Lightfall, p.3
LightFall, page 3
High above the threadbare branches, the moon winked between scudding clouds. The crack across its pallid face was like a sly, black smile, but the charcoal sky was otherwise empty.
I yanked the door shut. On the other side of the carriage, Lady Dyania tugged the embroidered curtain across the window.
It wasn’t so late—this time of year, the way the setting sun drifted down at an angle behind the far mountains meant a lingering twilight—and I’d never done well with idleness. On a lazy day, my mind sometimes roamed into trouble. So I settled on the floor and sorted through our provisions again, partly to occupy my hands but also to show the lady our reduced situation. She didn’t move from her corner, though I knew she was watching me.
After I had given all the water tins a careful shake and set them aside with the food, she rose somewhat unsteadily from the cushions and crossed to the tiny privacy chamber tucked into the front of the carriage.
“Be quick with your purifying,” I reminded her. “Stopping at night will double our time on the road, and being thirsty is worse than going hungry.”
In answer, the panel slammed between us.
With a shrug, I selected a few items from the supplies and retreated to my bench.
Eventually she emerged with droplets of water still beaded on her eyelashes. Her artful braids, which had been disarranged in tussling with her attendants and lolling on the carriage floor, were knotted back again. But the colorful threads woven through, representing all the auric hues, were dulled in the fitful sconce light. Since the cavalcade was halted, the surge of the earthbone dwindled—like a barge docked off the river into a sluggish side channel. The lamps and heater, and the pump and incinerator in the privacy chamber wouldn’t work as well.
The lady aimed her critical glare at my hands. “Wash—with soap—before we eat. Then I will cleanse our auras.”
I huffed. “I don’t need—”
She pointed at my hands, then at the privacy chamber. With another puff, feebler this time, I did as she ordered.
The wash water barely warmed, but it was more than I usually had. And the soap smelled good—herbs and flowers blooming out of season. I left sudsy water in the basin and soaked my fingers to dissolve the grime and absorb the perfume.
I used some extra water to rinse; the lady’s fault for making me feel judged.
She had unfolded a clever little table from the side of the carriage, and a light meal awaited, including a few slices of the speridia, rehydrated and plump. Squeezing into the seat across from her, I reached for a piece.
“Put your hands on the table,” she snapped.
I froze, then did so. After she appraised my nails, she raised her two-toned gaze to mine. “Shall I say the blessing?”
Apparently I’d passed inspection. But I was surprised she asked permission for the auric cleansing. She’d seemed so insistent before. “As you please.”
I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d sought a blessing for any endeavor, much less a simple meal. Blessings could be bought, but I didn’t have such coin, and even I wouldn’t steal a blessing. I might not be devout but no sense risking damnation.
She intoned an invocation and waved a palm-sized version of the sanctified silkha pennants over the table. Why would even a noble scion waste auric purity on such paltry offerings?
Except what else did we have to do, trapped out here on the empty road on the way to a Devouring?
She finished with a last whisper: “And as the amaranthine light everlasting remembers, may all its hues brighten the Living Lands.” She spread her fingers in the final gesture of the prayer. “Blade to bone, breath after breath, now and forever.”
Meanwhile, I was reaching for the rind. For all her refined manners, she was only half a beat behind me—or maybe she thought I would take it all. No doubt she was used to eating first and her fill. Neh, that wasn’t her life anymore, however long she had left.
We didn’t speak over the repast of soft, savory bread and hard, sharp cheeses. But I oohed with delight when she opened a small, fabric-lined box she must have found hidden away and showed me wintryberries. The tiny white fruit dissolved on my tongue, so sweet and delicate.
The lady gave me a crooked grin, more sad than mocking. “Never had wintryberries?”
I shook my head. “Good thief I am, but not enough to brave the l’Hazan gardens. And as tasty as these are, they wouldn’t keep me from hunger, nor would anyone I know risk the wrath of Sevaare’s lord just for a taste of summer in the coldest months.”
