Ether-Touched (The Breaking Stone Trilogy Book 1)

by L. M. Coulson

  “The king met with Queen Oesha, but it didn’t go as well as hoped. Oesha is strong-minded to a fault. Likely she misjudges the deserts, not believing them to be a true threat, despite all we’ve learned.”

  Normally, they weren’t. The Desert Kingdoms were too disordered, too focused on infighting, to be considered a proper player on the world’s stage. But if they’d united, and they’d embraced the use of ether . . .

  “Queen Oesha will regret underestimating them,” Flinx said grimly.

  Kashvi sighed, long and deep. “Well. I hope you are wrong.”

  The cathedral bells tolled the hour, ringing with a deep vibrato through the night. Kashvi tensed at the sound, glancing over his shoulder as if the melody held some cryptic message.

  “As much as I’d like to continue our chat, it grows late for this old man,” he said, returning his gaze to Flinx. He stood, abandoning his tea and reaching deep into the pocket of his surcoat. He pulled out another Pulser and held it toward her. “Take this. It will last for eight months before the ether starts to fray—don’t use it if you see it coming apart. But I want you to have it on hand . . . just in case.”

  Flinx stood, accepting the Pulser. She stared down at it, the disc blinking lazily in her palm. “Am I a fool,” she asked, lifting her chin, “to stay in the hopes I can make a difference? Is it even worth it?”

  Kashvi’s eyes glowed a warm, molten gold. “Fighting to make things better is never easy,” he murmured, placing a hand on her shoulder. “But if you do not try, how will you ever know what you can accomplish?”

  Flinx nodded, pocketing the Pulser. “Will you kiss Jevrick for me when he comes home?”

  “Of course. He’ll be sorry he missed you.”

  Flinx embraced the elderly man, closing her eyes as she felt the rough tickle of his beard on her cheek. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll use the Pulser if something goes wrong.”

  “Stay safe, my El’ahin,” Kashvi replied into her hair. “There’s something bigger going on here . . . something I can’t pinpoint, but I can feel within the Ether. Something wrong. Something lying just below the surface, disrupting the strands. Please take care of yourself.”

  “I will,” she murmured. “You too.”

  Flinx felt Kashvi’s arms leave her, and she watched as he drew raw ether from a pouch at his waist, coaxing it out of the container like the snake charmers she’d once watched on the streets of Ourboris as a child. She waited, watching him in muted silence, as he formed it in a loop around her shoulders, his eyes closed in concentration. She took a deep breath.

  The air rippled, Kashvi’s form wavering and blurring, until the sitting room faded to black. The discomfort of being stretched too thin pressed against Flinx’s awareness, and then she blinked her eyes to the empty darkness of her office in Cyair.

  15 | The Galiffan

  Stone was power.

  Vylaena knew this; stone, after all, was the foundation of the world. And in her dream-conjured prison of stone, back in that strange cavern lit by not-moonlight, she could sense it. Unfathomably large and yet as intimate and familiar as her own heartbeat, was the touch of the three goddesses—seared forever into her host’s hardened flesh.

  Two men lingered nearby. The stone tasted ether on them, though neither were Ikna’s children.

  A third figure hung before them, quivering, on an iron hook embedded into the glossy cavern wall. She, too, tasted of ether, and the stone could sense the silver spark at her brow.

  Sister, it thought.

  “What a waste,” spat one of the men.

  “It’s necessary,” the other replied. “You can’t continue without a new soulstone. We’ll find another to replace her.”

  The figure on the hook whimpered, rattling the chains that held her upright by the wrists. “Please,” she rasped. “I’ve done nothing to you! Please! Let me go!”

  The taller of the two men bent, picking up a loose stone from the cavern floor. “Is this discreet enough?”

  “It’ll do.”

  The second man motioned with his hand, and a fourth figure slipped into view from the shadows—Vylaena hadn’t noticed him standing there.

  The newcomer approached the trio with stiff movements, as if he weren’t in complete control of his body. The stone recognized the spark at his brow, marking him as kin, too—but it was tainted somehow . . . severed from the one who’d put it there. And it knew enough about humans to recognize that the dagger buried in the man’s heart should have killed him.

