In the Ravenous Dark

by A. M. Strickland

  “Ah.” His tone is perfectly poised, as well. “Then it’s a shame we never had the chance to meet.”

  “Disavowing him was a funny way to show that.”

  A grimace flickers across Alldan’s face. “That was political theater, you understand. Our alliance with Thanopolis was at a critical juncture. It’s strange—years ago, your father reported something very disturbing happening to him and the other Skyllean bloodmage who journeyed here with him, Cylla. We were quite literally preparing to go to war with Thanopolis over it, but first Cylla and then later your father recanted those reports in documents officially sealed by the royal family here. Apparently, Cylla eloped out of love, and Silvean defected to Thanopolis, preferring life here. We would have liked to have spoken more to them about why they made the choices they did, but we never had the chance. It’s a shame: Cylla’s desire to pass on her bloodline so early and your father’s unfortunate attack on the king so recently. We’ve since been told he was sick. Unstable. So perhaps he wouldn’t have been able to tell us what we wanted to know, anyway.”

  I know the truth, of course. But I don’t need to risk trying to tell Alldan. I can see, as plain as the violet of his eyes, that he knows what really happened.

  “We’ve realized how little we understand of life over here,” he continues. “Perhaps there’s wisdom to be found. So we’re here to create more formal ties, along with a more open channel between our two peoples.”

  They’re here to keep their enemies close, as I’ve suspected. As I’ve hoped.

  “My father always wanted to go back home,” I say, willing Alldan to get the message. I swallow a sudden lump in my throat. “And it’s been my greatest dream to go to Skyllea someday.”

  “Perhaps you can.” He says it politely, maybe not understanding what the dream means to me. Or maybe he’s trying to tell me something else …

  Lately, I’ve preferred danger to despair. I want to trust him, but I have no reason to believe he can help me even if he wants to. My laugh is a broken thing, echoing among the columns. “Oh, I doubt it.”

  “Why is that?”

  I don’t feel like saying more aloud than would be wise. Besides, he must know already, if he knows the truth about Cylla and my father. So I snort. “If you can’t see what’s in front of your face, I can’t help you.”

  He points at my face so abruptly I flinch and lean back, nearly falling off the bench. “That’s an interesting sigil,” he says.

  The upright bowl with the three dripping lines, directly under my left eye.

  “You know sigils?”

  “My people created them.”

  I fight my blush with a scowl, shifting back into place. “I know, but since you don’t have a bloodline…”

  Alldan shrugs. “We still study them, especially those of us who have the time to do so.”

  The nobility, he probably means. Some things don’t change, city to city.

  “So … do you know what it is?” I ask, gesturing toward my cheek. I don’t quite want to admit I don’t know myself.

  “I think so,” he says, resting his hands on his knees. “Though I’ve never seen this particular one before. Your father must have created it, and yet it looks similar to another sigil that is relatively new in our lexicon. I believe that one was used, among others, to create the veil that protects Skyllea from the blight.” He glances out through the columns to the iridescent ripple of the veil in the sky over Thanopolis. “Something like it was probably used to create the veil here, as well, though they’ve jealously guarded that knowledge. It’s a sigil for blocking.”

  He holds my eyes for a pregnant pause.

  Blocking. That sounds like the special set of sigils my father hid in his office, a map for me to trace along my hand, which I’ve identified as having to do with shielding. But the sigils haven’t resulted in anything when I’ve tried to use them. They’ve been missing something. This sigil on my cheek is in a more prominent place than any other, so maybe it’s somehow connected to the others. My father’s words suddenly come back to me:

  Follow your eye.

  Goddess. My breath comes faster. He didn’t just want me to follow the visible clues he left behind. He also meant for those clues, those sigils running along my hand and up my finger, to literally point to my eye.

  I know I now have the final piece to my father’s puzzle. The final sigil in the secret pathway he wanted me to follow.

  My mind is spinning. If my father intended these sigils to shield only against the seeping poison of the blight as I journeyed to Skyllea—to safety, to freedom—then they won’t be of much use if I’m unable to escape Thanopolis in the first place. And the force keeping me here is …

  My guardian. The one whom I’ve suspected the sigils were meant for all along. But Alldan seems to be telling me they could block out the blight, as well. Perhaps they’re a shield against both, somehow?

