Empire of exiles, p.44
Empire of Exiles, page 44
“You all right?” Dante asked.
“Yeah, I’m—” She checked her pockets. “She stole the hellebore root!” Not an amateur thief, then.
Dante shushed her. “It’s fine, I can get by without—Tae!”
She charged after the thief with a fire kindled in her chest, stoked and restless since Dante had stopped her from interfering with the guards.
Finally, some damn action.
The Greyhounds were slowed by the crowd, but Taesia easily evaded limbs and bodies. The thief hoisted herself onto the roof of a stall, so Taesia did the same. She rolled across an awning and leapt onto the next roof, which swayed dangerously under her feet.
She lifted her hand. To anyone else, the silver ring on her fourth finger bore an onyx jewel, but the illusion broke when her shadow familiar spilled from the bezel and into her palm.
“Do something for me?” she panted as she leapt the space between two stalls.
Umbra elongated, forming a snakelike head of shadow. It tilted from side to side before it nodded.
Taesia flung out her hand and Umbra shot forward in a black, inky rope. One end lashed around the thief’s wrist, making her stumble. With a sharp pull on Taesia’s end, the thief crashed through an awning.
Taesia jumped down. The thief groaned and staggered away from cages full of exotic birds flapping their wings and squawking at the disturbance. The vendor gawked at them as Taesia summoned Umbra back to her ring and took off after the girl.
The last thing she wanted was for rumors of a Shade tussling in the market to reach her mother.
Taesia dove into a narrow alley to try and cut the thief off at the cross street, only to be met with an arm that swung out from around the corner. It collided with her chest and Taesia fell onto her back with a grunt.
The thief stood over her, breathless and smiling. “Well! Gotta admit, this is a first. Never stole from someone like you before.”
Taesia coughed. “You punched me in the tit.”
“And I’d do it again.”
Taesia braced herself on the ground and kicked the girl in the chest, sending her reeling backward. “Now we’re almost even.”
The girl wheezed around a laugh. “Suit yourself.”
Taesia sprang to her feet and charged. The thief ducked and hit her in the back, dangerously close to her kidneys. Taesia caught her arm and twisted. The thief stomped on her instep, making her yelp and let go.
“Whew!” The girl’s face was alive with glee despite the dirt and sweat streaked across it. “Must’ve stolen something you care about.”
“Not really.” The shadows trembled around her, ready to be called in, but she couldn’t risk it. She’d already been too careless using Umbra. “Just needed to stretch my legs today.”
The girl barked a laugh as they circled. Her dark eyes flitted to the alley over Taesia’s shoulder before a blow caught Taesia across the backs of her knees, sending her reeling forward.
As Taesia fell, a young woman—likely the thief’s partner—ran to the nearest wall and made a broad swirling motion with her arms. Both of the thieves were caught in a sudden cyclone of wind that lifted them up onto the roof.
An air elementalist.
Cheater.
“Better luck next time,” the thief called with a mocking salute. Taesia gave a rude gesture in reply, and the girl laughed before she and her partner disappeared.
A moment later, Dante burst out of the alley. “Taesia, what the fuck—”
“She got away.”
“I don’t care! I told you it didn’t matter.” He ran a hand through his hair, hood fallen across his shoulders. “You’re filthy. We can’t let anyone in the villa see you like this.” He pointed a stern finger at her. “Do not do that again.”
She wasn’t sure if he meant chasing after thieves or using her shadow magic out in the open. Before she could ask, he turned and began the trek home, not even bothering to see if Taesia would follow.
Like always, she did.
The black iron gates of the Lastrider villa were manned by House guards in black-and-silver livery. But Taesia had long since figured out a path over the tall adobe wall, through the gardens, and up the rose trellis her father had built when she was a child. It was easy as a song to slip into her bedroom and change into clean clothes.
She met up with Dante at the entrance to the vaults, the underground chambers where House treasures were stored. The two of them had often played here as children. Their younger sister, Brailee, had been too afraid to stay longer than five minutes, but Taesia and Dante had made games of the thick shadows and silent rooms. As heir, Dante was the only person aside from their mother who possessed a key.