  Vylaena felt her heart skip a beat. Of course. She started having dreams again, and the biggest mistake of her life came screaming back to haunt her.

  “Do it,” one of the men ordered, handing the newcomer the chip of stone. “Now.”

  The stone/Vylaena felt power well up close by, like magma seeping upwards through a vent in the earth. Tendrils of ether, like living smoke, pooled around the newcomer’s hands. The woman hanging on the wall begged and whimpered and flinched away.

  There was a moment when nothing happened. The power simply stopped at the very edge of Reality, resting at the cusp of some giant precipice, as if it lacked the momentum to fall over. It waited, warping time around it, stilling the air into a brief, tranquil peace.

  And then that peace snapped.

  The ether raged like a startled cat, jumping up the man’s arms in jolting spikes and bubbles. He twisted it, churning it with splayed fingers, blistering heat gathering in his palms—so hot that it warped the very air.

  And then he pointed at the woman’s heart.

  She screamed as the ether shot off the man’s fingertips, forcing itself inside her flesh. There was power in that scream. Her head snapped back, and a river of ether poured from her mouth, bolts of blue fire threading through the mist.

  Bits of the woman’s splintered soul, the stone noted. It had seen such a thing before. Vylaena, despite having no real body, recoiled.

  The man threw his arms up again, commanding the stormy mass of ether and soul back toward him, into the rough chip of stone he held in one palm. The stone glowed a fierce, angry blue as it caught the broken shards of the woman’s soul, absorbing them with ravenous desperation.

  The woman screamed until the stream of ether trickled down to nothing, and then she slumped, lifeless, against the wall.

  “It is done,” the man with the stone said in a flat voice, holding his handiwork out to the others. The stone glinted blue once, twice, and then went dark.

  The taller man took the stone in one hand, holding it up like a jeweler might examine a newly cut gem. “Good,” he said, satisfied. “Take her down and toss her with the others. I have ether-touched to hunt.”

  ✽✽✽

  Vylaena woke with a start, sitting upright in bed, the sheets soaked with sweat. Another rutting dream. She hoped this wasn’t going to become a habit.

  Something danced over her hands, brushing her skin with a breathy caress. She turned at once, ignoring the candle on her bedside table in favor of the emergency etherlamp. She tapped it with a finger, and ice-white light poured through the simple glass cube, illuminating the room.

  She sat in an ocean of ether.

  She couldn’t even see her legs, or the sheets wrapped around them. A cloud of ether hovered at her waist, rippling and twisting like dense black smoke. It coated her entire mattress, tendrils falling off the edges to land gently on the stone floor.

  “Shit,” she hissed, springing out of bed, her movements churning the ether into a frenzy. She waved it away, lurching to her bedroom window to throw open the shutters. “Out!” she commanded.

  The ether obeyed lazily, curling over her feet and climbing up the wall to dance out the open window. She herded it out with both hands, dispersing the mist with a vengeance. Rutting Ether, what was wrong with her? This hadn’t happened to her since . . . since . . .

  She tore open the first drawer of her tiny dressing table, rummaging through the frivolous brushes and cosmetics to find a small
silver hand mirror. She brought it to her face, examining her forehead, pushing back stray blue hairs with her other hand.

  Nothing.

  She let out a deep breath, tossing the mirror back into its drawer and slumping onto the dressing table stool. It was ridiculous to have thought her Mark had returned. But uneasiness lingered at her core, twisting between her ribs and skittering deep into her stomach. She felt . . . unbalanced. Like she stood at the edge of a cliff, a hard wind at her back, and was trying desperately not to fall over the threshold. It was unnerving and unwelcome.

  Vylaena took a few calming breaths, forcing the feeling away. She was just edgy about waking up in a bath of ether—anyone would be. And that dream. It had seemed so real, so vivid. Almost like the visions she’d had before . . .

  No.

  She stood, clenching her hands into fists. Her Mark was gone, along with any supposed divine fate. It was just a rutting dream.

