Lightfall, p.49
Lightfall, page 49
The call was too great.
It whispered to her now when she and Rozalie entered her new rooms in the north-facing tower, inhaling scents of lavender, jasmine, and cinnamon from the bouquet on the breakfast table. Shutting the doors and leaning her weight against them, Cistine breathed in until air struck the bottom of her lungs, trapped there while she listened to that quiet growl deep in her spirit.
Come, it urged, as it had all her life. Come and see.
But she couldn’t. Not yet.
A throaty caw greeted their arrival, and Cistine flashed a tired smile at the sleek black raven roosting on the back of her dining chair. “Hello, Faer.”
“Hello, Cistine.”
Rozalie shuddered. “I still think it’s horrible you taught him to mimic your voice.”
“He’s a battle bird. He needed something to occupy that clever mind…didn’t you, you handsome bag of feathers?” Cistine fed Faer a scrap of beef from her cold breakfast plate. “Besides, it was this, or let him keep stealing necklaces from all the courtiers until Viktor went mad searching for Astoria’s newest jewel thief.”
“That was a good week.” Smiling, Rozalie dumped herself on the bed. “Just don’t teach him to say my name.”
Cistine laughed. “I give you my word.”
Rozalie was silent. Cistine turned from feeding Faer, and her heart lurched, then sank like a dropped stone. Rozalie had peeled back the lumpy quilts Cistine ordered untouched by the servants, burying stacks and mounds of books frittered out of the royal library. She should have stashed them under the bed before the council, but after another restless night of bad dreams, she’d slept so late all she could do was throw down a few bites of cheese and run to the meeting hall, leaving the mound where it fell.
“Bit of light reading before bed?” Rozalie’s tone tried and failed for mirth. “I didn’t think you were researching this deeply on battle tactics, Princess.”
“I couldn’t sleep last night.”
Rozalie turned to her, scooping one book from the buried heap. “What is this all about?”
“Arithmetic.” Cistine sank into the dining chair, and Faer settled on her shoulder. “The average war in Talheimic history consisted of anywhere between six and ten thousand battles, did you know that?”
“I didn’t. Nor would anyone who hasn’t had their nose buried in books on war theory for the past three months.”
Cistine couldn’t muster even a smile at her wry tone. “The Bloodwights depleted their store of augments over the last twenty years in the wilds, but they took Stornhaz, which means they have all the flagons the Courts couldn’t steal out during the siege. Besides that, they don’t need flagons for every battle, they have Blood Hive fighters, too.”
“Your point?”
“Let’s say the Courts fled with five hundred flagons, generously. If they skirmish with the Bloodwights even twice a week and use as few as five augments every time, they’ll only have enough to last a year.”
Rozalie shrugged. “Maybe they can win by then.”
“Maybe. Except most wars have historically lasted eighteen to twenty-four months.”
Now Rozalie set the book side, frowning. “It’s not enough.”
Cistine slumped forward, resting her head in her hands. “It’s nowhere near enough. They’ll be fighting with steel alone while the Bloodwights still have plenty of flagons to spread around.”
“So, what are you thinking?”
“What I always have: that they can’t win this war without help.” And help was something her father wouldn’t be quick to send, something the lords would never agree to. She’d tested those waters her first week back in Talheim and found them fathomless, full of doubt and suspicion.
But then, this wasn’t truly a war of able bodies; it was a war of augments. And in such a skirmish, there was no one to plead Valgard’s cause. Nothing could be done, except…
Cistine furiously clamped down on the thought, shoving it aside as she did whenever it arose; as deep as she’d stuffed it last night before it manifested once more in her nightmares. “You’re free to go, Rozalie. Spread the word to the Wardens and prepare a note for Viktor. If you need to, let him know the names on your roster have my personal support. I’m not certain what his angle was today, but let’s use it for all it’s worth.”
“Consider it done.” Rozalie stood and stretched. “I’ll see you at the dinner tonight.”
The moment she was gone, Cistine latched the door and hurried to the bed. Beneath it, she chiseled a stone loose and opened a cavity in the floor where she’d hidden the last gift from her mentor, Quill: an augment pouch with six flagons inside.
Too dangerous to leave them exposed in a citadel full of those who didn’t yet fathom that the augment wells in the North were truly gifted by the gods—the powers within them mere weapons, not the abomination Cistine’s grandfather Ivan claimed them to be; those who still believed forcing the Northern Kingdom to seal the Doors to the Gods, depleting their augment stocks dramatically until these six precious flagons had become a gift without measure, was justified. Those like Viktor, tutored to prejudice by Rion Bartos, who might destroy them—and devastate the city and Cistine’s heart.
If she was wiser, she wouldn’t touch these augments at all. Quill had given them to her in case Valgard fell to the Bloodwights—the twisted and cruel Order of former visnprests who keyed the Doors shut and sealed their craft into the Novacek blood—and it was left to Cistine alone to ensure they did not spill her blood or her father’s on the Doors and summon enough augments to enslave the world. But handling the flagons calmed her, quieted the call, soothed the ache in her chest. It made her feel powerful again. Training always did.
She perched on the edge of her bed and cradled a flagon in each hand, their separate calls weighing differently on her mind: fire in one, ravaging darkness in the other. She breathed deeply, in and out through pursed lips; then she uncorked the fire, releasing the smallest kernel into her palm.
