Lightfall, p.9
LightFall, page 9
I wavered with one boot in the hall and one on the dark rise. The obsidian of the arch continued within, a black maw gaping to swallow me whole.
Neh, what kind of mad architect shaped such a precipitous ascent out of slippery glass?
“Go no higher.”
The unexpected snarl from behind made me jump. Of course I jumped upward, whirling as I did to look back.
The dragon might be waiting above, but the Dragon Prince was right here. So much for my clever intuition.
He stood below me, one arm outstretched—to yank me back. Or was it to catch me if I slid down the glass? But my worn soles caught, and I stayed just beyond the reach of his fingers. “Prince…Your Radiance, sir,” I squeaked, searching my array of speeches, excuses, and distractions that I kept at the ready for being caught in places where I ought not to be.
But I had nothing for a situation like this.
Not speaking, he let his hand sink slowly to his side. I cast a quick glance that direction, lest he be grasping for a sword to remove my inquisitive head from my intruding body.
But he carried no weapons, and he’d stripped down from the scale armor to a plain black tunic. His unfathomable silvery eyes still sent a shiver through me.
“Don’t call me that.”
I poked the tip of my tongue through my suddenly dry lips. “Call you…prince?”
“Radiance. The light has no claim on me.” When I only responded with “huh”, he let out an impatient sound. “Why do you trespass?”
I might not have an excuse for my presence, but I could at least object to his unsubstantiated judgment. “I am not trespassing. I was brought here with the cavalcade from the lightkeeps.”
That silver stare glinted at me even though the illumination in the corridor was behind him. “I remember,” he said in a growl, still rough but lacking the eerie subharmonics that had broken his voice after the demon battle. “You thought I should satisfy the dragon on the tatters of lost auras.”
The way he said satisfy made me shiver again. Crossing my arms over my chest, I muttered, “Nobody’d told me that would make the beast strong enough to escape your command.”
“She would not escape me. She would enfold me, closer than ever, her dark power would woo me, and I would succumb to her with pleasure.”
His voice dropped into a deeper octave as he spoke, a seductive, pulsing cadence that seemed to echo with my own throbbing heartbeat, and I blinked at him in dismay. “Heyo, don’t do that. Perhaps best you forget all my demon-related propositions.”
He just stood there a moment before repeating, “Why are you here?”
“The cavalcade from the lightkeeps—” I started again, because truthfully, pretending to foolishness had probably saved me more times than being clever.
But he interrupted, “Here. Why are you here at the mouth of my lair?”
Had I been wrong that this was the dragon’s tower? Or did he think of the creature as one with him? Closer than ever, he’d said.
“Lost,” I said, my own voice breaking. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I got lost.” That excuse was believable enough, wasn’t it? No one else would willingly come this way.
Wooed by dark pleasures, you won’t escape me, succumb…
No, he hadn’t said that, not that way. The garbled echo of his words made me shift my weight away from him, and the sole of my undependable boot suddenly lost hold on the glass.
Trying to catch myself again, my knee buckled, but the awkward contortion didn’t stop my slide. Landing hard on my backside, I slithered to a halt in a humiliating heap in front of him.
I glared down at the metal-tipped toes of his black footwear. “Lovely boots,” I muttered. “Such fine leather, and yet not a scuff on them. I suppose flying keeps them so pristine—”
His big hand wrapped around my upper arm and hauled me upright. I lurched into him without grace or gratitude.
“Just because you haven’t the sight to perceive the damage doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” he rasped. “The dragon keeps my wounds from bleeding out, but the scars remain.”
For a heartbeat, I hung in his grasp, half swaying against him. The heat of his hand singed through the sleeve of my tunic, sending an incongruous shiver all the way to my bones. The demon-touched were set alight on the fiercest funeral pyres so that nothing came back to haunt the Living Lands, and his touch burned as if already engulfed in flames though he walked among us still.