  I need to make sure. And for once, Ivrilos isn’t around to eavesdrop. I can somehow feel he’s farther away than usual. Perhaps it’s my greater sense of his death magic or his underworldly essence. Not that I’m perfectly safe, but this is as close as I’m going to get until I can win entirely free of him. I still need to be careful.

  Besides, Alldan is likely assuming my guardian is listening. He’ll want to be just as careful.

  “There are a few here who believe that the blight didn’t just happen, like a drought or a cold spell,” I begin hesitantly, picking at my fingernails in my lap before I still my hands—Alldan’s are perfectly at rest. “I count myself among them. Maybe it comes from somewhere specific, and is made of something…”

  “Darker?” Alldan suggests, almost casually. “It is not blood magic that our veils protect against, after all.”

  He has to mean death magic. That must be what the sigils are meant to block out. Aside from the greater, frightening implication that the blight is caused by death magic, perhaps knowingly from within Thanopolis, as my father suspected, that means the same sigils used to protect against it can work on my guardian.

  I want to test my theory this very moment, but Ivrilos isn’t here, and besides, if he learns I can shut him out, he might report me, shaky truce or not—and whatever confusing feelings lie between us or not. I can only try it when I’m ready to move; otherwise, the palace will come down on my head. Without Ivrilos to stop me, I’ll be more than formidable, but I can’t fight off all the wards in the city at once. As soon as I put my escape plan into motion, I’ll need to be quick.

  What that plan might look like, I’m not sure. Not without Lydea and Japha weighing in.

  Not without my mother.

  “So the king understands the true nature of the blight, and is willing to join forces with you?” I ask. I shouldn’t care. I need to help myself before I can consider anything else. But Ivrilos said his family is evil, and for the king to know about the blight, to know that the death magic he so trumpets is the cause, to know that it originates from Thanopolis …

  “Oh, I think he has known for a very long time,” Alldan says, seemingly without judgment. But the words are like a sheath disguising a honed sword.

  “And you’re eager to make peace?” I press.

  “We are eager to find allies.”

  Allies that don’t necessarily include King Tyros. Maybe Skyllea will help me after all. Maybe Alldan will. I suddenly look at him in a whole new light, this strange prince sitting calm and collected next to me, while I’m anything but.

  And yet Alldan has only given me a clue—an important clue—to what my father already knew. So why didn’t my father use these sigils to block out Ivrilos, flee across the blight years ago, and bring the truth to Skyllea? Maybe he grew too weak before he discovered them. Or maybe it’s something else.

  “Shielding against the blight,” I start. “Do you know how it works? I mean, you said it’s a jealously guarded secret here, but maybe…” I make a muddle of it, but I hope he understands what I’m asking. Talking with Alldan is
like pretending to dance with Ivrilos—we’re making all the proper motions, but we’re really up to something else entirely.

  Alldan’s expression darkens. “There’s a reason it took us much longer to create a veil of our own. There are certain practices here that we find … distasteful … in Skyllea.” By distasteful he means abhorrent, and by certain practices he means death magic—I know enough from my father to translate. “It led Thanopolis’s mages more readily to the solution of the veil. You see, you must have a piece of what you wish to shield against. I believe bloodmages here worked with these … shadow priests … of yours to safely contain some of the blight. If one wished to create a similar veil, they would need similar … assistance.”

  Both excitement and sorrow stab at me. That’s why my father never used the sigils. He would never have touched death magic. It’s supposedly too dangerous for bloodmages, and he hated it, besides. And he never trusted any shadow priests or Ivrilos enough to ask for help.

  But Ivrilos has given me something. A piece of himself. I don’t even need to find a shadow priest to assist me.

  Suddenly I can’t sit still, no matter how exhausted I am. I stand from the bench and pace between columns. Underneath the arches overlooking the polis, I come to a marble balustrade and lean over it. I’m chewing my lip, trying to spot my home as Alldan joins me, resting his elbows on the warm stone. The sunlight practically makes him glow.

