Phantom Read online

  I eyed him the whole time, going over Damianos’ advice in my head.

  ‘Trust your vilas, the aniel...’

  Ava made it hard to trust her right now. Especially since she told me she was looking out for herself now.

  As for aniels?

  Plenty of aniels roamed the palace, more of them wandered the isles overseeing the Gods’ vessels, collecting taxes and fresh worshippers.

  But as for the ones around me, in my little life of captivity—I couldn’t trust any of them. Not Jasper, that was for sure. He was the Prince’s lapdog. His son, in a way.

  Adrik was giant walking, talking piece of crap if I ever saw one. Putting trust in his calloused hands would be like resting my head on the executioner’s block.

  Felicks was only my guard, and I didn’t know the names of the other guards shadowing me all the time.

  The only semi-decent aniel I could think of was the one who healed me after I was attacked. Xanthe, her name was. She didn’t belong to the Prince, that much I knew, but who she belonged to stayed a mystery.

  Of all the possible aniels Damianos could have meant, I knew it couldn’t be Jasper. Not with his diluted disdain for me.

  The aniel himself clapped his hands together lazily once all the essence from the silver goblet landed in the bracelet I held loosely.

  “Well done,” he said, but there wasn’t much meaning or care behind it. “Another easy success.”

  We were both bored of the lessons now.

  It showed in his faraway stare and detached tone. In me, it was in my Monster—I was so used to being attacked and lied to and forced to kill that I didn’t really lose sleep over it anymore.

  Me and Monster becoming one was the best advice the Prince ever gave me. Now, even though I wanted to live and would do whatever I could to survive, I just wasn’t as easily frightened as when I first got here.

  Jasper initiated the end of the lesson as he started to carefully pile the artefacts together.

  Within a week, I’d moved every single piece of power from one ancient item into another. Now, everything was new and old, and there wasn’t much else for me to do.

  He looked up at me, his head bowed as if still fixed on his menial task. “Can you hold power in your body?”

  “No.” I leaned over the edge of the table, studying the artefacts I’d seen too many times, even in my dreams. “I’ve tried to lately,” I added. “It doesn’t work.”

  Jasper nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face. After a moment, he said, “You’re the importer. Importers need vessels to store in.”

  “Great.” I choked on a disbelieving laugh. “I’ll go commandeer a ship on my days off from the Palace of the Gods.”

  His expression was light and amused. “What does the power feel like?”

  “Power feels like honey in its texture,” I said. “Hot and sticky and kind of heavy. As soon as I let something go—whether it’s a vilas or an amulet—the power just vanishes with it. The only time it didn’t work like that was when Prince Poison forced his poison into me.”

  I sighed and turned to look over my shoulder at the portrait who watched me with a deathly look on his painted face.

  “His poison ... it hooks into you, your bones,” I explained. “It doesn’t let go unless you have something to push it into.”

  Jasper watched me for a long, quiet moment. “The one power you can hold onto in your body is the power that’s least forgiving.”

  I followed his gaze when he finally looked away, to the Prince’s portrait instead.

  Moon-eyes seared across the worship hall at us. The Prince wasn’t pleased. His portrait, at least.

  Beside the Prince’s portrait, the black charred spot still stained all the golden and white hues of the wall, where Phantom’s portrait lived in all its destruction. And yet, it still wasn’t gone.

  The banished God was so despised that even his story was erased from all skriptas. He only existed in the tales of the other Gods.

  “Why don’t they just take it down?” I asked, and gestured to the black spot, which was encased in a charred frame.

  “They cannot,” Jasper said. “Every God fastens their own portrait to the wall. It’s unmovable.”

  I spun around to face him and pushed back from the table. “But apparently it’s flammable.”

  He didn’t crack so much as a smile. “Everything is flammable when it faces the wrath of the God, Blaze.”

  I let out a heavy breath.

  Jasper’s mood switched at the mention of Blaze, the God of fire and flames and lightning, the God who destroyed entire isles in blazes whenever the whim took him.

