Lightfall, p.33
LightFall, page 33
Although perhaps we could repurpose them for a luminarca before tomorrow night’s Devouring.
I slipped up behind him. “Loooor Imbril, you are forgiiiven,” I said in a sepulchral voice. “But you should be nicer to thieving waifs who are just trying to get by in this haaaard world.”
Jerking up straight, he scooted awkwardly in a half circle as his robe snugged tight around his knees. He wrinkled his nose. “Oh. It’s you.”
“Maybe the auric ancestors were speaking through me,” I told him. “You don’t know.”
“I’m sure if the auric ancestors sounded like tavern wenches with head colds calling out their wares, someone would’ve mentioned it in a scroll somewhere.”
I snorted. “Tavern wench? At least I have moved up to gainfully employed in your estimation.” Since he hadn’t risen—bound by his tangled hem and probably too stiff from all the hours Kalima had kept him here on his knees—I dropped to a crouch beside him. “Are you all right? Lady Dyania will want to know.”
A flush of hectic color chased around his face, and I felt a little bad in evoking the name of his temptation right here in his own house of spiritual purity. Neh, maybe he’d feel stronger for it.
He glanced around even more warily than I had, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy. The bruise on his cheek had bloomed and was starting to fade, like a muddier rainbow, the light everlasting spilled in the blood under his skin. “The numinlor is furious,” he whispered. “She thinks I was tempted to betray her because…because of Lady Dyania.”
I let out a gusting sigh though the crystal sheaths around the candles kept them from flickering. “How could Kalima be so wrong to think that when it’s obvious you would never?”
Unlike the candles, his expression flickered quickly between gratification that I believed him, dismay that I was questioning his superior, and sorrow that we both understood that he had no chance at wooing our lady. His sigh was much smaller than mine. “I don’t know which way to turn. All these lights around me and yet my path lies in darkness.”
Again, I suffered through a twinge of sympathy for the fussy little lor. “It’s not the end to walk in shadows when you must,” I told him. “You can carry your own light, even if it’s a meager one.”
His lower lip jutted, then he blinked. “I suppose…you’re right. But I always thought I was here to lend my light to brighten the haloria’s glow.”
We both sat there a moment, maybe contemplating how that sounded just a bit too much like feeding auras to a demon dragon.
“You were following the king’s command,” I reminded him. “It’s not your fault you didn’t realize the king and his advisors aren’t in alignment with the numinlor.”
He winced. “How could I be so oblivious?”
I thought about that too, although the answer was easier. “Because they wanted you to be.” Pushing to my feet, I held a hand down to him. “But now that you know, you can’t unknow.”
He eyed my hand for a moment, then grimaced and put his palm over mine. “Maybe with enough dinzah?”
Leaning back, I levered him up. “Not enough in all the Living Lands, I think.” I steadied him when he staggered, grimacing more as sensation returned to his cramped limbs. “But may I interest you in a certain sort of drunken elation at realizing you are in possession of valuable stolen goods?”
He peered at me. “But I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”
“That’s what I always say too.” I squeezed his hand and let him go.
He sighed again. “Tell Lady Dyania I am fine. She doesn’t need to worry about me or anyone else, not if Kalima insists on the Devouring.”
There wasn’t going to be a Devouring, but I nodded. “One other thing…” I explained that I was in search of the missing luminarca scroll.
“Kalima asked me to bring it to her.” He hovered one fingertip over the bruise on his face. “She was afraid someone would take it, misuse it.”
I held back a curse. How could he still be so oblivious? “She had you take it to make sure we didn’t use it at all,” I said with strained patience.
His fingers sagged down to his agape jaw. “Why would she do that?”
After a moment’s contemplation telling him exactly what I thought of his haughty holy superior, I shook my head. “We just need it back. Where is it?”
“I was straightening the library, and the haloric guard came on her orders. They told me to bring the scrolls. So I did and gave it to her.”
“So she took it and…?” I prodded.
