THE TITHE OF SILVER AND BONE

The twin iron blades strapped to Veylori's forearms rattled against her wrist-bones, humming a low, metallic pitch that set her back teeth on edge.

She flattened her spine against the nearest nyxostyle-one of the twelve twisted, floor-to-ceiling ribs of black volcanic glass that held up the vaulted ceiling-and looked down at her boots. Thick pads 0f damp grave-moss wrapped her soles, swalling the sounds of her shifting weight. Across the floor, a narrow bar of crimson light fell through a tall lancet window, creeping millimeter by millimeter toward a glass box at the center of the room. Inside that box, a fist size ruby expanded and contracted like a living lung.

"Grave-moss on leather," a low voice carried from the shadow behind the furthest nyxostyle. "Clever. It deadens the heel-strike. A pity you strapped two pounds of raw bog-iron to your arms. I could hear them singing through three feet of stone."

Veylori slid both daggers free of their sheaths in a single draw and dropped into a crouch. "Step into the light so I can see where to stick them."

Boots clicked against the stone-slow, unhurried. Malvoryn emerged from behind the spiral rib of black glass, his hands tucked loosely into the pockets of a dark, unlaced tunic. Pale skin caught the red glare of the eclipsed moon, revealing a jagged silver brand that started at his exposed collarbone and coiled up his jaw. When he tilted his head, rings of molten silver flared around the black centers of his eyes.

"You're shorter than the ward-mirrors made you look," Malvoryn said, stopping ten paces away. "And breathing much to fast. Did the cliff-climb tire you out, little moth, or are you always this jumpy in a man's bedchamber?"

"Keep talking," Veylori said, edging sideways toward the glass box while keeping her blades leveled at his chest. "Every second you waste admiring yourself is a second closer I get to that stone."

"Ah. The heart." Malvoryn's upper lip curled, exposing the sharp points of his canines. "Tell me, what does a mortal girl from the ash-slums plan to do with a relic that would burn her fingers off at the knuckles?"

"Sell it," she said.

"To whom? No merchant within five hundred miles has the gold to weigh against it," he said.

"I don't need gold," Veylori said, as her left boot touched the base of the glass pedestal. Without taking her eyes off him, she flipped her left dagger, preparing to smash the iron pommel through the lock. "I need a debt-stone for the Bone-Weavers."

Malvoryn's silver-ringed eyes narrowed a fraction. "The Bone-Weavers don't deal in credit unless they hold flesh as collateral. Who did they take? A lover?"

"My brother," she snapped, and swung the iron pommel down.

Before the metal could kiss the glass, the air between them popped like a thunderclap. Frost flashed across the floor, and a longsword formed of solid, black-veined ice slammed into her descending forearm, knocking her blow wide.

Veylori didn't curse; she pivoted into the deflection, slashing her right dagger horizontally at his ribs.

Malvoryn swayed backward. The iron tip sliced cleanly through the front of his black tunic, grazing the pale skin beneath. A thin line of silver-red blood beaded along his stomach, hissing and sending up a curl of white smoke where the irons residue bit into him.

He looked down at his cut shirt, then back up at her, his pupils dilating until the silver rings were barely visible. "You actually drew blood. In three hundred years, no assassin has managed more than a scratch on my sleeve."

"Hold still and I'll take the whole arm," Veylori panted, lunging low under his long ice-blade.

"Tempting," he murmured, parrying her left blade with a flick of his wrist that sent numbing cold up her elbow, "but I'm rather attached to it."

"Then get out of my way!" She kicked upward at his knee, forcing him to hop back a step, and pressed her advantage-left slash, right thrust, a spinning elbow aimed at his jaw. "You don't even use that ruby! It just sits in a box while my brother has forty-eight hours before they harvest his marrow!"

Malvoryn caught her spinning elbow in his bare palm. His skin was freezing at first touch, then blisteringly hot underneath. With a twist of his shoulders, he spun her around and drove her back against the nearest fluted nyxostyle, trapping her between the black volcanic glass and his chest.

"Forty-eight hours?" he breathed against her ear, his free hand pinning her right wrist above her head while his knee wedged between hers to block another kick. "Is that why you climbed a sheer ice-wall during a lunar eclipse? For a boy who probably lost his own soul at a dice table?"

"He's twelve!" Veylori snarled. She slammed her forehead forward into the bridge of his nose.

Bone crunched. Malvoryn grunted, silver-red blood was spilling over his upper lip, his grip loosening for half a heartbeat.

It was all she needed. Veylori wrenched her left arm free, hooked her heel behind his ankle, and threw her entire body weight forward. They crashed across the room, slamming directly into the glass pedestal. The case shattered into a thousand ringing shards. Veylori rode his momentum all the way into the central nyxostyle, pinning his spine against the twisted black column.

Her left forearm jammed hard across his throat. Her right hand drove the point of her cold-iron dagger through the gap in his tunic, stopping only when the steel pricked the center of his sternum.

At the exact same instant, a jagged spike of conjured ice pressed firmly against the pulsing artery under her jaw.

Both of them froze, chests heaving against each other in the red gloom.

"Drop the ice," Veylori whispered, her voice raspy. "You slit my throat, my weight still falls forward. Six inches of bog-iron goes through your breastbone before I hit the floor. Iron kills your kind for good," she said.

Malvoryn didn't pull his chest back from her blade. Instead, he inhaled deeply, letting his ribs expand against the sharp iron point until another drop of silver-red blood welled and sizzled against the metal. A low, ragged sound vibrated in his throat, his eyes dropping from her furious glare to her parted mouth.

