The Immortal City Read online

  I levered my shoulder and struck him in the face. The force pushed him back a step, and his grasp broke. Behind me, I felt Hei slump back against the wall.

  Kadzuhikhan’s expression solidified into shock. After a moment, a bead of dark red crawled down his lip, where his fang must have cut him. He swiped at his mouth. “Dammit. What the hell got up your ass?”

  I kept my wings open wide like raised shields. “So this is your new recruitment approach—just bang people around until they stop kicking back?”

  His eyes narrowed for a moment before he released a guffaw, disbelief or disgust coloring the laughter. The revelers around us had begun to stop and take heed. Kadzuhikhan tucked broad hands under his arms. “Please, finish the joke. Tell me you’re not fucking serious, with all this outraged innocence and concern. Like you didn’t know what the fuck you were doing in this city.”

  Unsettling sensations were skittering through me; it was like my friend was changing in front of me, but not into cat-shape or anything else I’d seen. Into the person he must have been past the edges of my sight, past the moments in which he’d been kind to me, kissed me, held me while I shook. Past our shared emptiness. It had been easy to believe that everything was on the up and up. That this was business, and while predators abounded, Umber and Kadzuhikhan guarded against them even if for no higher reason than a businessman’s ethic. But my role as healer must have exposed me to little of what really went on.

  It’d always disturbed me that I would need to be on call to heal so many workers and clients that were being fairly treated. Blood donation shouldn’t weaken even a mortal body if it wasn’t taken to excess. But tonight had not been the first time I’d pulled someone back from death. Or the first time I’d felt like my job was to keep meat from spoiling. The logic of my limited memory told me that this was all the inevitable risk of business, but my intuition had never swallowed it with ease.

  Maybe if I remembered more, I would never have allowed it at all.

  “It’s what you’re doing that he asked you to stop.” I lifted my fists slowly. “Back off. You’ve had too much blood.” He didn’t seem off balance, but he never did. He could have been riding a silver high, or just the rawness of his hunger, and it’d all look the same from him.

  He snarled, hands coming free and knees bending. “No. Why don’t you go do your whimpering somewhere not in my way? I’ve had it with your shit, Ari. I don’t mind putting you in your fucking place.”

  The crowd had sunken into stillness, countless glassy eyes attuned to the violence arcing between me and Kadzuhikhan. I ran my gaze over him; the bandages had fallen around his wrists, hands whole and clean. And his sword was nowhere in sight. I could take him. Especially if he was fucked up on silver.

  My stance settled into one ready for battle. And I did not break eye contact. “I’m right here, then.”

  Fuck him. Fuck him and Umber and the mist, this whole twisted, blood-scented night. Fuck their underhanded reassurance, all the intoxication and confusion. How could I trust any of them? How could I even trust my own senses? Kadzuhikhan stood there, distinctly inhuman in his perfect lack of motion, as if we were sharpening our wills on each other.

  Just then, Hei did something else unexpected. The warmth of his fingers slid around my waist. And he held on to me, as if I were the only thing keeping him from being torn away. His breathing was slow and even.

  Something in me calmed. I didn’t care what it meant or how sane it made me. I slipped one hand down and took his. And squeezed.

  Intention rolled off Kadzuhikhan. But in the next second, the only movement that registered was of his eyes. Glinting down to catch where Hei’s fingers were grasped in mine.

  A syrupy smile dripped over his face. The quality of his glare became almost conspiratorial, approving. In the next instant, his posture relaxed.

  “All right.” He coughed up another laugh, this one heavy with amusement rather than disdain. “If you’re so dedicated, you can have this one. O passionate youth who will not be denied.”

  As if he’d pulled a string, that evoked a ripple of giggles and sneers from the onlookers. But already their attention was breaking away; the charge was fading. Kadzuhikhan winked slyly and shifted back, shadows overtaking him. The disappearance of his scent told me he had cat-stepped away.

  And Hei kept holding on to me.

  Chapter Three

  The scuffle had infused me with energy. My mental fog had cleared, the perfume of sweat and bodies sharp on the air. The space around me seemed more real, more intense. My heart pounded like a drum.