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re going to steal it?”
“She stole it first.” I said that a lot too. “She must have a place for her treasures. Us thieves always do. Where is that?”
Imbril squirmed. “I don’t… That is, I’ve not been there myself…” When I crossed my arms and tapped the toe of my boot, he huffed out a breath. “There’s a hall in the white tower where the haloria used to gather for blessings. Kalima had it locked long ago, before I became lor. Berindo and the elders complain about it sometimes since there’s apparently a very hot pool that was delightful for soaking after prayers.”
I held back a snicker, thinking the lors would not appreciate knowing they likely soaked in the same subterranean waterways as the demon-touched prince.
Of course, that meant I’d gotten blessings all over me. Neh.
“Where is this hall?”
He balked. “It’s locked.” When I just gave him a meaningful stare, he squirmed some more. “Feinan—”
“You can stay here and pray for my poor besmirched aura. Unless you want to come with me?”
With his directions if not his approval, off I went.
Strangely enough, my night wandering around the obsidian spire gave me a better sense of the haloric hall. In fact, the towers were almost mirror images of each other, although the haloric tower was finished in white tile instead of black stone which helpfully reflected the small finger lamp I ignited. I found the locked doorway along the same passageway that would’ve led to the prince’s soaking pool and that also connected to the corridor that in Aric’s lair led to the sleepers’ deep cavern.
All threads interwoven, all ways connected…
At least until they were cut.
Tinkering with the lock on the barrier was easier than it should’ve been, and I was prepared to be disapproving until I considered that breaking into the numinlor’s vault was probably a sin as well as a delinquency, and perhaps that should’ve proved some additional safeguard. But even as I thought it, the pins tumbled and the latch turned under my animdao blade.
Too late now. With a helpless shrug, I let myself in.
Some part of me expected the polished tile to give way immediately to the rough stone, but instead, it continued within. And somehow, that made me more uneasy.
Maybe because I felt more concealed in shadows. Against this shining white, I was thoroughly exposed.
Best be quick then.
I sped to the pool chamber, half suspecting Kalima had made it her own private retreat and that was why the other lors were locked out.
But unlike the serene chamber Nenzo had made for his lord, this place had obviously been all but abandoned some time ago. The circular pool in the center was recessed into the floor, with a beautiful mosaic of intricately shaped tile arranged in a woven design around it, but some of the tiles were cracked, chipped, or missing, so the pattern was flawed. And the water…
A murky scrim of algae clung to the sides, and occasionally, a gob of gray-green gunk bubbled up, so different from the silvery bubbles in the prince’s pool. A rank stench wafted toward me, and carried on slow, obscured currents, the algae blobs circled to the edges, clumping up above the tiles in a few places as if trying to climb out.
Holding my breath, I skirted the edges of the pool. The water circulating through the mountain, driven by hidden fires in the depths, must go everywhere, so how could it get so stagnant?
Three columns tall enough to touch the ceiling ringed the putrid water. The oddly lustrous stones seemed to pulse with a gentle glow, and I aimed my finger lamp up into the shadowed heights, trying to see where the columns must be channeling the hazy winter daylight from outside. This place might’ve been beautiful once. Maybe the columns had supported silkha draperies or the like, but now the rings of woven metal circling the upper reaches had corroded, looking more like the ugly chains that had bound Gryner and the other demon-touched in the cloister. Other than the pool and the columns, the chamber was empty—no shelves or storage cubbies, no padded bench to display my wet and naked self to an aghast lor. Also no place to tuck a scroll or two, unless Kalima had submerged them, which I hoped wasn’t the case, so I hurried on.
Hurrying through, I followed the straight-hewn corridor to an empty chamber. In the black spire, this cavern was where the sleepers languished. Here…nothing.
With a sigh, I almost turned around. Maybe Kalima had kept the stolen scroll with her? But I kept pushing forward with grim determination. I would find the scroll that would tell us how to end the war against the demons.