“I know you said you don’t plan to call down a horde of spirits,” she said as he lit a lantern and led the way down the musty corridor, “but that still begs the question of what you are planning to do.”
“I’m more interested in the origins of Conjuration rather than using it as a conduit for two-bit necromancy.”
“Origins?”
“You’ll see.”
Umbra slithered up her arm as Dante shoved open a door at the end of the corridor. His own familiar, Nox, began to play around his shoulders, no longer required to stay hidden. Taesia wondered if they could feel the presence of Noctan artifacts down here, a tentative link to a realm they had never seen.
Dante lit candles in the stone-walled room. It had once been used for storage but now served as his workshop. Shelves bore jars and vials waiting to be filled, and the very center of the floor was covered in a thick rug.
He pulled the rug aside to reveal a hazy, stained area where he’d practiced drawing Conjuration circles. Taesia’s breath caught, remembering the events of last week, the circle with its seven-pointed star left by people the king condemned as radicals. Nox brushed Dante’s cheek as it peered over his shoulder.
“So,” he said. “Lodestone. Typically used for its magnetism, but there was an ancient use for this that’s long since fallen out of memory.” He shook the vial. “It was used as an offering for Deia.”
Taesia raised an eyebrow. “If you wanted to give an offering to Deia, you should have gone to her basilica.”
He smirked and pulled out a jar of sulfur. He began to mix it with the loose chalk he’d bought, and Taesia fought against the urge to sneeze. “When we talk about Conjuration today, it’s always associated with one thing: summoning demons.”
Demons. Cosmic beings that prowled between the realms, in the pockets of the universe only the gods could access. There were countless stories told to children to make them behave, to warn others away:
“Narizeh will come and steal your voice if you don’t stop screaming.”
“Never follow a woman with lips tinged black. That is Vorsileh luring you to her bed, where she will turn you into a worm once she’s done with you and slurp you up.”
“The sound of coughing means Celipheh has visited to spread his plague.”
But Conjuration had been outlawed over two centuries ago, the grimoires and texts burned in a massive purge of all things occult in Nexus. There had never been a case outside the city; why that was, no one could say.
Taesia grimaced. “What do demons have to do with an offering for Deia?”
He gave her a loaded Dante smile, silent secrets hidden under an ocean of charm. “What we call Conjuration today is a bastardization of an ancient ritual to commune with the gods. Back in the day, priests would draw a circle to replicate the shape of the universe, add offerings unique to the god they wanted to chat with, and there you have it.”
Taesia felt cold as she watched Dante draw two circles with the laced chalk, one nested within the other. She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. “So you want to talk to the gods, is that what you’re saying? Why?”
He paused, staring at the diamond he’d just drawn within the inner circle. Quietly he said, “To understand why the Sealing happened.”
Taesia’s fingers tightened on her arms. “And you’re certain it’ll work? That we won’t end up with some unsavory visitor?”
His laugh was tinged with apprehension. “Not at all.” He poured the powdered lodestone around the diamond, then opened a jar and sniffed its contents. “I wish we had the hellebore root, but this should be a good enough substitute.”
He sprinkled something that smelled like tobacco. When he looked back up, a lock of dark hair fell across his forehead.
“I figured trying is better than sitting around feeling helpless,” he said, his voice gone soft again.
A wave of fondness washed over her despite the fact she was staring at her brother across a very illegal, very pungent Conjuration circle. Dante had more willpower than she did, but they both shared the desire to act.
He unsheathed the small knife at his belt and cut the pad of one finger. A drop of blood, trembling and infused with ancient power, fell into the center of the circle, over the upside-down horseshoe-esque symbol commonly used for Deia.
Nothing happened at first. Taesia braced herself, Umbra nervously coiling around her neck. Dante stayed kneeling, brow furrowed. Then a steady, low hum began to fill the room, the edges of the circle glowing red.