  I turned, using my wings to block the now thinning crowd from being able to look directly on Hei. I tried to make my voice as soft as possible. “Are you all right?”

  He didn’t look all right. His hand had not disentangled from mine. Gone was the serene, smiling boy I’d met on the Rock, the impossibly still being who’d come to me out of nowhere. So was the angry Hei who’d tried to defend himself. His expression was neither one of fear nor relief. Instead, he radiated a quiet sort of heartbreak. Watching me, lips parted. As if I’d just done something he’d long believed impossible. A faint tear track striped his cheek.

  Oh, god. It all came back. The desperation, the theories, the hollow of need in my chest. I was...falling for him. Or infatuated, or maybe just that desperately lonely. Maybe he was lonely too.

  He shook his head, shaking slightly. “Why did you do that?”

  I swallowed hard. “Well. The same reason I caught you, I suppose. I don’t actually believe it’s a good thing for people to be hurt.” My eyes flicked to the side. “I may be in the minority on that.”

  Hei seemed to be breathing heavily. “How did you know where to find me?”

  He’d gone from sunny and calm to raw, vulnerable, so quickly that I had no idea how to take it. “I didn’t. Coincidence. I know that guy.” I paused while struggling for something more meaningful to say. “He should not have done that to you.”

  I looked back to find his eyes, shimmering and wide. But he wasn’t crying any more than he had. He only stared, helplessly. As if this all meant more to him than I had the ability to see.

  The rush of clarity was starting to dull; maybe Hei’s reaction was just more confusing than I was equipped for. I coughed and, slowly, let go of his hand. “Is there somewhere I can escort you to? Somewhere you feel safe?”

  It seemed a ridiculous question now.

  Hei studied the hand I’d released, fingers slightly curled. He drew a deep breath. “No. But...can you stay with me for a while? Please?”

  A weight was settling in my belly, but it brought with it an alien warmth. I couldn’t decide whether it was welcome or not. “Of course. Let’s find some place quieter. I’ll keep an eye out for you, and you can relax.”

  So I led him away from the revelers, one wing stretched over him like a shade. It was the least I could do. The absolute fucking least.

  As we marked a path into the comforts of darkness, disgust and elation battled within me. The exhilaration lingered—but bitterness was discoloring all my thoughts. Hadn’t I delivered dozens of bright-eyed youths just like Hei to Kadzuhikhan, to Umber, to face exactly what Hei had—with no one to step in and help them? Hadn’t I peacefully drunk down my ignorance, all while Kadzuhikhan was doing this right over my shoulder? Surely, even with all the parts of the world that no longer seemed to matter to me, I had a responsibility to penetrate deception better than this.

  How had I let myself not see for so long that the only person in the city I considered a friend was a fucking rapist?

  Hei stayed close, as if afraid to step out from the cover of my wing. He had shone so brightly, with bravura and joy, when he’d jumped. I had only known him a day, if I could be said to know him at all. But seeing him so naked and frightened made my guts churn.

  I led him, slowly, to one of the darker back st
reets, where activity was practically nonexistent. It would probably be too difficult to take him higher up in the city for the moment, and he needed a spot to rest. And everyone would be drawn like insects to the drugged aurora of the revelry. We should be able to hide here for a while.

  Chunks of crystal glowed softly in fixtures along the street and buildings. No one else seemed around, but the lights would continue radiating their gentle rays. I’d never learned quite what made them glow, but it was welcome enough. The street wasn’t bright, but Hei should be able to see. I called it a “street,” but it was more like one of the old pieces of the city design that had fallen apart and mostly grown over with makeshift structures, a few repurposed buildings, and an array of open spaces dotted with glow-stones. Almost certainly not a market, but one of the quirky hideaway spots that some denizens made their homes. No one seemed to be about now, not even the odd wandering ghost one usually expected. One of the buildings, which looked like an old bathhouse, opened easily enough when I fiddled with the door. I gestured inward, and Hei followed without hesitation.