It bloomed like a flower, not so much as a tendril of heat escaping her command. She let it burn back her sleeves just enough to bare the beginning of the Atrasat inkings that girdled her wrists, extending up along her arms and meeting above her heart. The winking stars flickered in flame, one for each member of her cabal: Quill and Tatiana, Maleck and Ashe, Aden and Ariadne, Baba Kallah and Julian, and Thorne. Every name a blow, every one welcomed for the love that came with the agony. Bringing them back in moments of solitude was the only way she kept them alive.
Sucking in a deep breath, she let the fire bracelet her wrist. Wiggling her fingers, she thumbed open the shadow flagon, its murky purple contents roiling like that deep night when she’d fled Valgard to protect the Key and let the war against the Bloodwights be waged without her.
She poured a seed of darkness into her palm.
The separate augments surged like hounds baying at their leads, racing up her arms, tugging at her will with a violent threat to destroy the entire northern tower in darkness and flame. Pressure built in Cistine’s chest, a mixture of panic and power braided together, but she ground her teeth, stopping it in its place with a silent command barked inside her head; at that unspoken word, the storms abated. The fire crawled back down her arm, the darkness returned to sulk within the cage of her fingers.
Sweat sliding down her nape, chest shuddering, Cistine held an augment in each hand.
She’d begun practicing this her first week back in Talheim, when memories of facing the Aeoprast in the acolyte temple and a Mahasari spy in the sewers below the City of a Thousand Stars kept her awake long after dark. Curious and still grief-stricken enough to be daring, she had ridden out deep into the heart of the plains one night, halfway to the Calalun Peaks where no one would see what happened next. Then she did what she’d managed twice before, purely on luck and guessing both times: wielding two augments at once.
It should not be possible; the power ought to rip her apart from the outside inward, armored flesh or none. Yet here she sat with a strength she only saw Bloodwights possess, or heard in stories Quill and Tatiana told of treacherous Oadmark and the time they fought the Aeoprast there. And while it chipped away at her stamina far more quickly than a single augment, she could cling to them both, and more: she could command them.
Rallying her strength, she rose, cupped her palms, and wove the augments together, an undying heat and a darkness so deep the light did not penetrate it. She watched their hypnotic dance a moment, then spread them out between her fingers and started sparring.
It was strange to do it with the empty air, fire-and-darkened fists leaving glowing paths, then snuffing them out. But she did as Quill taught her, mustering the power and bending it to her will; and while the sunlight climbed down the walls and night beckoned the capital city of Astoria, steadiness filled her middle, soothing the quivering tension of another day spent in long councils that felt like such a waste when war breathed at their backs.
Training reminded her that she was doing something for the good of her kingdom. Of all kingdoms.
When sweat dripped down her back, her dress destroyed and the augments all but spent, Cistine relented at last. She dispatched the fire into her bedside washbasin with a hiss of steam and scattered the darkness against the stone floor. In the silence, she heaved for breath and twisted her thumb against the black-gold band of her betrothal ring, setting moonlight dancing along the ultramarine opal; a promise from Thorne, a vow for a future he gave up to send her home and keep her safe. She wielded it like an anchor now, kedging her mind back down the channels of question that had distracted her in today’s council meeting.
Had the cabal found Pippet yet—Quill’s younger sister, ransomed off to the Bloodwights? If they hadn’t, how were Quill and Tatiana faring? What of Maleck, facing his brothers on the battlefield again, those masked manifestations of his greatest fears and failures; and Ashe, always a sword and shield, at Maleck’s side no matter how terrible things became?
What of Ariadne, the cabal’s light and soul, helping shoulder the weight of their spirits in dark hours like these? And Aden, a newly-minted Tribune, taking his position in a war which had to echo so vividly his years in Siralek’s Blood Hive arena? They would be perhaps the most focused, the most reliable in the fight, but what if the weight became too great for them to bear?
And what of Thorne, a man who fought for decades for a better future and instead inherited conquesting visnprests, stolen children, and the city of his birth set aflame?
Fear licked her insides, and she forced it down. All was not hopeless. She was doing something.
Two weeks. Just two more weeks.
A heavy weight banged against the inside of the glass balcony doors, startling Cistine so badly she yelped. Faer picked himself up from his impact with the shimmering surface and strutted before his reflection, offended croaks taking on a deeper cadence—the first name Cistine had taught him to mimic. “Quill. Quill. Quill. Quill.”
Pain speared through her chest. “Oh, Faer.” The raven squirmed when she crouched beside him and lifted him in both hands, brushing her nose against his skull. “I miss him, too. But we can’t go back. Not now.”
Outside, a faint toll of thunder rattled the Citadel mortar, as if the True God and his vassals agreed to the danger. And yet the very core of Cistine’s being—that wild heart of fire reduced to embers but not entirely foundered—ached to go anyway.
Just two more weeks.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Renee Dugan is an Indiana-based author who grew up reading fantasy books, chasing stray cats, and writing stories full of dashing heroes and evil masterminds. Now with over a decade of professional editing, administrative work, and writing every spare second under her belt, she has authored numerous books and shared many of them with readers - with countless more still to come!
Living with her husband, son, and not-so-stray cats in the magical Midwest, she continues to explore new worlds and spends her time in this one encouraging and helping other writers on their journey to fulfilling their dreams.
Also By R. Dugan
You can find other R. Dugan books, including...
The Chaos Circus (YA Portal Fantasy)
The Curse of the Blessed (Adult Fantasy Trilogy)
Tales of Wonder & Woe (NA Fantasy)
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R. Dugan, Lightfall
