Lightfall, p.10
LightFall, page 10
“Prince Aric,” she returned, just as softly.
Beside me, Zik made a breathless little noise. Fear for our lady? But when I gave him a tug, his eyes rolled toward me, wide and wistful. Was he imagining some sort of auric love match between the ill-fated couple, like this was one of the maudlin old ballads sung badly offkey?
The prince inclined his head. “Continue.”
The lead guard swallowed. “You can’t… That is, I think the haloria is not expecting you, Your Radiance.”
“Do you mean to say the haloria won’t face me?” The prince’s thin smile revealed no teeth.
But it was a neat trap. Either the guards renounced the haloria’s power to contain the prince and conceded that he might go wherever he wished, or they upheld the haloria’s omnipotence…and allowed him to go where he wished.
The guard—obviously coming to the same conclusion—didn’t respond, only marched past the prince at an angle. The other three guards also bent hard away from him, leaving as wide a swath around the prince as the hallway allowed.
Lady Dyania cast one last look at the prince as her guards bore her along, then Lisel waved Zik and I into motion. I too glanced back as the prince fell into step behind—a dishonorable position for a noble scion.
That hint of smile had dropped away, and the silver scars across his eyes made his focus impossible to determine. Yet I thought he watched us all with a terrible purpose and emotion I couldn’t comprehend.
Having him at our backs was unnerving, or maybe the guards were in a hurry to do their duty after that unexpected pause, but we hustled through the last corridor to another brilliant white arch, this one twice as high and flanked with more silkha pennants and more guards. They drew the doors wide at our approach and marched behind as we entered the haloric hall.
I should’ve been beyond impressed, but the light glared off the white tile was giving me a headache, and the relentless pressure of propriety was rattling my tongue loose. So even though we were parading right toward the haloric council, arranged in a high dais at the end of the hall, I leaned toward Lisel to whisper, “At least they won’t murder us where we stand since they’d never get our blood out of all this grout.”
She hissed me to silence, but from behind us, the prince said, “Done right, the haloria might drain your aura leaving no stain, and you’ll be dead all the same.”
I twisted around to gawp at him, remembering how he’d told me the dragon kept him from dying of his battle wounds, but Zik yanked my hand.
The haloric guard parted as we approached the dais, like a white wave splitting on a white shore, leaving Lady Dyania marooned in the center facing the holiest auras of the Living Lands. Five lors were seated in a half circle above us, resplendent in purist white of course, although the one in the center wore a diadem-like headpiece embedded with gemstones in myriad colors. The jewels gleamed all the more brightly against the white of her hair. She was mature but too young to have come by that absence of pigment honestly; she and the other lors bleached their hair to demonstrate their commitment to the path of purity.
Though the haloria had called this tribunal to judge Lady Dyania, all their attention was skewed off-center. Prince Aric had positioned himself there, not facing them, as if he had no particular interest in proceeding, as if he didn’t even realize—or maybe care—that he was in one of the purest places in the kingdom.
The silence stretched long enough to make me twitch with the burgeoning urge to say something just to break the deadlock. But I didn’t.
The imposing lor in the middle pursed her lips in annoyance. A white silkha scarf laced with spectrum threads coiled around her neck, keeping her chin high, although I doubted she needed any reminder of her eminence. “Prince Aric. Your presence was not bidden.”
He didn’t shift to face her. “I’d imagine not.”
She let out an audible harrumph. “Then what are you doing here?”
“Who better?” He finally twisted his head to stare toward the dais. I doubted any of them, even with their holy vision, could see through the scrim of ice in his eyes. The lor at one end of the dais—younger than the rest, probably only a few years older than the lady and I—shuddered.
“Prince Aric,” the crowned lor started.
“Numinlor Kalima,” he interrupted. “I witnessed the summoning, as did the others.” He flicked one finger toward Lisel, Zik, and me. “Do you not wish to know all the circumstances of the attack and our successful defense in bringing the cavalcade of Chosen Ones here to the High Keep, for the good of the kingdom?”