She popped one berry into her mouth then nudged the small box toward me. “Enjoy. Without risk or wrath.”
My hesitation was unseemly short, but she had offered, and since most of my pleasures were even smaller than the berries, I’d take what I could. They disappeared faster than snowflakes in flame.
“I’m surprised Ula and Jensim didn’t take the berries.” Lady Dyania grimaced. “They absconded with everything else of worth.”
“Except you,” I pointed out. When the lady didn’t seem to appreciate that particular honor, I shrugged. “They were in a hurry to get away.”
“While you took their place.” The lady’s dark eye narrowed. “Why?”
“They didn’t want to go to the High Keep, and I did.”
“Why?”
I sat back with my tin of herb water. Not as delightful as wintryberries, but a treat nonetheless. “Because I have nowhere else to be.”
Either she didn’t really care or my answer unmasked a truth that require no further inquiry. “So here you are,” she mused. “After scheming with my craven attendants, you should’ve at least negotiated appropriate accouterments to present yourself as my maid.”
“Maid?” I wrinkled my nose. “Heyo, my aura would fool no one, even if I clad myself in procession pennants and wove spectrum threads between my toes. Anyway, there was no bargaining about our swap. You opened the carriage door in front of me, and that was that.”
“Such purity of luck for you.”
“Not much use for luck, pure or otherwise,” I refuted. “I’ve found opportunity serves me better.”
“So you said before, when you claimed I still have a chance.” She lifted her chin. “But when I would’ve leapt from the carriage, you were in the way.”
“You hesitated,” I shot back—with a bit more indignation than was warranted because the twinge of guilt didn’t sit well with the wintryberries in my gut.
To my surprise—and more guilt—she glanced aside. “Maybe I did.”
After a moment, I sighed. “Most would have. From scion to street is a harsher fall than one step out of a carriage.”
“And now it’s too late. One step beyond the road is death.”
“Not necessarily. My family traveled the kingdom, carrying wares and words between lightkeeps, and though they didn’t have the auric power to call on the earthbone, they made a living for themselves.” As far as I remembered. My chest tightened.
“I wouldn’t know how to sell song or stock.” Again she sounded more sad than derisive.
Neh, it wasn’t like I’d taken that path either.
With nothing else to do, I cleared the little table, brushing the crumbs into my palm which I surreptitiously tipped into my mouth. Waste not.
Without the flow of the earthbone, the carriage chilled. Though the attendants had purloined the better bits of finery, they’d left behind cumbersome lap blankets and an embroidered cloak, so we bundled up snug enough, each on our respective bench.
When I reached out to extinguish the flickering sconce, the lady murmured, “Leave it.”
Though I itched at the unnecessary consumption and the command, I again did as she asked. And maybe for this one task I didn’t mind. Light alone wouldn’t repel demons, but it felt like some protection.
Or at least we’d see our end coming?
As I nestled under the blanket, breathing warmth into the heavy felt, I said my own little nighttime words—not a prayer, or even a wish, really, just a reminder to myself not to dream.
Because sweet dreams were even more rare and less sustaining than wintryberries, not to mention riskier to reach for. Dreams hadn’t gotten me through years of loneliness and danger in Sevaare, and I suspected the High Keep would be as unforgiving. But this chance might never come again.
I hadn’t hesitated before, and I wouldn’t now.
+ + +
From a restless sleep, I woke to my bladder’s complaint. Too much tea. On the other bench, Lady Dyania was hidden except for a few black braids and the one white one fanned atop the embroidered cloak, as if holding the protection to her.
I used the privacy chamber quietly. Easy now to be quick with the water since it was icy after the night’s inactivity. I lit the sanctified prayer candles—meant for the Chosen’s last prayers, as if that mattered—before diving back under my covers. Even small flames would allay the chill until the cavalcade got moving again. The metal cups were pierced into swirling patterns, and the dance of light through the holes mesmerized me back into sleep with the fragrance of temple blessings.