"Go on then," he murmured, his blood-streaked lips curving into a slow grin. "Push it through, Veylori of the Third Ward."

Her fingers tightened on the hilt. "How do you know my name?"

"I know the name of every thief who buys grave-moss in the low market," he said softly. "Just as I know you didnt pick the locks on my outer gates tonight. Iron rusts my wards; it doesn't open them."

"The eclipse weakened them-"

"The eclipse only dims the upper spire." He tilted his chin toward the shattered remains of the glass case on the floor beside their boots. "Look down, little moth."

Keeping the iron tip buried a millimeter in his skin, Veylori flicked her gaze downward.

Among the broken glass, the fist-sized ruby was evaporating, curling into harmless wisps of red smoke that vanished into the draft.

Her stomach dropped. She snapped her gaze back up-first to his face, then down to the gap in his black tunic where her dagger rested. Beneath his pale skin, right behind the bone of his sternum, a heavy crimson light pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. Coiled tightly over that glow, etched directly into his flesh, was a glowing violet chain of interlocking runes.

"A bait-glamour," she hissed, pressing the iron harder until smoke curled between their chests. "The stone is inside you."

"Fused to my ribs by my own treacherous court two centuries ago," Malvoryn said, all mockery vanishing from his voice, leaving only rough, quiet heat. "If you carve it out of me, the stone goes dark before my body hits the stone. And a dead stone won't buy your brother a single breath."

"Then why let me through the gates?" She shoved her forearm harder against his windpipe. "Did you want an executioner?"

"I wanted a blade forged of mortal iron, swung by a girl who owes no fealty to any Fae bloodline." Slowly, Malvoryn opened his fingers. The ice-spike at her throat dissolved into cold water that ran down her collarbone. He raised both hands, leaving his chest completely open to her knife. "Look at the violet markings under your blade."

"A binding rune," she said, squinting at the faint purple light strangling the red pulse beneath his skin. "It's choking the stone."

"I chains me to this room,"Malvoryn whispered, leaning his head down until his forehead nearly rested against hers,his breath tasting of winter-mint and copper. "I cannot cross the threshold of this tower. I cannot walk down the mountain while the Bone-Weavers fatten themselves on my borders. And I cannot cut the chain myself-my own magic reinforces the lock every time I touch it."

Outside the lancet window, a razor thin line of blinding white light suddenly cut across the red floor. The earth's shadow was sliding off the moon. As the white light touched the base of the furthest nyxostyle, the black volcanic glass began to hum, sprouting three-inch needles of frost.

"Two minutes," Veylori said, her heart hammering against her ribs so hard she knew he could feel it through her tunic. "When that white light hits the door, the tower seals for seventy years."

"One minute," Malvoryn corrected, his silver-ringed eyes locked onto hers. "Slice that violet rune chain across my chest with your iron, and the lock breaks. Do it, and I wont give you a pebble to pay the Bone-Weavers. I will walk down into the Low Market beside you tonight, tear their doors off their hinges, and hand you your brother before dawn."

"Fae don't bargain at a loss." She didn't move the blade. "What happens to me when I cut it?"

Malvoryn reached down with one blood-stained hand and wrapped his long fingers around her gloved fist, guiding the razor edge of her iron dagger until it lay flat against the glowing violet chain on his skin. Even through the leather, his touch sent a jolt up her arm like static from a storm cloud.

"The magic requires a living scabbard until the next new moon," he said, his thumb brushing the bare skin of her inner wrist where her glove ended. "Cut it from the stone, and the tether jumps to the one holding the iron. For thirty days, if you walk more than a thousand paces from my side, both our hearts stop."

"Thirty days tethered to you?" Veylori let out a sharp, breathless laugh, though she didn't pull her wrist away from his thumb. "Your court locked you in here for a reason. The second we walk out that door, every noble in the spire will try to put an arrow through my back to stop your heart."

"Let them draw a bow," Malvoryn growled softly, his free hand coming up to cup the back of her neck, fingers tangling in her lose hair as the white moonlight crept over the toes of their boots. "They have forgotten what I am without a leash. Help me remind them."

The forest-needles crept up the nyxostyle behind his shoulders, crackling loudly. Thirty seconds left before the window sealed.

"You break your word about my brother," Veylori whispered, looking straight into his silver-ringed eyes, "and I'll walk two thousand paces into the sea and take us both down."

"I would espect nothing less, little moth, he breathed against her mouth. "Now cut me loose."

Veylori dragged the cold-iron edge hard across his sternum.

The violet rune-chain snapped with the sound of a breaking harp string. Malvoryn's head dropped back against the black nyxostyle with a guttural groan as a wave of silver-red fire erupted from his chest, blowing the lancet window outward into the night sky. Before the blast could throw her across the floor, his arm hooked around her waist, slamming her flush against the wet, searing heat of his skin.

A band of liquide silver light shot up the blade of her dagger, raced up her bare wrist, and coiled around the base of her throat like a warm hand-sinking into her skin until her pulse beat in exact, thunderous time with his.

When the smoke cleared, the night wind roared through the empty window frame. Malvoryn looked down at her, his chest heaving against hers, the glowing red pulse beneath his ribs now burning bright as a forge fire.

"Sheath your iron, Veylori," he said, his thumb tracing the new silver ring burned into her throat. "We have a market to burn."