And yet those silvery eyes were like winter’s ice. I stared up at him, unblinking, utterly failed by my curiosity, caution, and cleverness alike, wracked by conflicting waves of shivers and a strange, feverish hunger…
Abruptly, he shoved me out to arm’s length—and though he had not quite the reach of his beastly half, he set me far enough away that my tied tongue revived like some vermin that had been only playing dead.
“I’ve seen more than you guess,” I rejoined. Why I spoke against him, I couldn’t say, considering he was a prince and I a street-sneak of no particular repute.
“You are not Chosen,” he said flatly.
That shut me up. For a moment anyway. Then I said, “Speaking of, my lady expects me back, so…” With my free hand, I pried at his fingers locked around my upper arm tighter than an iron manacle.
“You should never have been here,” he said, as if I didn’t know that.
“Which is why I was just leaving.”
“If you were leaving, why were your steps facing upward?”
“If you’re trying to banish me, why are you still holding onto me?” I gave him a smirk that was both witless and clever, and probably more likely to get me killed than either response alone.
But it did make him unlatch his relentless grip. “Go,” he ordered.
And I should have. But I’d always struggled with demands. So instead, I gave myself a little shake to set my togs aright. “Might I ask a question?”
“No.”
I ignored that answer. After all, he hadn’t killed me yet. He hadn’t even walked away from me. “When the demons attacked us in Velderrey, my lady burned a few drops of her blood and”—I grimaced—“accidentally summoned them. But that distracted the horde long enough for you to swoop in with the dragon and slay them all. Except now the haloria has commanded her to face a tribunal.” I swallowed back a few profane words about the sacred order. “I fear they will judge her wrongly. But you were there. Can you speak with them before the tribunal tomorrow morning?”
His eyes glinted at me. “The lors are sworn to annihilate anything demonic. What makes you think they would listen to me?”
I stammered for a moment. “Because…because you’re a prince?” As if he didn’t know that.
His lips twisted, not in amusement. “The Dragon Prince.”
I frowned at him. “Yes. You saved us too.”
“And the haloria hate and fear me more because of it.” He closed his eyes. “They would end me if they saw any other way.”
“And then we’d all be dead.”
When he looked at me this time, his eyes were shadowed, black as the obsidian. “One of the haloria’s endless debates since Ormonde’s time is whether it would be nobler to perish in purity than wrest our continued existence with the aura-stained claws of the monster.”
Give up when any other choice remained? I couldn’t restrain a dismissive sniff. Easier for them, maybe, their union with the amaranthine light already promised to them. Which made me wonder suddenly… “If the lors are so resolute in their noble purity, why don’t they sacrifice themselves instead of the Chosen?”
“Once within the monster’s grasp, they wouldn’t be nobly pure anymore, would they?”
Such resignation, with no particular resentment; it made me grumble. “Rather than condemn dirty fingers, perhaps they should say a cleansing prayer for the demon beast, offer some pretty floral soap for its talons. That’s what Lady Dyania makes me do before we eat.”
“When I said monster, I wasn’t talking about the dragon.”
His hold on me had been unyielding but clawless. Maybe that changed—maybe he changed—for a Feast.
At long last I backed away. But I couldn’t stop a parting entreaty. “Lady Dyania saved us. And now you can save her.”
“I cannot.” His rasp was harsher than incised glass. “I am the last one who ever could.”
I recoiled from the strangled pain and fury sharpening the edge of his voice. Since there wasn’t anything more I could do—he was a warrior and a prince, and I was…nothing—I hastened away from the black tower. Still, despite my frustration and the futility, I found myself glancing back over my shoulder.
But he was gone.
Truly flawless auric purity is beyond mortal reach. By dint of daily life, even the most devout might be smudged by the dust of earthly existence.