  Vylaena stalked back to bed, crawling onto the overstuffed mattress and tapping the etherlamp once more. Darkness fell immediately, cradling her in its familiar embrace.

  Only then did she notice the glow beneath the door to her right, and the shadow moving across its narrow rectangle of light.

  Vylaena had been given a moderately sized apartment in the palace, and the main room—which served as both sitting room and bedroom—shared a door with the suite beside it. A servant’s or a valet’s quarters, she assumed, though she was not offended in the slightest to be relegated here. She was here to guard Thyrian, after all, and sharing a wall with him would be beneficial if she needed to reach him quickly.

  Her senses were on alert in an instant. What is he doing up at this hour?

  Or maybe someone was in his room, moving to kill him.

  She was up before she’d given it more thought than that, drawing the dagger she kept strapped to her thigh at all times, leaping across the room to throw open the door.

  Thyrian’s suite was much larger than the one she’d been given; his bedroom alone could fit two of hers inside it. The furniture had been pushed aside to form a clearing, and Thyrian stood in the center of the floor, sword in hand, holding an exercise pose: feet apart, weight over one leg, sword held forward and level with his shoulders. He froze at the sudden intrusion, clothed only in a pair of linen pants, his feet bare and his dark hair mussed. His own etherlamp shone from a reading table, glowing a cold, stark blue-white.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, staring at her.

  Vylaena hadn’t thought herself capable of embarrassment, but she felt something akin to it twinge in her gut as she stood there, dagger raised, in the prince’s private doorway, wearing only her bedclothes.

  She lowered her weapon, frowning. “I saw the light. Thought there might’ve been an intruder.”

  “And you thought he’d announce his presence with a blinding etherlamp?” Thyrian replied. He finally moved, easing into the next position in his sword exercise. The gesture was fluid, graceful. He appeared well practiced.

  “Best if I checked, just in case.” Idiot, Vylaena berated herself. But she narrowed her eyes, curiosity prodding her tongue to movement. “Do you often practice in the middle of the night?”

  “When I can’t sleep.” Thyrian continued his exercise but eyed her with an assessing glance. “You’re up late yourself.”

  Vylaena didn’t reply. She slid her dagger back into its sheath and wound her way through the array of furniture to slump into an armchair upholstered in green velvet. She kicked her legs over one arm and watched Thyrian’s sword routine with a critical eye. She hoped to find some flaw in his stance or some error in his technique, but couldn’t.

  He was tall, and well muscled—she’d noticed that from their first meeting, but it had been a cursory observation then, meant to get a quick read on a potential enemy. Now, with no armor and little clothing to conceal his true form, she found her attention lingering on the pronounced ropes of muscle wrapped around his broad frame. It was not often she encountered a man of such potent physicality, and her stomach tightened at the sight.

  He would be a worthwhile challenge, she mused.

  He moved like a Daigren—the elite warrior caste of the Shadowheart, chosen at birth to learn the well-guarded fighting techniques the clan had perfected over the centuries. The Daigren not only defended Aeswic, but were the only caste typically permitted to roam Aethryl freely—enlisting themselves as mercenaries in order to earn much-needed lynd for the clan. Despite their illusion of self-sufficiency, there were many goods the Shadowheart could not grow, hunt, or create on their own—and trade with the surface world was necessary.

  Vylaena had idolized the Daigren. She’d spied on their lessons as a child, mimicking their movements in the privacy of the abandoned lower caverns, breaking dozens of rules in her desperation to choose for herself a vocation she’d never earn.

  Thyrian moved like a Daigren, but his technique was not entirely the same. The Daigren had been confident, but Thyrian was extraordinarily so. He appeared so at ease, so certain. As if absolutely assured of the space he commanded in the world, and the precise place each muscle should rest at any given moment. She’d never seen anyone move like that.

  “You’re easily entertained,” Thyrian said, finally breaking the silence. His eyes flitted to her and away.

  “You move well,” Vylaena replied. “Who taught you to fight?”

  “My father, for a time. Then the arms master at the cathedral, Jevrick Ryle, until he was promoted to Commander of the Order of the Golden Aegis. After that, I . . . taught myself.”

