A Conjuring of Light

by V. E. Schwab

  “Master Ke—”

  The guard went flying backward and struck the wall between two lanterns. He didn’t fall, but hung there, pinned, as Kell turned toward the other two. Instantly they let go of Holland’s chains, and he half sat, half fell back against the bench, locking his teeth against the jolt of pain. Kell released his hold on the first guard, and the man went crashing to the floor.

  The air in the room was frosting over as Kell considered the knife in his hand. He brought the tip of his finger to the point of the blade and pressed down, drawing a single bead of red.

  The guards recoiled as one, and Kell glanced up, as if surprised. “I thought you wanted blood sport.”

  “Solase,” said the first guard, rising to his feet. “Solase, mas vares.” The others bit their tongues.

  “Go,” ordered Kell. “The next time I see any of you down here, you will not leave.”

  They fled, leaving the cell door open as they went.

  Holland, who had said nothing since the first footsteps drew him from reverie, leaned his head back against the stone wall. “My hero.”

  The blindfold hung around his neck, and for the first time since the roof, their eyes met as Kell reached out and swung the cell door closed between them.

  He nodded at the stairs. “How many times has that happened?”

  Holland said nothing.

  “You didn’t fight back.”

  Holland’s swollen fingers curled around the chains as if to say, How could I?, and Kell raised a brow as if to say, Those make a difference? Because they both knew the simple truth: a prison could not hold an Antari unless he let it.

  Kell turned his attention back to the blade, clearly recognizing the make. “Lila,” he muttered. “Should have realized sooner…”

  “Miss Bard does not care for me.”

  “Not since you killed her only family.”

  “The man in the tavern,” said Holland, thoughtfully. “She killed him when she took what wasn’t hers. When she led me to her home. If she’d been a better thief, perhaps he would still be alive.”

  “I’d keep that opinion to yourself,” said Kell, “if you want to keep your tongue.”

  A long silence. In the end, Holland was the one to break it.

  “Have you finished sulking?”

  “You know,” snapped Kell, “you’re very good at making enemies. Have you ever tried to make a friend?”

  Holland cocked his head. “What use are those?” Kell gestured to the cells. Holland didn’t rise to the bait. He changed course. “What is happening beyond the palace?”

  Kell pressed a palm between his eyes. When he was tired, his composure slipped, the cracks on display. “Osaron is free,” he said.

  Holland listened, brows drawn, as Kell went on about the blackened river, the poisoned fog. When he was done, he stared at Holland, waiting for some answer to a question he’d never asked. Holland said nothing, and at last Kell made an exasperated sound.

  “What does he want?” demanded the young Antari, clearly resisting the urge to pace.

  Holland closed his eyes and remembered Osaron’s rising temper, his echo of more, more, more, we could do more, be more.

  “More,” he said simply.

  “What does that mean?” demanded Kell.

  Holland weighed the words before he spoke. “You asked what he wants,” he said. “But for Osaron, it’s not about want so much as need. Fire needs air. Earth needs water. And Osaron needs chaos. He feeds on it, the energy of entropy.” Every time Holland had found steady ground, every time things had begun to settle, Osaron had forced them back into motion, into change, into chaos. “He’s much like you,” he added as Kell paced. “He cannot bear to be still.”

  The cogs were turning behind Kell’s eyes, thoughts and emotions flickering across his face like light. Holland wondered if he knew how much he showed.

  “Then I must find a way to make him still,” said the young Antari.

  “If you can,” said Holland. “That alone won’t stop him, but it will force him to be reckless. And if reckless humans make mistakes, then so will reckless gods.”

  “Do you truly believe that he’s a god?”

  Holland rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t matter what someone is. Only what they think they are.”

  A door ground open overhead, and Holland tensed reflexively, hating the subtle but traitorous rattle of his chains, but Kell didn’t seem to notice.

  Moments later a guard appeared at the base of the stairs. Not one of Holland’s attackers, but an older man, temples silver.

  “What is it, Staff?” asked Kell.

  “Sir,” answered the man gruffly. He held no love for the Antari prince. “The king has summoned you.”