Yet another locked doorway stopped me. But I’d been victorious once. Surely a locked passage within a locked tower would give me the treasure I sought.
With somewhat more cursing than before, I finally let myself into another corridor, this one the now-familiar dark, rough stone. I hurried along as the narrow walls squeezed closer, my fingers reaching forward to find my way without light.
A faint glow ahead. This had to be it…
I popped out, blinking like a vermin, beyond the palace wall. The portal closed behind me with a soft snick.
Wait…
I took a few steps away and glanced back. Somehow I’d gone beneath the bailey walls and was on the far side of the lightkeep from the main entrance. The doorway was neatly disguised in the rough rock around it.
So much for having mastered the confusing passageways of the palace. And worse, there was no lock to pick on this side.
Of course there’d be a secret entrance to the palace; any conscientious monarch would have one. But it felt to me a little like the numinlor mocking me as she booted me from my illicit endeavors.
Annoyed, I had to trek the long way around the lightkeep, stepped in yaxen dung twice—once for each boot, naturally—and got stopped by the gate guards who didn’t recall seeing me leave and didn’t appreciate being made to look careless. Since I didn’t want to admit I’d found a secret door, I tried to convince them I’d been out with the grazing harts—even showed them the bottoms of my boots—but they were skeptical in a way they hadn’t seemed before, as if the distrust between the king, the army, and the haloria was infecting everyone.
The thought left me apprehensive where once I welcomed such confusions that cracked the way for the sideways slippage of someone like me.
I might’ve stood out there all day, lying with all my tongue but only half my heart. Fortunately, I glimpsed Lisel past the guards’ stubborn wall of shoulders. “Commander Vreas,” I called, bouncing on my toes. “Ah, a moment, please?”
As the guards glowered at me, Lisel straightened in surprise then hurried over. “Feinan, what are you—?” At my subtle, imploring head cock, she cut herself off. “Did you carry my father’s message as ordered?”
Indirectly invoking the marshal seemed to appease the guards, and they stepped aside, leaving me room to sneak between them.
I grinned at Lisel. “I always do as ordered.”
She didn’t even bother snorting, just clamped her hand on my shoulder and marched me into the bailey. “I should’ve made sure you had a task before we left,” she fretted. “What were you doing out there?”
“Needed fresh air. But sadly…” I showed her my boots. To distract her from that very clearly insufficient answer, I went on, “Did you and the lady meet with the other Chosen? How horrified are they at maybe emptying their auras into a pretty crystal cage rather than the dragon?”
Her mouth twisted down. “I don’t know. The marshal sent me away. He will never forgive me for my brother’s death.”
I paused, turning to her. “I’m sorry. We have been talking about the prophesied horrors to come, but it’s already here, isn’t it?”
She looked away. “They’d both cut me from their lives because I wasn’t following in their path. Now we’ll never find our way back together.” Letting out a hard breath, she straightened. “Which doesn’t mean I won’t fight to stop others from suffering too.”
Before I could tell her about the secret passage—I’d hesitated because I didn’t want to listen to her yell at me for sneaking around the haloric hall—a sudden silence swept the bailey.
Wary, I glanced around, and my gaze fell on the Dragon Prince.
Everyone else was looking away, finding other places to be. And I didn’t even blame them. Somehow, even without the dragon, he looked like a threat, like one of those strange, lightning-threaded stormclouds descended into the yard.
He spotted us and banked around, a raptor in black swooping down, his unknotted hair unfurling like a dark wing. Even the few chooks left pecking nearby scattered at his approach. Wise, since judging by his expression, he wasn’t in a mood to be crossed, even by a chook.
For some reason, I wanted to laugh, not that the prince or our situation were amusing in the slightest. And yet somehow my heart floated like a silvery bubble at seeing him, and I couldn’t squelch a smile, though it probably made me look mad when I tried.
He stomped right up to us. “Where have you been?” he demanded.