  Yet I didn’t think that the God, Blaze, was what turned Jasper’s mood sour.

  In the months since I’d been stolen away to this godforsaken palace, I learned that Jasper was such a flipper. One minute, we could actually have a chat, he might be warm, almost nice. The next thing I knew, he was as closed off as the secret doorways in the palace.

  After a moment, Jasper said, “We’re done for the day.”

  I shrugged. “The sooner I leave, the sooner you can run off and steal my best friend.”

  Jasper finally cracked a smile, though it bordered more on a smirk than anything. “I have nothing to steal from you if you do not possess it to begin with.”

  With that, he called the guards to escort me back to my room.

  The whole way, I fantasised about Jasper’s death.

  6

  Sheathed in my gauzy lilac dress, I stared down the crimson doors with more bravery than I felt.

  The last time Prince Poison summoned me to the saloon, I almost died, and I ended up killing a vilas just to save myself. So I hesitated for a beat, until Felicks reached around me and turned the handle, then pushed the door open.

  Smoke and regrets hit me instantly. I could taste them in the stale stink of smoke and the metallic tang of blood in the air. Still, there weren’t any corpses laying around this time, which I guessed was a good sign.

  Lazily, I wandered into the moody darkness, the sheer hem of my thin dress dancing over the plush black carpet.

  There might not have been lifeless bodies strewn about, but that didn’t mean the saloon wasn’t just as terrifying as it was the last time.

  Less worshipers lurked in the shadowy corners, as if hiding from the very ones they devoted their lives to, but I noticed some vilas over by the opium pipes.

  Most of them were half-dressed, men and women alike, and I spotted Lover Lust lounging between a man and a woman.

  The God wore a vicious grin that looked about ready to devour those around her, and she had her arms draped over the two vilas’ shoulders.

  I shuddered to think what would become of them when the flames died down in the gaslamps.

  Thankfully, I avoided the viciously beautiful God.

  Prince Poison was at a small green-felted table in the far corner, partly veiled by inky black and blood-red curtains.

  The closer I wandered to him, the better I could make out his two companions, whose faces were masked by darkness.

  Blaze, the God of fire, lounged in a leather chair opposite the Prince. He kept his narrow fire-red eyes on the deck of cards held loosely in his hand.

  Between them, sat a wispy woman who, at first, I mistook to be a particularly beautiful vilas, or even an aniel. But as I reached the heavy curtains, orange hues of the gaslamps licked up her porcelain pale face and my heart sank to my bum. She started to morph right before me.

  Slowly, her skin took on a dark tint like tanned leather, smooth and sun-kissed. White hair darkened and started to shorten from below her breasts all the way up to the behind her ears.

  It happened so quickly that in one blink of an eye, she was no longer who she had been, and now I was gawking at the familiar, stomach-flipping face of beauty and dreams.

  Damianos.

  His cutting blue eyes winked up at me as the Gods noticed my presence.

  I tried to steady my star
tled breaths and forced myself into a bow for the Prince.

  My eyes tried their hardest to drag back to Damianos, sitting calmly between the Prince and Blaze, but I wrestled myself to focus.

  Still, the Prince studied me curiously, without so much as a simple greeting or nod of the head. Then he turned his deadly gaze on Damianos.

  Without looking at me, the Prince asked in an icy voice, “Who do you see, Valissa?”

  I see Damianos. I see the one that is promised to be hidden from you.

  It was a trick, and the bells screaming in my mind warned me off truth-telling. But if I hesitated too long, I didn’t doubt that the Prince would tear my wrist open just to taste my blood and pry into my memories.

  I answered with the first name that came to mind—

  “Moritz.” My voice held the breathiness of my frozen insides. Fear bolted to my gut and I fought off a dizzying wave. “My brother,” I added and looked at the Prince. “I see my brother.”

  The Prince leaned back in his chair and beheld me. Calculative gleams danced in his eyes as his lashes lowered, casting dangerous shadows down his cheeks.

  “Your brother,” he echoed darkly. “Your blood speaks of him often. Tell me, Valissa. Is your brother dead or alive? I can never be sure.”