There was no particular challenge in his tone, but all the lors stiffened as if he’d slapped them across their faces, one after another in a row of humiliation.
The flush of anger in the crowned woman’s cheeks washed out her hazel eyes and clashed with the virtuous propriety of her mien. Stiffly, she faced forward, locking her glare on Lady Dyania. It occurred to me that perhaps having a sullen demon-touched prince as an apathetic ally would do no good for the lady—never mind the forthcoming death by Devouring.
To my surprise, Numinlor Kalima gentled her voice when she addressed Lady Dyania. “Chosen One of Sevaare. Your lord speaks highly of you in your letter of consecration to the Feast. We are grateful for your service and your sacrifice…for the good of the kingdom.”
The lady stood with her hands clasped in front of her. “My brother knows our duty to the High Keep and the war against the demon plague,” she said in a clear, steady voice. “I am here to fulfill that duty.”
The other lors nodded approvingly, but Numinlor Kalima pursed her lips again. “Rather more than that. You shed blood to summon the horde.”
I was close enough to the lady to see her knuckles blanch. “My own blood. Just as I’ll offer for the Feast.”
Numinlor Kalima steepled her hands. “Feasting the dragon under our guidance is nothing like rousing the horde with unbound auric purity.”
Lady Dyania bowed her head.
Was she not going to defend herself when she’d fought so fiercely to defend the rest of us? My feet moved me forward, and my tongue leaped to follow. “Please, most holies. She didn’t summon the horde,” I explained, in a tone of sincere reasonableness with what I hoped was an appeasing amount of entreaty. “The horde was already there, attacking us. Lady Dyania sought only to protect the cavalcade. Her blood in the candle gathered the demons together, for Prince Aric to sweep them away.”
Very slowly, the numinlor’s gaze shifted off the lady toward me, hovering over my head for a moment as if she couldn’t even see me before finally dropping down with a glare.
Maybe my sincerity was off? But I’d been glared at before, many times.
“And who are the rest of you?” The numinlor’s tone was as frosty as her hair and tighter than the scarf around her neck.
Lisel stepped in front of me. “I am Lisel Vreas, hartier commander. This is Feinan no’Sevaare, attendant to Lady Dyania, and Zik, attendant to the Chosen of Osiroon who was killed in Velderrey.” She straightened. “We witnessed the attack and the lighting of the rune.”
Numinlor Kalima gazed down. “Ah. Marshal Vreas’s youngest…” She paused. “We sorrowed to hear of the death of your brother. May his light shine.”
“The light remembers.” Lisel lowered her head.
I shifted impatiently. “The reason more of us didn’t die was because Sevaare’s Chosen knew what to do,” I said, drawing the haloric gazes my way, which was probably not wise, but that had never been a path I’d chosen.
There was no good reason for me to be so insistent; I had no particular loyalty to my lightkeep, and if anything, fighting for the lady’s survival only decreased the odds of my own. Maybe I still felt guilty for thwarting her failed escape attempt. Or maybe the betrayal of her family pricked me like a blade left unsheathed. Regardless, I’d spoken now to the most powerful auric force in our land—maybe more dangerous even than the Dragon Prince.
The numinlor’s sigh ruffled the diaphanous silkha scarf. “One at a time, witness for us. Lady Dyania?”
The lady told her part, with rather less drama than I liked in my stories and more references to ancient chronicles, until I would’ve yawned, but the holy ones arrayed in front of us nodded with sage interest, so perhaps her strategy was sound. She explained how, in remembrance of her eldest sister, she’d read about the kingdom’s history with the horde but had never attempted any reenactments of her studies, not before the attack on the cavalcade.
“And I never would have, except it seemed worse to have all the Chosen Ones taken by demons rather than serving the dragon to preserve the Living Lands.” She crossed her hands over the bright weave of her belt. “I feared that more than any risk to my own life.”
Numinlor Kalima gazed at her. “More than you feared facing a tribunal for the sullying of your aura?”