Muffled sounds from without warned me shortly before the rap came at our own carriage. Before I could rise to open the door—reluctant anyway to let out our meager warmth—the hartier’s gruff voice reached through. “Sevaare arise. We leave with the sun.”
I nudged aside the curtain, though there was nothing much to see. Lady Dyania unpeeled the covers to just below her chin, her pale fingers blanched even whiter with her grip. Her eyes, dark and light, staring upward, were rimmed in red. Had she slept at all, or just cried through the nocturnal hours? If so, I hadn’t heard her. Not that I had any words or way to console her.
“If they won’t travel the earthbone at night, it’s because they fear the path bends to the Lost Lands without the guidance of light. This with the first Devouring in three hundred years…” Her fingers spasmed although her gaze never shifted from the filigreed pattern above her. “What is coming?”
“Trouble, I suppose, which is commonplace enough.”
“Not like this.” Her voice dropped to the merest whisper. “Nothing like this.”
Her fatalism annoyed me. Unfair, since her path would be fatal. But demons and Devouring and doom aside, I finally had a chance to find what had become of my family, to change what might become of me.
Although if she was right about something worse…
What was I supposed to do about that? I had nothing to offer. An entire cavalcade of the purest scions in the kingdom would sate the Dragon Prince and bind his captive demon for another thousand years, and they would fight back the horde, and all would be well without me, certainly.
So I told her, “If you have morning purification, it’s harder to bump around the toilet when the carriage is moving.”
In reply, she pulled the cloak over her head.
A day with the silent, condemned Chosen stretched ahead, more gray and forbidding than the road. Once we got moving, the auric flow of the earthbone powered the utilities, and Lady Dyania had to shed her covers when the carriage heated. But she kept one of the prayer pennants draped over her face, like a shroud when she wasn’t even dead yet.
Eventually she disappeared into the privacy chamber and didn’t come out for a long while. I found the hidden catch for the little table and set up a small meal then waited.
When she came out, she looked at the food, not much different from yesterday. “I’m not hungry.”
“But the Dragon Prince will be.”
As if I’d slapped her, blood darkened her cheeks. “You dare—”
“If you don’t want to feed the monster, you’d better be strong enough to fight it.”
There was nowhere to go in the carriage—except back to the toilet—so she sat across from me again. “I can’t fight.”
She was maybe a little taller than me, but fine-boned and just fine in general. Had she ever swung a fist with intent? Or even screamed? Except when they’d imprisoned her while waiting for the pikes of the High Keep guard.
I pursed my lips to one side. “I myself prefer to run away. Deny, blame, flee, mostly in that order, has kept me alive. But I could show you a move or two for when you’re cornered. Maybe you can’t win, but—”
“I can’t fight at all,” she interrupted. “If the Chosen refuses, the dragon may escape the pure auric bonds woven through the centuries to contain it, and it will rampage. Should I save myself just to watch the horde amass and overrun our walls, lightkeeps consumed one by one, until the Living Lands wither to dust and demon seed?”
Her words conjured ghastly images in my mind. “And that’s all upon you?”
“When I had the chance to escape the carriage, I faltered. Maybe I was weak, too afraid to take that step. But I thought about it all this last, long night.” Even her pale eye clouded. “Comes the Devouring, I can be the next to lose, or the last, but if the Dragon Prince falls to the monster, with him falls the kingdom.”
I slumped back. “I…didn’t think about it like that.”
“You didn’t have to think about it at all.” This time, her tone was sad and mocking, but I couldn’t bristle.
Because she was right. I’d only ever had to watch out for myself, save myself. I’d never been chosen for anything. Instead, I’d been left behind.
We both picked at the food. Afterward, Lady Dyania huddled in her seat, staring out the window. In the afternoon, the road finally left the claustrophobia of the forest for the expanse of the Widening Leas.