  Shame flooded my cheeks. “Sometimes I forget,” I admitted. “He died from the fever years ago. I don’t always remember that.”

  I get confused.

  That was what Ava told me sometimes. Just a bit of confusion. Nothing to worry myself about.

  “Look again,” the Prince commanded.

  I flicked my attention back to Damianos. Only, he was gone now. In his place sat the woman I’d first seen before the change had happened.

  I knew in my gut who this God was. Fear forced me into a bow, but I was careful not to dip lower than I’d done for the Prince.

  “Loki,” I muttered, half to myself, partly to let the Prince know that I was all too aware of his companion’s true identity.

  The notorious God, Loki. Male or female, no one truly knew. The skripta was never clear on this God. Maybe she was both man and woman, I wondered.

  Not unlike Zealot, Loki would first appear to be someone else to a vilas. Only, the Zealot would come to vilas as someone they trusted most in the world, and everyone around would be tricked by the true shape-shifting power.

  Loki was different.

  I looked at her and saw Damianos, a secret pried from me, a man I desired. I looked at Loki and saw who my heart yearned for. Such was the tale, at least.

  Only I could see Damianos in that split moment. No one else could see him, not even Loki herself, because she was not a true shape-shifter. She was a trickster—a deceiver. One of her all too many powers.

  “You know your skripta.” Prince Poison offered his hand to me, sheathed in white leather. “Come to me.”

  Without much heart or care, I dropped my hand onto his and let him draw me onto his lap.

  A wrinkled black shirt, unbuttoned halfway, hung off of him, and I wondered how long he’d been in the saloon, gambling and drinking whatever the Gods got drunk on. Probably the souls of the innocent.

  The Prince draped his arm around my waist carelessly.

  My legs hung over the edge of the chair, the Prince’s firm chest pressed against my arm, as he fiddled absentmindedly with one of his aniel cards.

  I fell silent at the sight of the familiar face on the card.

  Felicks.

  I didn’t know him very well, but as far as his duties went, he did decent work of shadowing me whenever it was his shift. And he wasn’t a complete ass, so I wasn’t too keen on the Prince betting and possibly losing this aniel.

  Neither was the God, Blaze. He glanced at the card that the Prince considered, and shook his head.

  But it was Loki who said, “Distracted by your talented little vilas?” Her smile was unnerving. “Blaze raised the stakes to class one aniels.”

  As if to check, the Prince turned his gaze on the betting pile, where unfamiliar faces scowled or winced up at us. At least they didn’t weep like the vilas cards did.

  I picked at the edge of the green-felted table as the Prince thumbed through his hand of cards. Shock froze me when he flicked out a familiar card and tossed it onto the betting pile.

  Jasper looked as stunned as I felt, even in his little card.

  I couldn’t stop myself from shifting on the Prince’s lap and shooting him a baffled stare.

  “Jasper?” I whispered. “Really?”

  If I overstepped, the Prince didn’t make an issue of it. He smirked his dangerous look at me.

  “You underestimate my skills,” he said, a lightness to his tone that told of a buzz, like liquor or opium.

  Blaze toyed with a lone flame that danced over his fingertips. “How do you think he acquired Jasper?”

  “I thought you made him,” I whispered.

  They were talking to me, involving me, but they were Gods. I had to remember that, I had to keep my voice low and respectful, and never look at one in the eyes too long.

  “Jasper is a prize,” said Blaze. The hunger for that ‘prize’ made the flame burn brighter on his fingertips. “The sole trophy of Phantom’s defeat.”

  A knot suddenly appeared in my stomach.

  Jasper is Phantom’s aniel?

  A rush of memories flooded me like knives to the gut. Every time I mentioned or looked at the charred wall where Phantom’s portrait had been before Blaze scorched it, Jasper went quiet or snipped something at me. I’d always mistaken his cutting attitude for moodiness. Now, I wondered if it was sadness.