  I can’t see my home from here, and I wonder if I’ll ever see it again.

  Alldan may have already told me all he wants to share, but curiosity gets the better of me. “How did Skyllea create their veil without shadow priests?” I ask, watching the iridescent shimmer in the sky that’s our own veil.

  He shrugs, his eyes shuttering. “If one wants a piece of the blight, it’s happy to oblige.”

  He obviously doesn’t want to elaborate. He also hasn’t said their approach is safe. The blight infects people, as well, so did bloodmages in Skyllea knowingly expose—and perhaps sacrifice—themselves to erect a barrier against it? I shiver. It makes the weight of what Skyllea is attempting to do here in Thanopolis all the heavier.

  I try not to think about the other person who wants to fix all of this. An amusing thought occurs to me before I can stop it: If Alldan could ever get over thinking of Ivrilos as an abomination, he might actually like him.

  And yet, what does Alldan want from me? Why is he helping me? I’m sure he’s seeking allies, but there must be more to it than that. He’s a royal, after all, Skyllean or not.

  I turn to face him, pushing back from the balustrade. “Are you enjoying your time in Thanopolis? I’m not much more familiar with the palace than you are, but if there’s something I can help you with…?”

  “Thank you,” Alldan says seriously. “I appreciate it. Anything you can share with me about the culture of Thanopolis would be wonderful, or about the royal family that you think might be useful—in wooing Lydea, that is.”

  Of course. Spying. I’m as perfectly positioned for that as I am for what Ivrilos wants.

  I close my eyes, letting the sun warm my lids. Am I selfish for wanting to run the other way? Instead of figuring out how people can help me, should I be trying to help them? Should I be offering myself up as a sacrifice to Ivrilos’s grand plan, or volunteering to spy for Skyllea?

  “Ideally,” Alldan continues, “I would like for Lydea to come live with me in Skyllea someday soon, to complete our cultural exchange. Do you think she would be willing to do that?”

  I blink. Leave Thanopolis, yes. Accompany Alldan to Skyllea to no doubt be used as a political bargaining chip? I’m not so sure.

  “Perhaps?” I say. “But she’s one of the most … beloved … people in the polis, so King Tyros might not want to let her go.”

  She’s valuable, I mean, if only for her bloodline and keeping Graecus sustained in the afterlife. Not to mention that I might not want to let her go.

  “Ah, see, I’ve gotten the opposite impression. I feel like daughters are neglected here. Look at what happened to Delphia—a child practically of Skyllea, sentenced to the necropolis. It’s a shame.” He sounds truly bitter about that, and I wonder if indeed there’s something between him and the young princess, as Lydea said. He hesitates, a slight breeze ruffling his forest green hair. “But you might be right. If something were to happen to the crown prince, Lydea would become precious indeed.”

  If something were to happen … It hits me then, what he’s saying.

  If Kineas’s thread were plucked from the royal tapestry, Lydea wouldn’t inherit the crown because of the rules laid down by the first king of Thanopolis proscribing female rulers. But she would become queen regent, and her son would be in line for the throne. Alldan’s son. And if Lydea were safe in Skyllea, a shift in power could more easily occur. Once the king was removed as well, whether through war or assassination, she and Alldan could bring true change to Thanopolis. Free bloodmages from their guardians, and perhaps reveal the source of the blight. Destroy it.

  Skyllea doesn’t only want to keep their enemies close; they want to infiltrate and overthrow them.

  But that would require Kineas’s—never mind the king’s—permanent absence.

  “We wouldn’t want that, now, would we?” I ask carefully.

  “Skyllea cannot come under any suspicion if we are to maintain our alliance and encourage Lydea’s visit. But of course we cannot be held responsible for accidents … or the actions of others.”

  I feel dizzy for a few heartbeats, and my hand returns to the marble balustrade to steady me. They want to assassinate the king and his heir. But does Alldan want my help? I’m close to Kineas by necessity, and I’ve as good as admitted that we hate each other. But if I help kill Kineas and anyone finds out, I would be handing myself and my mother a death sentence.