The vast, empty plain spread below the Argonyx Mountains from where the High Keep ruled over the kingdom. My family would have never traveled this way—the trading paths wended mostly between the lightkeeps and the freeholds on the periphery of the kingdom—but I’d heard stories all my life.
Here in the open heart of the Living Lands, a thousand years ago, the independent lightkeeps sent their emissaries to weave an accord uniting them against the horde released from the Lost Lands by an evil mage seeking to seize power for himself. They joined weapons and wisdom and the power of the pure-souled to fight the demons.
And they won. For generations, the lightkeeps sent their most brilliant lights to Velderrey on the leas, weaving together their brightest threads from sunset mountain to sunrise sea, and all was well.
Until the Great Gorging, when three hundred years ago, verges broke again across the world. Ravaging demons left the leas in empty ruins, but Ormonde, a ninth-facet master of the diamonde light, tricked and trapped the demon dragon. With his auric might, he twisted the monster’s dark power upon the horde and annihilated them, saving the kingdom and becoming king of all the Living Lands.
Ever since, a descendant of Ormonde’s line ruled from the mountain stronghold and protected the lightkeeps below from the hellish horde. Surely that wouldn’t change now?
The earthbone carried us along, numbing in the lull of its sway. Time passed in strange skips with the pale sun arcing unevenly in the gray sky. The flow kept the lights and warmer powered, but sometimes a thin, cold whistle of wind leaked through; a reminder our silverleaf bubble of idle luxury would soon end.
When the sun was at its peak—not to say high at this time of year—a few steeples of rock emerged from the sere grasses. I pressed my cheek against the window to peer ahead as broken towers surrounded us.
“The remains of Velderrey,” Lady Dyania whispered.
Before the Great Gorging, Velderrey had been the most magnificent lightkeep on the Widening Leas, where all the lightkeeps sent their scions and scholars, wards and warriors, ambassadors and bards. A multitude of demonic verges had burst here, so it made sense the earthbone roads would flow this way. Still, my nerves itched at the thought of journeying through the thousands dead, not just in that old battle but in the hundreds of years since.
Worse, the cavalcade eased to a halt.
The lady and I exchanged alarmed glances.
I gulped down a breath. “Please tell me I missed some very large weapons stashed with the wintryberries.”
She shook her head. “The Chosen go without their own protection.”
I laid a surreptitious hand on the knife tucked deep in my boot—and the other knife tucked deeper in my other boot.
When our hartier guard knocked, I opened to find her on high alert, scanning the bleak surroundings even as she said, “We pause here for the night.”
“Wait,” I sputtered as she turned to go. “It’s still daylight. You told us we only stopped for the dark hours.”
“Captain Vreas’s orders. Our progress is slower than we’d hoped, so we’ll push the last stretch across the plains in a full day.”
“But stopping here of all places?” I followed her uneasy glance around.
“It’s refuge, as much as we’ll find.”
“But it’s haunted,” I blurted.
She sighed. “Then maybe a few more auras won’t attract unwanted attention.”
That didn’t reassure me at all, and all my nerves itched with agitation. “Might we stretch our legs before sunset? We’d not go far, obviously.”
Another mistrustful stare—at me this time. “Don’t stray from this square. Some paths go…elsewhere, and it’s nowhere you want to be.”
“No straying,” I repeated obediently. “My name is Feinan. What may I call you?”
“I’m Lisel, but don’t call on me for anything. I can’t get you more wine or dinzah, nor find you better employment in the High Keep after…” She glanced away. “After. Stay close, touch nothing, and don’t breathe too deep.”
“No breathing.” I shot her a grin.
Shaking her head, she strode away.
“Don’t go.” Though we’d rested all day, the lady’s voice was as weak as when she woke from the drugging.
“Not far,” I assured her. “I just want to see.”
“Looking for opportunity here? All was lost three hundred years ago.”
“Time enough for another chance to arise,” I pointed out.
A hard shake of her head made her braids fly. “Another chance to lose everything.”
