesylt, for the love of the Ancestors!”

Aesylt wove a path between the trees, pausing at each to verify she hadn’t been spotted. Niklaus was close behind, grunting his displeasure under his breath but keeping pace. They continued this way until they reached the edge of a small garden, where the Barynovs grew winterberries and hoargrapes they made into wines. They could hardly get anyone south of Witchwood Cross to stock their harvest, for all its bitterness, but to the Vjestik, it was a sigil of their resilience. If they could suffer through a Barynov varietal, they could withstand anything.

She ducked between two rows and gestured for Niklaus to join her. “Here’s what I’m thinking. We get as close as we can. If we can’t... If we can’t reach the cellar on our own, I’ll create a distraction to draw their eyes away and you go for it.”

“The fuck you will.” Niklaus’s eyes flashed wide in fearful anger. “You stay here, and I’ll go take a look around.Stayhere, Aes. I’m not asking either, so unless you want me to get Drazhan involved, you’ll calm your blood for a few more minutes. If I get caught, I’ll say I was coming to see Val, and no one will say a word to me, other than wondering why I’m here so late, but I can explain that. If you see anyone coming... Can you still... starwalk...”

Aesylt nodded, glancing away. It had been years since she’d taken Niklaus starwalking, long enough that he’d evidently tucked it into the back of his thoughts. How would he feel if he knew she’d been to the celestial realm with Val just days prior? And the scholar after.

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