  Inside, the place was more like a bar, empty and dark except for cheerful pink stones glimmering around the windows. It looked clean, anyway. Probably this was a quiet little watering hole that may even be fairly frequented, but everyone seemed to be out enjoying the food stalls.

  Without speaking, Hei sat on a bench lined up against the wall. Though it may have been more accurate to say he drooped. Back bent, hands scrubbing over his face. Fatigue all but wafted off him like steam.

  No helpful words emerged from my mind. I paced back to what looked like the bar and peered around the side. There we were—various spirits and wines sat in decanters in the shelves, along with clear fluid that could be water. A sniff confirmed—I brought the flask over to him. “Thirsty? It’s plain water, nothing hard.”

  He frowned up at me for a few moments. The possibility hung heavily that he might start to cry, reveal more of that frightening vulnerability. But he simply accepted, swallowing deeply.

  I hugged myself, feeling a sudden chill. The urge arose to take him in my arms again, as if catching him during an entirely different kind of fall. But the implications of that seemed hazardous, charged. I had no right to touch him.

  He emptied the bottle and set it aside. “Thank you.” The words were faintly breathless. “I didn’t say that before. Thank you. For...saving me.”

  The urge grew stronger. I chewed my lip. “You don’t have to thank me.” Then a new urge bubbled up, a curious one. “You don’t have a blood-giver chain. Did you...?”

  He seemed to intuit my meaning. “No. I haven’t ever wanted to donate. I still don’t.” The emphasis on the last sentence felt like a warning. I nodded, perhaps a bit too vigorously.

  Silence fell over us like rainwater, pooling at our feet. I couldn’t deny it to myself anymore—I wanted these meetings with this mysterious youth to mean something. I wanted for him to be real in my head. I wanted a face in the river’s flow to mean something to me. I had no one else. Not Tamueji, not even Kadzuhikhan.

  I wanted to know why he’d come here, if not hunting forbidden thrills. I wanted to know something that mattered, see the outline of mountains shaping the wind.

  But what I asked, without thinking, was, “Do you have memories?”

  Hei blinked at me. He answered without wavering. “Yes. All of them. Except, well, the memories everyone loses. I know where I came from. Everything.”

  Everything. God, to have that back. “Well. If you want it to stay that way, I strongly advise you think twice about trying to make money off Lord Umber. It all looks like a fair trade on the surface, but I wouldn’t trust him.”

  Hei’s eyes narrowed. “Why? I know he sells amnesia. But I don’t even know how that works.”

  I sighed. “Do you know what a godhood is?”

  His nod was tentative, cautious. To be fair, it wasn’t a promising segue. Godhoods were rare moon-soul virtues. Unlike the cat-step or dove’s pitying, only a few moon-souls could use them. And if Umber’s was any indication, that was a very good thing.

  “He bears the drowning godhood. Can drink your memories straight out of your veins—sees right into you. And you lose whatever he sees.” I’d once tried to calculate how many times he may have drunk from me by the money I had, but it didn’t tell me much. Nothing had ever surfaced of my first exposure to him, what had led up to him taking it all, and he apparently did not guarantee recall of the transaction itself. “Most of the blood-givers who sell their memories want relief from pain, I think. Want something inside them killed. But it’s not worth it. Too much else dies with it. And here’s the thing—I’ve only been an amnesiac for two years, as far as I know, and I still have no way of being sure that he didn’t take more memory than I actually wanted to sell. How can you even measure that? Memories aren’t like water, so you can pour out a liter here, a liter there. So he might offer you a fortune, but my advice is to just stay away. You probably are better off knowing what your pain is.”

  I wondered what Tamueji would think of me saying that. I was standing in almost perfect opposition to her view. She had also had a much longer time to adjust to her emptiness.

  A hardness appeared in Hei’s eyes, in the line of his mouth. It restored some of the poise and calm he’d exhibited before. “Understood.” A pause. “Is there a way to undo it?”