  His value suddenly made so much sense, too. If he was the only aniel of a God, he held more power within him, and the rules of the God’s cards bound Jasper to his new master.

  I let out a heavy breath at the thought of Jasper’s silent suffering, but my shock was hardly noticed.

  Loki’s eyes lit up. “Keep your pet aniel,” she teased, and her glittering gaze shifted to me. “Bet this one’s card instead.”

  I blinked, looking between the three Gods. Icy fear ran through my veins and I stiffened in the Prince’s loose hold.

  Prince’s smirk turned dark and tickled my belly with flutters of terror and relief. I could sense the protective glare to his look.

  “Some things are too valuable to be bet in a midnight game,” he said.

  I slitted my eyes. “But in a daylight game?”

  His face shuttered.

  Maybe I pushed it too far. I stilled, waiting for his reaction. But he simply turned his attention back to the game before he won the hand.

  I wondered if a secret power of his was to trick the odds.

  I watched, mostly in silence, as they gambled dozens of cards each, both aniels and vilas. The Prince kept his loose hold on me for hours. He didn’t even let me go when I started to squirm and fidget and my eyes were drooping.

  After a while, I began to slump against the Prince, balancing between sleep and danger alert. Sleeping around Gods wasn’t the greatest idea.

  Luckily, that was when he summoned my guards to escort me back to the boudoir. But before I was allowed to leave, the Prince drained some of my blood for his empty glass.

  When I got back to my bedchamber, Damianos—the real one—didn’t come to me. I made sure to leave the window bars locked. For once, I wanted an uninterrupted sleep.

  Still, even when I was layered under blankets and sheets, I couldn’t shake the night from my mind. One thing that stuck with me was what Loki had teased.

  ‘Keep your pet aniel. Bet this one’s card instead.’

  Me.

  My card.

  First, I dreaded the thought of the Prince even having a card with my face on it. But that wasn’t what spooked me.

  Loki and the Prince had put my value far above Jasper’s, the sole aniel of the banished and loathed God, Phantom. There couldn’t be many aniels with the same worth as Jasper, and yet I was the one considered the ultimate treas
ure.

  Maybe it was because I was new or an anomaly?

  But it was because of the reactions of the Gods that night that I truly believed something I realised a while ago.

  I’m no vilas.

  I couldn’t be, it just wasn’t possible. A vilas couldn’t survive what I had.

  My thoughts stretched back to that night with Ava.

  ‘Gods don’t bleed.’ Ava’s fingernails cut into my skin. ‘Aniels don’t bleed. Vilas do.’

  The fractures in our relationship came from that night, came from her accusations about what I truly was. And I’d rejected her out of fear for what it could all have meant.

  But Ava was right. Something I wanted to rush and tell her. Something I needed to talk to her about. But since our spat a weeks ago, we just hadn’t found our way back to each other.

  I’d tried, a lot.

  After I cornered her in her room, I just didn’t feel like trying anymore. I’d done what I could. And if I had to face my life in this palace alone, then I’d better make stronger allies.

  7

  I was eating what Nalla called ‘bacon’ (it came from some foreign-isle animal) when Jasper let himself into my room.

  Nalla paused braiding my hair.

  My gaze landed on Jasper as he shut the door. I cocked my eyebrow, mouth half-open and a forkful of pink meat at my lips.

  Jasper waltzed straight to the trolley of breakfast foods and fruits, not bothering to even glance my way.

  I dropped the fork to the porcelien plate. It landed with a clatter that prickled my bones.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Almost as soon as I heard my barbed tone, a knot of guilt sprung to life in my chest. It was only last night that I learned of his twisted life. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be Jasper; to be the one aniel of a powerful God, only to be traded and lost in a gamble of cards, then see your God banished and not be able to go with him.

  Worse, he was forced to live under the rule of a God who helped banish his true God.

  For a fleeting moment, I resonated with his pain.

  I lived in a palace riddled by Gods and aniels, those who tortured me, killed my mother, tried to kill me, kidnapped me, and kept me like a trained pet. Despite all of that, I had to just deal with it to survive.