“I have no fear that you will rule rightly.” When the lady lifted her chin, the white strands shimmered in her black hair. “Since sating the dragon also means more than my life.”
I held back a snort at her subtle emphasis of my. Maybe the lady had fumbled the spelling of her rune, but she knew well enough, from shallowest prick to fatal blow, the worth of her blood—to the demons and to the haloria. With this inane questioning of her intentions, the haloria was only seeking to justify its existence by judging hers.
Lisel went next, with a drear account of the multitude of the horde and the cost to our cavalcade while reciting the strategies of the fight—losing though they’d been, until Lady Dyania took up King Ormonde’s dusty finger bone.
When my turn came, I had to admit, the haloria’s tribunal felt more like a market manager meeting than a hallowed judgment.
At least no one got executed at market manager meetings, hardly ever.
So I too kept my recounting succinct though at the end I repeated my opinion, “If not for the lady and the prince, we’d all be dead.”
Numinlor Kalima only nodded, then asked Zik, “Anything else?” as if us not being dead wasn’t enough.
He hunched his shoulders. “When the demons attacked, I ran into the night.” His voice shook. “But the lady brought the light, ya. Then the prince brought back the dark. So dark…” His whisper faded. “And now we’re here.”
Neh, that said it all.
The lors conferred among themselves, long enough to be tiresome. “A chair would be nice,” I muttered. “And a cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss either.”
Lisel hissed out another breath, much like a teapot at the ready. Zik sighed too.
“Prince Aric should witness,” the young lor at the end of the dais announced. He too had the bleached white locks of the holy, but it was clear his hair didn’t appreciate the treatment, and the brittle strands bristled around his head like the summer fluff of a spindrift flower. “He was there. He ended the attack. What point in having him if he doesn’t speak?”
Numinlor Kalima stiffened. “Lor Imbril, the demon is—”
“Is only half of him, and not the half with the tongue,” the young lor interrupted, shocking me with his effrontery—shocking the rest of the half-circle even more, it seemed, judging by the way they swiveled to aim their united glare at him.
If we’d waited for the haloria to formally invite the prince to share, I suspected we’d be there until even the demon horde gave up in boredom. But the prince stepped forward. “Captain Vreas had secured camp for the night, so I was patrolling ahead and missed the start of the attack. Based on what I saw when we returned, the reports you’ve heard here are truthful. Such a mass of demons lingering in Velderrey’s ruins could not have been expected. We should have had no trouble since nothing remains there to lure them.”
“Except for the lady’s blood,” Numinlor Kalima noted.
“Which, as the lady told you, was not tendered until the attack was already underway,” he shot back.
I glanced among them—the crowned lor and the young one, the damned prince and the doomed lady—and it seemed to me there were crosscurrents swirling around them that would take down the wisest mariner in Maru Deep. Blade to bone, I swear, somehow I’d found a path that made staying alive even trickier than the dankest alleys of Sevaare.
“If not for Lady Dyania’s lighted aura, I might not have returned in time for the beast to extinguish the horde,” Prince Aric said. “There would be no Feast, no Devouring. By the time another cavalcade was arranged, with enough Chosen Ones, it’s possible the dragon would have torn its bonds. And then the kingdom would fall.”
There was an odd timbre to his voice, almost imperceptible but I recognized it from the times when I’d made my own testimonies to Orton, sharing the purses I’d cut or flagons of wine I’d liberated from the backs of inadequately protected deliveries or snitching out the dinzah dealers in his domain—knowing it was how I stayed alive, knowing none of it would ever be mine. Wanting it.
Aric was the Dragon Prince, not a starveling urchin, but the undertone of desperate hunger and deep simmering rage felt the same.
The way Numinlor Kalima stiffened, she heard it too. Regardless, she gave a nod, so rigid I thought it might break her neck. “We’ve heard enough. Our ruling absolves Lady Dyania l’Hazan a’Sevaare of purposely summoning the horde.” Her gaze rested on the lady. “Unless it happens again, in which case we will reconvene—likely with a different judgment.”