  “You mean Asta guided you.”

  Thyrian paused mid-pose, and his eyes flicked to hers. His golden Mark shimmered as it caught the light. “Perhaps,” he replied. “I am Marked. Sometimes it feels like the goddess speaks to me in some way. But it is I who chooses to listen, deciding where to focus my energies. Who pushes to train and hone my skills.”

  “You’ve never questioned that power? What the price might be to accept it?”

  Thyrian straightened, lowering his blade. His brow was furrowed, as though he thought the answer were obvious. “I like to think I’ve done some good with it. If the price for power is my feeling obligated to serve my kingdom, then so be it. It’s a worthy cause to champion, don’t you think?”

  Thyrian turned and crossed the room, retrieving a long sheath from atop his bed and sliding the greatsword inside. He turned back to Vylaena, leaning against a bedpost. “You don’t look convinced.”

  “My experience was entirely different.”

  “How so?”

  Vylaena hesitated, her eyes flickering toward the door that led back to her rooms.

  Thyrian grunted, drawing her gaze back. “A moment ago you were enraptured, and now you want to run away? Is conversation really that off-putting to you?”

  Vylaena’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

  “I’m merely curious. You’re the only person I’ve met who abandoned her Mark. Why? Was it really so terrible to have it?”

  Vylaena owed the man no explanation; all she had to do was get up and return to bed, leaving Thyrian to his frivolous wondering. But no one had ever asked her that before. The question froze her feet.

  The Mark had been a reminder that she was tied to some preordained fate, and the rebel inside her had been empowered when she’d refused it. She didn’t miss the nights when she’d dreamed of things that were happening on the other side of the world, begging for her attention. And she’d hated the way Ikna would whisper into her mind, making it difficult to discern which thoughts were her own.

  The power to sculpt reality had been useful, if dangerous. And she’d been good at it—really good at it. Some part of her grieved its loss.

  Had she made a fair trade? Ikna had stayed out of her head but hadn’t abandoned her entirely. The dreams, it seemed, had returned. Perhaps she wasn’t as free as she’d thought . . .

  “I had a strict upbringing,” Vylaena said finally, her tone even and care
fully controlled. “It was necessary; our survival depends on our ability to endure the pains we meet on any given day. My path was carefully chosen for me. But one day, I decided I wanted something different—the ability to choose for myself.”

  “So you left.”

  Vylaena nodded, unsure why she was even explaining herself to him. “But that’s when Ikna began to take a greater interest in me. As someone who had just escaped one form of imprisonment, I didn’t take kindly to her meddling. I got mixed up in that shit in the deserts and when I finally got out, I decided that was it.”

  “What exactly happened, in the deserts?”

  Vylaena simply smiled, a cold gesture devoid of humor. No. She wouldn’t give him that. “I think I’ve divulged enough of my secrets for one night.”

  “I can’t imagine giving up my Mark like that.”

  Thyrian studied her with a keen attention she wasn’t sure how to place. It wasn’t the frenzied assessment of a threat or the skin-crawling survey of sexual interest, but something more . . . genuine. She wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  “That’s not to say I judge you for your choice,” Thyrian added quickly. “I didn’t mean it that way. But to me, it would feel like giving up my . . . my . . .”

  “Your only advantage as the youngest child in a powerful family?”

  Thyrian’s brows furrowed, drawing a single crease between them. “I don’t see it as an advantage. Or at least not the way you do—as an upper hand to use against those without.” He pushed off the bedpost and settled onto the edge of the bed, resting his hands on his thighs. He stared at his fingers, searching for the right words. “Giving up my Mark would be like giving up my identity,” he continued. “It’s what I am—a sun-crowned warrior. A soldier.”

  “There are plenty of soldiers without Marks.”

  Thyrian frowned a little, his lips tightening. “Yes, but they aren’t bound to it like I am. A guardsman can decide one day to leave his post and become a cobbler or a farmer. I’m sun-crowned. Fighting is in my blood, my bones. Some would say my soul. I give that up, and who am I then?”