  Somehow, that was always the first question everyone asked, despite the agreement that amnesia was worth buying. You’d think no one would even think to want it back. “Supposedly. Some older living-again used to say that drinking the blood back from the person who took it would restore the memories they drank, but I know from experience that sure as hell isn’t the case. A moon-soul being truly killed is meant to end their godhood, but who knows whether that would reverse anything. It doesn’t matter. Most people seem fairly happy giving the past up.” I almost added, I must just be hard to please. No need to dump my angst on him.

  I knelt down so we were eye to eye. His composure was definitely returning. But I couldn’t bring myself to leave him. After so long serving Umber, having openly warned someone away from him felt treacherous, but relieving. As if I’d finally taken a breath. It was good, after long last, to admit out loud how deeply I distrusted him, despite the story always having been that I had never been anything but a willing client.

  There was probably nothing I could do to help Hei. Not really. Let alone all those who I’d fed to the bowels of Serenity like beached fish, thinking my care enough to protect them. Even if I could ever get my identity back, would it matter? I’d spoiled too much of what was left.

  Hei slipped fluidly down to his knees, so that he was gazing up into my eyes. I balked, face heating, but shifting away felt like the wrong move. His breath tickled me; a second passed in which it felt like he’d frozen me, my attention held as if by magic. The smile had returned to his features, lighting them with an uncommon warmth. A rush of starlight and winter wind, of body heat and laughter, filled my mind. Of holding him and flying. He looked like that moment had felt. Like he’d been lightened too. The curve of his mouth was gentle, generous.

  Before I could think, he leaned in. And that curve touched my lips.

  My thoughts became vapor. His mouth parted, infusing me with an impossible heat. I melted; in moments, I had opened to him, taken his tongue, met it with my own. Of its own accord, my hand clasped his nape. God, his hair was so soft in my fingers. Touching his slender body, drinking in the eagerness of his kiss, made me tremble.

  I almost pushed away, defended myself from the intensity. But Hei ended the kiss as smoothly as he’d begun it, creating just a breath of space between us. We crouched on the floor in the cherry-pink lights, foreheads touching, me still cupping his neck.

  “That was a little presumptuous of me.” His voice glittered with hints of self-deprecating laughter.

  I wasn’t ab
out to complain. But uncertainty spiraled in my gut. “I’m more worried about you being harmed, considering. Are you all right? After what happened with Kadzuhikhan? We don’t have to do anything—”

  “Shhh.” The hints became a chuckle. “I’m fine. If you are?”

  He sounded almost shy, despite having kissed me twice. “I just don’t want to...” To be part of that. The world that did this to people. That had betrayed me, emptied me out and turned me into this. “To hurt you.”

  Hei edged closer until his arms were slotted over my shoulders, lips pressing heat along my neck. “You won’t. I want you.”

  My heart felt like it’d come back to life as a bird too, fluttering rapidly in my rib cage. My cock was already stiffening, so swiftly that it was probably nudging Hei. I gulped. “Will you stand up?”

  He cooperated but remained against me, and my hands naturally slid down his back as we rose. Soon my arms were around him, bracing his elbow and the small of his back. He tilted into my chest, the pounding of his heart like a song. I whispered into his ear. “How do you want it? I have more experience with lovers who like roughness. But I can be as gentle as you like.”

  Hei’s head shook. “It doesn’t matter.” He squirmed, and it became plain that he was peeling his shirt off. It dropped, revealing an expanse of soft brown skin, kissed by the gem-light. Sleek patterns of muscle decorated his slim torso. Such elegant, beautiful arms. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen arms like that on anyone—tender, but firmly shaped, making pleasing ripples and curves as they moved.

  His fingers burrowed under the hem of my leotard, and in seconds we’d divested me of it. Our bare skin was touching almost everywhere it could. It felt like giving him my name again, exposing my need and my emptiness.

  Shaking, I dove in.

  My grip pulled him in maybe a touch too hard. But he seemed to reach for it, desire it. My lips closed on the skin of his neck, kneading rough attention into it. The bruises I might leave flashed through my head, and I remembered my own strength. Then Hei’s voice rose in a whimper—needy, unguarded—and it shredded my reservations.