The Devil's Debt: A Kiss That Binds the Damned

CHAPTER SEVEN: The House of Greed

The council of Varyn did what frightened men always do. It argued about procedure.

Kael sat at the head of the long table at noon, with two women standing behind his chair like a pair of mismatched candles, and listened to twelve old men explain why the end of the world required a quorum.

"Majesty." Lord Chancellor Maren Dray folded his ink-stained hands. He was fifty-six, silver-tongued and silver-haired, a man who had served three kings by learning exactly how far to bow. "The western road is lost. The eastern district is burning. The people whisper that the dead walk in the cathedral crypt. Whatever bargain you have struck with these guests, I implore you to conclude it swiftly."

"I am doing so."

"One hears you are doing it from your bedchamber."

A ripple of embarrassed coughing. Behind him, the bride made a soft, delighted noise, and Seraphine shifted like a woman restraining herself from violence.

"And your father's last wish," Dray went on smoothly. "Lady Isolde of the Eastern March. Her armies, her gold, her hand. An alliance would steady the throne at a moment when it trembles."

"My father's last wishes appear to have been misreported," said Kael.

He did not mention that the old king was alive and screaming somewhere in the earth. It would have sounded mad, and some cold, watchful instinct told him that the less this room knew, the longer he would live. So he studied their faces. The Chancellor, smooth as oil. The High Priest, Ambrose, white-knuckled around his golden chain. Lord Marshal Hale, who had not looked up from the table once. And Captain Rowan at the door, red-eyed, who had plainly refused to sleep. Any of them might have sold the kingdom for a promise.

A bell rang in the courtyard. Not beneath the earth this time. A bright, clear, silver bell, the kind that announced a guest.

"That," said Seraphine quietly, "will be the House of Greed."

---

They came in a procession of forty gilded carriages, each drawn by eight horses the color of old coins. Servants in tarnished gold unloaded chests and strongboxes stamped with a single sigil: a pair of scales weighing a heart against a crown.

The man who stepped from the lead carriage was slender and ageless, with a close-cut beard and a coat the color of honey. Rings glittered on every finger. A gold coin turned between his knuckles, over and under, without pause.

"Lord Aurelian Vane," Seraphine murmured. "He is not cruel. That is what makes him dangerous. He is precisely fair."

Aurelian's gaze found Kael across the courtyard, and he smiled the smile of a banker who has found an undervalued asset. "King Varyn. What a pleasure to see the estate in such good order. A little frayed at the edges, perhaps." His eyes slid over the two women and lingered, with open curiosity, on the bride. "I am here to appraise it. Shall we speak in your treasury? Men negotiate best surrounded by what they stand to lose."

The treasury lay three floors beneath the palace, behind an iron door that had not been opened since Kael was a boy. It was a long, cold vault of shelves heavy with ingots, jeweled swords and ancient coronets. Aurelian walked among them with a connoisseur's slow step. He weighed a golden cup in one palm and set it down.

"Your father spent beautifully," he said. "Reckless, but beautifully."

"Name your price."

"So direct. I do admire that." He turned. "Greed is not wanting more, King Varyn. Greed is knowing the exact worth of every thing, and refusing to part with it for less. I do not want your gold. I want something that cannot be counted." His voice softened. "A memory. The face of the one you have loved longest, and looked at least."

Kael's blood went cold.

"Refuse," Seraphine said at once. "There is another way."

"There is not," said Aurelian pleasantly. "Your mother's face, Majesty, in exchange for the second bell, one-seventh of your debt, and an alliance of convenience with the House of Greed."

His mother. Queen Lysandra had died when he was twelve, of a fever the physicians never named. He remembered her hands, cool on his forehead. He remembered lavender in her hair, and her voice, low and tired and tender, singing a song whose words he had never learned. But her face, the way it looked when she smiled, was the one thing he had held onto for seventeen years like a coin in a closed fist.

"What do I lose, exactly?"

"Only the face. You will remember that she lived. You will remember that you loved her. You simply will not see her when you close your eyes." Aurelian turned the coin. "And I will tell you something for free. Hell does not speak with one voice. Wrath and Envy want this wedding. Desire waits to see who wins. Pride will not choose. Sorrow weeps, which is what Sorrow does. And Greed has grown rather fond of its thrones. When the master of the house comes home, the tenants lose their leases."

"You want the gate kept shut."

"I want to continue to be wealthy. It is an excellent basis for friendship."

Kael looked at Seraphine. Her face was set, but her eyes held a plea he had never seen before. "If you do this," she said, very low, "you will not get it back."

"If I do not," said Kael, "a girl with a candle ages ten years every night. It is only a face."

She stared at him as though he had said something unspeakable. Then she looked away.

"Done," said Kael.

Aurelian laid two fingers against his brow. His touch was warm and dry and impersonal, a jeweler's. It did not hurt, and that was the worst of it. A light drew out of Kael like silver thread pulled from a spool. He felt it go: the curve of her cheek, the line of her mouth, the way her eyes creased when she laughed. He tried to hold it. He reached for her with his whole mind and found a shape where she had been, a warm, familiar outline with nothing inside.

The silver thorn on his wrist unfurled a second leaf. High in the palace, a bell tolled and fell silent.

Kael realized he was on one knee. Seraphine's hand was on his shoulder, her fingers tight, her face white.

"It is done," said Aurelian gently. "It is always harder than they expect." The coin vanished into his sleeve. He leaned close, his voice dropping to a murmur even the bride could not have heard. "And in return, a gift, freely given. The Devil does not wait at the gate, King Varyn. He never did."

Kael lifted his head.

"He is already in your palace. And he is wearing a face you trust."

Aurelian bowed with perfect courtesy and walked out of the vault.

Kael stayed on one knee among the golden swords, with the empty place in his memory aching like a pulled tooth. Slowly, he looked up at the faces around him. Captain Rowan at the door. Chancellor Dray, who had followed them down with a lantern. The High Priest. The Lord Marshal.

Any of them could be smiling.

Any of them could be him.