She rose as did the other lors, but as they filed out behind the dais, the young one at the end, Lor Imbril, paused, looking back. “Lady Dyania, your grasp of demonic studies is admirable. Might I speak with you more about the bloodrune you invoked?”
She stood unmoving then gave a short nod, and he hurried after the rest of the haloria.
Only then did Lisel let out a breath, longer and harsher than the little hisses she’d been aiming at me. “Now tea.”
Lady Dyania glanced at her. “Something stronger, perhaps?”
“This way.”
We all jerked, looking over at the prince with varying levels of surprise and suspicion.
He held out one hand, and when we retreated through the pristine arched portal, the white guard slammed the big doors behind us with finality.
It has been said that the Lost Lands are a reflection in a broken mirror. Who broke the mirror?
~ From the writings of Lady Rasael l’Samelloch a’Cairnigul
CHAPTER 7
“THEY AREN’T GOING to sunder our auras for consorting with demons?” Zik whispered to me.
“Not yet,” the prince said.
Zik cowered, whether at the menace or just the man, I wasn’t sure.
Lady Dyania set a comforting hand on his shoulder. “The haloria wouldn’t punish you for my crimes. You are innocent.”
I wasn’t so sure about that either, whether she meant Zik’s innocence or the haloria’s mercy. Neither the little herder boy nor the sacred order had survived this long being as trusting as the lady.
And both mercy and innocence would be the first victims of misplaced trust.
But I kept those thoughts to myself.
As the prince guided us through the halls, it took me a few turns to map the main corridors to the servants’ back end, but I realized we were heading to one of the libraries. Since I’d peeked in before, I managed to hold back the eep of alarm, unlike Zik who caught one glimpse of the artwork within and ducked behind Lisel.
If I had to confess in front of the haloria, I would’ve admitted that I made the same noise during my previous night’s exploration.
The demonic paintings and statues were terrifying. How accurate they were, I had no idea, since my only exposure to demons so far—and hopefully ever—had been the nighttime attack, confusing and poorly lit. But the depictions here were…evocative. Sketched and carved into tortured configurations, with limbs spindly or squat, grasping and flailing, every unnerving iteration of insectile, reptilian, or avian metamorphosis mottled with scabrous naked flesh, evoking instinctive horror and disgust, the art—or maybe better to call it nightmare—crowded the room. Large paintings hung between massive shelves of books, and hulking statuary lurked in corners and behind pieces of the heavy furniture.
Almost as unnerving, a portrait of Ormonde was centered between two of the windows. In the painting, he was standing centered between the same windows. His expression was so dire he was probably looking at the same demonic depictions as were before us now.
One of his fancy sleeves hung empty at his side.
“A lovely place for that cup of tea and some whimsical poetry reading,” I said.
Lady Dyania drifted farther in. “These depictions are by King Ormonde himself of the demons he fought.”
In my nighttime roaming, I’d thought the paintings and statuary had been depicted in all shades of black, but some odd bounce of light off the lady’s white silkha gown revealed streaks of the darkest blue, green, and violet—an oil slick of malevolence in the deepest shadows. And when she leaned closer to examine some gory detail, that darkly warped rainbow seemed to bruise the delicate skin under her two-toned eyes.
Lacing my fingers together, I throttled the pointless impulse to grab her away from the evil enshrined. “Maybe if he’d focused on demon slaying rather than his artistic aspirations, we wouldn’t be here.”
She straightened. “It was he who called for the first Devouring.”
Neh, that shut me up.
“These aren’t all the works of Ormonde’s hand,” Prince Aric said from behind us. “Some of it he commissioned from artisans of his time, some done later from his descriptions.”
“After all, he only had one hand,” I muttered, since I couldn’t stay shushed for long, “and there are a lot of demons here.”
“Did he kill them all?” Zik whispered.
“If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have lived to describe them later.” The prince canted his head back, as if taking in the whole dreadful menagerie. “But there are many more, so many.”
I swallowed. “You’ve seen them too.”
He turned to me, his eyes whiter than winter sky. “Not all of them. Not yet.”