The offerings within the circle trembled, the hum traveling up the soles of Taesia’s feet until it made her molars ache. Umbra hid itself in the crook of her neck, and it took all her strength to not make a run for the door.
“Deia, we beseech you to speak with us,” Dante intoned. “Please bless us with your presence.”
It was one thing to visit the basilica of Nyx, the god of Noctus, the founder of the Lastrider line, and feel a hint of night-touched breeze on her face. To sense the distant stars overhead and the depth of shadows in every corner. A reminder of where they came from, and what they could do. But this was Deia, god of elements, god of life, with the power to raise volcanoes and turn entire cities to ice. Attempting to summon her in this cramped room was perhaps not the best idea.
Yet as they continued to stare at the floor, waiting—for a voice, or the outline of a body, something—nothing happened.
A frustrated sound wrenched out of Dante’s throat as the glow died, casting them back into dim candlelight. He scored the circle with a hand, and Taesia couldn’t help her relieved exhale.
“I don’t know what else to do, other than try different offerings.” Dante glared at the wasted lodestone. “Or perhaps try to find a different configuration of symbols.”
“Even if you manage to summon one of the gods, what good would it do?”
Dante worked his jaw, the tension fading gradually from his face. “It’s not just about talking to them, or asking why they sealed the realms from one another. I want…” He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re going to think I’m mad.”
“I already do. Tell me.”
He sat back on his heels. “I want to convince them to undo it.”
Taesia waited a beat. Then another. Her mouth twisted to keep from laughing.
“It’s not impossible!” he argued. “If we undo the Sealing, we reopen the realms and the natural flow of the universe will be restored. We can use our godsblood for good, to prevent our realm from dying.” He lowered his voice. “It’ll also give the Houses leverage over the king. We can gain support from the people to take away the Holy King’s authority.”
It was something they had discussed before, in the privacy of Dante’s study. How he admired their neighbor to the north, Parithvi, and the Parliament they had instated with more populist beliefs.
“We can actually use our privilege for a change,” Dante said.
They sat in the possibility a moment, familiars drifting between them, a couple more shadows in a room that smelled of forbidden magic.
It sounded stupidly heroic: going against the will of the gods, wresting control of their country from a man who believed himself untouchable. Again she thought of the Noctan refugee who had been seized in the market. Under Dante’s watch, those scenes could disappear completely.
But there was one problem.
“I don’t foresee myself with a political career,” she said. “Once you’ve established this parliament of yours, what role would you give me?”
He wrinkled his nose. “Tae, you were born into a political career.”
“Firmly without my say-so.”
“Well, don’t worry. Once the realms are reopened, I plan to restore the profession on which the Lastrider line was founded. I’ll need someone to spearhead it.”
Status came hand in hand with responsibility if you were a member of the Houses. Yet each household also had to contribute something to Nexus, to the kingdom, and to the throne in order to maintain that status. The Vakaras performed all things necromantic, the Mardovas cultivated powerful mages, the Cyrs produced and oversaw soldiers for the militia, and the Lastriders acted as inter-realm emissaries of trade.
Or at least, they had before the Sealing. Now, with resources both natural and Other-Realm dwindling in Vitae, the Lastriders worked with the surrounding countries to conserve what little was left.
Taesia felt cheated of a life of jumping from realm to realm, collecting artifacts and precious resources and exploring the wonders and dangers of other worlds. To not have to sit still. To have the freedom to go where she wished.
To not be a purposeless spare of House Lastrider, chained to a responsibility she’d never wanted.
“You’re flirting with being labeled a radical for a hopeless plan,” she said, though it sounded weak even to her.
He smiled at the greed suffusing Taesia’s expression, his eyes glimmering with the same thrill she knew must be mirrored in her own. “But are you willing to flirt with it?”
Taesia glanced again at the forfeited circle. Dante wouldn’t delve into something he didn’t think was for the greater good. Dante believed in a better world, and she believed in Dante.
“Absolutely.”
Erin M Evans, Empire of Exiles