~ A first-season lesson in the haloric writs
CHAPTER 6
THE NEXT MORNING, I overslept, partly tired from my late-night wandering, partly demoralized over the haloric tribunal. Lors were so far outside my experience. Had I ever even seen any of that revered and feared sacred order pass through my dirty little district? I doubted any of my usual tricks and feints would work on them, with their insights expanded by the amaranthine light.
Once again, running away was probably my best bet. Instead, I slept in.
Zik had to shake my shoulder to rouse me—me, who usually woke at the patter of even the most diminutive pesty feet.
He kept jangling me until I said with some asperity, “Yes, awake.”
“Come make sure she looks aright.” He darted off.
Reluctant but resigned, I grumbled my way out of my blanket on the hearth.
In the dressing room where I’d shut away the Chosen One’s gown, Lady Dyania was standing, clad in that white.
I scowled. “It’s not the Devouring yet.”
“I-I thought they should remember.” Zik hunched his shoulders. “Remember who she is, ya, why she came.”
Not came, brought here, drugged and under guard. The Chosen One, to save us.
I tore my gaze away from her to look at the country boy. “Clever.”
If anything, my approval made him look more alarmed.
But the lady, she looked like an aura made visible. The silkha gown was simple and boxy, too big for her. But spectrum threads in every hue had been woven into a hand-width belt around her waist and crisscrossed in vambraces up both her forearms, giving shape and life to the sanctified white. More of the vibrant ribbons had been woven into her dark hair, the plaits redone to add strands of the white streak into every braid, so that the black and white and brilliant color were threaded together in beautiful balance.
The way the weavings were knotted, she couldn’t have possibly finished them herself. I let out a low whistle. “Zik, such cunning fingers. Have you considered a future in pickpocketing?”
He blanched. “No. It’s just like the rugs we make at home, but finer.”
Considering Osiroon was known mostly for the wool of its native yaxen, durable but coarse to the touch and resistant to dyeing, I wondered how the lady felt about the comparison. But when I slanted an amused glance at her, her expression was shuttered, all but blank.
Dismayed, I tugged Zik aside. “Is she dreaming? If she took dinzah—”
“She’s been praying. Every strand I wove, she added invocations. She’s…hallowed.”
She’d said blood was needed to fortify runes; maybe prayers could be knit into thread?
While I’d been sleeping, she’d been praying and he’d been weaving. But I wasn’t sure any efforts would account for much facing the haloria.
“They’ll have to see she’s untouched, won’t they?” Zik peered at me, his expression pinched with worry.
Lors didn’t have to do anything, as far as I knew. Being the ultimate arbiters of auric purity, they were beyond earthly command, even the word of the king.
“How could they not?” I said with confidence I didn’t feel. “Make sure she has something to eat, maybe a little bit of the ambra-wine. If she stands in silence or swoons in front of them, they may take it as guilt.” I hastened into the privacy chamber to put myself to rights. The clean attendant garb that had appeared in one of the carts mostly fit me after I folded and bound the sleeves at my elbows lest they get in my way. I’d just finished splashing the soap from my face when a brisk knock rattled our chamber door
Lisel, of course. I hustled out to join them. Lady Dyania stood in the middle of the room, Zik half hidden behind her white skirt.
“You can stay here,” I murmured to him. “I’ll go with her.”
He shook his head. “All of us together, ya.”
I doubted the lors would be impressed with our unity. But maybe there’d be another chance to flee?
As Lisel ushered us toward the door, I sidled up near Lady Dyania. “Is that loose point in your boot still poking you, my lady?”
She stared straight ahead, her two-toned gaze fixed on something I couldn’t see. “It bothers me, but I’ll live.”
So she had the Maru Deep knife on her. And she sounded like she wasn’t going to let the haloria condemn her yet. Good. Or better than her half-dead expression, as if she’d been possessed by a demon while I’d been asleep.
Despite my passing thought to making an escape, I found no moment for it. We entered a wider corridor, and a foursome of guards joined us. White silkha shawls draped across plate armor that seemed far too heavy for a fortified palace.