  I almost laugh in despair. Alldan and Ivrilos do indeed want the same thing, in the end: a change in leadership. But Ivrilos is more focused on the underworld than on Thanopolis, and Alldan wishes Kineas dead, whereas Ivrilos forbade it. Killing the crown prince is far more appealing than marrying him and bearing his children. But either way, I might not survive their quests to destroy the royal family.

  I want to survive. I want my mother to survive. I don’t want to be someone’s sacrifice.

  “It would be horrible…,” I begin slowly, turning back to the view. “Horrible if any accident were to reflect poorly on me, as well. I couldn’t dishonor my mother like that.”

  “Of course,” Alldan says immediately. “And there would be far less risk of that if you and your mother were to accompany Lydea on her visit to Skyllea. If you can help me convince her to come, that is. You said seeing Skyllea was a dream of yours, correct? Perhaps you can share that enthusiasm with her.”

  It certainly is my dream, and my mother and I would be safe there from the rippling damage Kineas’s and the king’s deaths would cause.

  “What about Japha?” I blurt. “They might want to see Skyllea, as well. I would hate for them to be left behind.”

  Alldan nods. “They are more than welcome to visit, and so is Delphia if she can gain leave from the necropolis. In fact, we would highly encourage it as part of our diplomatic mission.” Something in his tone suggests it matters far more to him than that.

  Maybe only because Delphia could be used in Lydea’s absence as a potential path of succession to the throne. Japha, too, or even Crisea. But if they’re all absent from Thanopolis, none of Old King Neleus’s grandchildren would pose a threat to Skyllea’s plan for Lydea’s son to wear the crown.

  Maybe Alldan doesn’t want my help killing anyone. He probably has people aplenty for that. Maybe he wants my help with something else. His line about wooing Lydea might be closer to the truth than I thought.

  But if all this comes at the cost of Lydea’s freedom, then I’m beyond hesitant.

  Besides … “The king may not allow me to abandon Kineas, even if I insist it’s temporary,” I say.

&nb
sp; “Ah, but you like breaking the rules.” And then, I swear to the goddess, he actually winks. It looks about as awkward on him as it would on Ivrilos. “Don’t worry; I won’t reveal your secret.”

  He could mean my penchant for disobeying, but I think we both know he means that he’d hide me if I managed to escape to Skyllea. It would probably be easier for the Skyllean delegation if they had me to help Japha and Delphia escape, anyway. They could then focus on extracting Lydea, through open channels or otherwise—if she agrees to go with them. And Alldan thinks I might be able to convince her to do so.

  But this would put us all in Skyllea’s debt—and in their clutches. And even if it’s my dream to go to Skyllea, I highly doubt it’s Lydea’s or Japha’s. I’m not sure about anything other than the knowledge that runs as deep as my bones: I can’t marry Kineas. Which means I can’t stay here.

  But I also can’t trade Lydea’s freedom for mine.

  I look out over the polis again. I have to find my mother. And in the meantime, I can teach Lydea and Japha the sigils to shield themselves from their own guardians, though I’m not sure what they’ll use as a source of death magic. Maybe someone in the necropolis—even poor Delphia or Crisea—can help them. Even if I could block all their guardians by myself, there’s no telling if I’ll be able to sustain that for as long as we’d need to escape. Ideally, they could do it themselves, and we need to find a more permanent way to break the bond. Once we’ve figured that out, and I’ve reunited with my mother, we can all flee, fight whom we must, and cross the blight. King Tyros will send people after us, no doubt, especially if the veil alerts him to our passage like my father warned it would. But if we can move quickly enough, especially if we have horses, we can stay ahead.

  If we have help.

  Lydea’s paying a more official visit to Skyllea still might be our best option, but it has to be her choice.

  I meet Alldan’s violet eyes squarely. “What if I can’t help you … woo Lydea?”

  He shrugs, though I can see the weight on his bronze-edged shoulders. “We feel it’s our moral imperative, so to speak. You would still be welcome in Skyllea if Lydea refuses to come, but we might have to resort to less diplomatic measures to effect change. Broader strokes, on a larger scale.”