“Lisel went with Lady Dyania to—”
“Not them,” he snapped. “I know they can follow orders. And not get into any more trouble than absolutely necessary.” He glared at me. “But you… I thought you were right behind me and the king going to the treasury. Why wouldn’t you want to go to the treasury?”
“Why would you think I would go skulking along behind you to the treasury?” I asked in a stuffy Imbril tone. When Lisel made a little noise that I identified as a sarcastic snort, I glared at her too. “I don’t always skulk,” I complained.
“What were you doing on the wrong side of the wall?” Lisel smirked at me.
I shook my head and turned my attention back to the prince. “I went to find Imbril, to make sure he was all right. The numinlor is not at all pleased with him, and he looked sad.”
Aric curled his lip in scorn. “The choice he made in subjugating himself to her. Did he think she’d share her power?”
“I don’t think Imbril is lor for power,” I mused. “Hard though it might be to believe. Not that it matters right now.” I rocked on my begrunged boots. “So, your hunt in the treasury. Did the king give up some treasures?”
The prince gave me an arch look. “Some likely choices. I sent it all to Nenzo in my tower,” he drawled. “Nothing remains on my person for you.”
I grinned at him, desperately wanting to say something about which part of his person I’d taken, and maybe he thought the same unspoken words in my grin or caught a glimpse in my impure aura because the faintest warm hue washed over his high cheekbones like a hint of sunrise.
Oh. Had I made the Dreadmarked Prince blush? Why did that feel like such a precious prize?
He tossed his hair back, ostentatiously ignoring me. “If there are tricks to forging the reliquary for a luminarca there’s only one person I know who might advise us.” He spun on his heel. “Commander Vreas, if you will make sure that Nenzo and Zik have what they need? Feinan, you’re with me.” He stalked away.
I cast a quick glance at Lisel, adding a bit of an eye roll for good measure. “Witness,” I urged her. “I am not skulking along. The Dragon Prince made me do it.”
She waved me away, and I hustled after him.
Hush-alee, hush-a-by, now the yaxen low. Close your eyes, sleep, baby, ‘til the chooks a-crow.
~ Osri lullaby
CHAPTER 25
WE PASSED THE GATE guards who’d hassled me only a short time ago, but this time they were looking everywhere but at me and the demon-touched prince.
To my surprise, we headed out on the path toward the hart grazing fields but immediately turned off the broken earthbone and began to climb higher into the hills. I puffed a little. “Where are we going? Is it far? Maybe the dragon should fly us there? I didn’t bring anything for another journey.”
He glanced back at me from his position several strides ahead—as usual—and shrugged. “It’s not that far,” he said, as if that were an answer. “And with the dragon still quiet, I have no wish to risk her rousing. Besides, I have no doubt if you needed something, you’d find it.”
Though I should’ve saved all my breath for the steep track, I huffed indignantly. “Other than that first kiss, for which I apologized at least twice, I’ve taken nothing of yours,” I told him. “Other than that red wine, which—since you aren’t a vintner—wasn’t really yours except in the technical sense of being in your custody first. So you needn’t continue with the needling.”
To my surprise, he slowed his breakneck pace, although maybe that was because the way was getting even steeper. “Fair enough,” he said after a few more strides. “Maybe I just like the thought that you aren’t as vulnerable as some, that you will survive even if…” He shook his head, dark hair shifting restlessly over his shoulders to lift away on the wind.
I considered for a moment. “I’m not one of the cherished Chosen to tempt the dragon’s hunger. I’ve prided myself on surviving, but I’m not as tough as I look, and my feelings can be just as tender as anyone else’s.”
He put his head down as we switched back up the hill, following some path only he could see. “Then maybe it’s me,” he mused quietly. “Maybe I just wish the scars cut deeper, deep enough that I’d stop feeling anything at all.”
“I don’t think this is a time when any of us can be kind enough—or cruel enough, for that matter—to do this alone.” I peered up at him. “And we shouldn’t do it alone, not when what happens will matter to all of us.”