The haloria’s private guard. I gulped back an oath as they squared up around the Chosen One, bullying the rest of us back. Zik made a choked sound of protest—to my shock, horror, and disapproval—and I yanked the silly boy behind me when one of the guards snaked his head toward us.
Keeping Zik pinned to my backside, I clamped my other hand over my belly. “No time for breakfast.” I squeezed out an apologetic grin. “Pardon.”
“Stay silent,” the guard snapped. “The haloria has cast off complaints of the body and abides no interruption.”
I pinched my lips together to stop myself from asking if the lors believed they might minister to auras without bodies to surround them.
Maybe I didn’t want that answer.
From the front of our small procession, Lisel frowned over their heads at me. She was not so much older than the lady and I, but since she had the experience of this place and these complicated matters, I assumed a meek stance.
Zik kept ahold of my hand as we marched. In keeping mostly to the servants’ corridors last night, I hadn’t been here, so I gawked with him at the paintings and pennants and people—many people. It would be hard to sneak away during the day with so many eyeballs about.
But most of those eyes averted upon spying the haloric guard, and the people sidled out of our way. Considering the haloria were responsible for our everlasting auras, shouldn’t we not be afeared?
Sometimes my flair at lying impressed even me.
Since the world had yet to take my sensibilities into account about anything at all, I kept my mouth shut and my eyes open, marking every turn as we crossed the High Keep. At one point we traversed a colonnade with wide, open archways looking out from the mountainside to the hazy morning sun shining across the Widening Leas. When Zik made a wondering sound, his breath emerged in a fog, the rays of light too low and slanting to temper the cold. But it was beautiful, like the kingdom spread as a map below us, and I imagined if not for the winter clouds, we might see past Maru Deep, all the way to the fabled isle of Taelleroc.
In that direction also lay Sevaare, should I be inclined to return after the effort of getting this far. I angled closer to an arch, just to see—but when I peered over the tiled edge, I found myself staring down the cliff face, no bottom in sight, just a ragged mist below us with glimpses of more rock and ice and nothingness below that. I swallowed hard.
Zik tightened his grip on my hand. “Feinan?”
I veered back without a word. Since we were at the end of our somber little procession, no one else had noticed my sideways deviation. Or maybe they knew there was nowhere to go from here. I twitched with the urge to prove them wrong—hadn’t the silverleaf carriage appearing at the fetid dead end alley shown me there was always another way?—but the colonnade abruptly terminated in a high, teardrop portico lined in shining white marble. The white was so pure and reflective, the engraved runes were nearly invisible.
Considering Lady Dyania had told me runes were tricky, they seemed to be everywhere.
Just as the honor guard with the lady at its center crossed beneath the white portal, they abruptly halted. At some point, Lisel had fallen behind the other quartet, forming a blockade between me and Zik and whatever had caused the holdup ahead. I craned my neck to peer around her—and froze at the sight of the dark figure awaiting within the hallway of searing white.
“Prince Aric,” said the guard who’d told me to stay silent before. “What are—?” He must have heard the hint of insubordination in his tone and reconsidered. “Might I—?” Even less than a confrontation did the guard want to make an accidental overture, clearly. “Your Radiance,” he said instead, leaving it at that.
Through all the bumbling, the Dragon Prince made no reply, never even glanced at the white-faced guard with his white-flagged pike. Considering he was not just demon-touched but demon-bound, surely he shouldn’t have been able to stand there, crossed by the sanctified silkha, surrounded by the auric purity preserved by the haloria itself. But he just waited, so distant and indifferent, like the black mountain towering over the sunlit plain, and I wondered, with a pang of unease, if all the pennants and prayers were any more effective than bloodless old runes.
He took a step to the side, not clearing the path so much as opening a sight line to the Chosen One. I tensed, as did everyone else in our little procession—were we about to witness an unsanctified Feast?—except the lady herself.
“Lady Dyania,” he said in a low voice.