  Kell nodded, and turned to leave. He hesitated at the edge of the room. “Do you care so little for your own world, Holland?”

  He stiffened. “My world,” he said slowly, “is the only thing I care about.”

  “Yet you stay here. Helpless. Useless.” Somewhere deep in Holland, someone—the man he used to be, before Osaron, before the Danes—was screaming. Fighting. He held still, waited for the wave to pass.

  “You told me once,” said Kell, “that you were either magic’s master or its slave. So which are you now?”

  The screaming died in Holland’s head, smothered by the hollow quiet he’d trained to take its place.

  “That’s what you don’t understand,” said Holland, letting the emptiness fold over him. “I have only ever been its slave.”

  III

  The royal map room had always been off limits.

  When Kell and Rhy were young, they’d played in every palace chamber and hallway—but never here. There were no chairs in this room. No walls of books. No hearth fire or cells, no hidden doors or secret passages. Only the table with its massive map, Arnes rising from the surface of the parchment like a body beneath a taut sheet. The map spanned the table edge to edge, in full detail, from the glittering city of London at its center to the very edges of the empire. Tiny stone ships floated on flat seas, and tiny stone soldiers marked the royal garrisons stationed at the borders, and tiny stone guards patrolled the streets in troops of rose quartz and marble.

  King Maxim told them that the pieces on this board had consequences. That to move a chalice was to make war. To topple a ship was to doom the vessel. To play with the men was to the play with lives.

  The warning was a sufficient deterrent—whether or not it was true, neither Rhy nor Kell dared chance it and risk Maxim’s anger and their own guilt.

  The map was enchanted, though—it showed the empire as it was; now the river glistened like a streak of oil; now tendrils of fog thin as pipe smoke drifted through the miniature streets; now the arenas stood abandoned, darkness rising like steam off every surface.

  What it didn’t show were the fallen roaming the streets. It didn’t show the desperate survivors pounding on the doors of houses, begging to be let in. It didn’t show the panic, the noise, the fear.

  King Maxim stood at the map’s southern edge, hands braced against the table, head bent over the image of his city. To one side stood Tieren, looking like he’d aged ten years in the course of a single night. To the other stood Isra, the captain of the city guard, a broad-shouldered Londoner with cropped black hair and a strong jaw. Women might be rare in the guard, but if someone questioned Isra’s standing, they only did it once.

  Two of Maxim’s vestran council, Lord Casin and Lady Rosec, commanded the map’s eastern side, while Parlo and Lisane, the ostra who’d organized and overseen the Essen Tasch, occupied the west. Each and every one of them looked out of place, still dressed for a winner’s ball and not a city under siege.

  Kell forced himself up to the map’s northern edge, stopping directly across from the king.

  “We cannot make sense of it,” Isra was saying. “There appear to be two kinds of attack, or rather, two kinds of victim.”

  “Are they possessed?” asked the king. “During
the Black Night, Vitari took multiple hosts, spreading himself like a plague between them.”

  “This isn’t possession,” interjected Kell. “Osaron is too strong to take an ordinary host. Vitari ate through every shell he found, but it took hours. Osaron would burn through a shell in seconds.” He thought of Kisimyr on the roof, her body cracking and crumbling under Osaron’s boot. “There’s no point trying to possess them.”

  Unless, he thought, they are Antari.

  “Then, by saints,” demanded Maxim, “what is he doing?”

  “It seems like some kind of sickness,” said Isra.

  The ostra, Lisane, shuddered. “He’s infecting them?”

  “He is creating puppets,” said Tieren grimly. “Invading their minds, corrupting them. And if that fails…”

  “He’s taking them by force,” said Kell.

  “Or killing them in the process,” added Isra. “Thinning the pack, weeding out resistance.”

  “Any wards?” asked the king, looking to Kell. “Besides Antari blood?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Survivors?”

  A long silence.

  Maxim cleared his throat.

  “We’ve no word from either House Loreni or House Emery,” started Lord Casin. “Can’t your men be mustered—”

  “My men are doing everything they can,” snapped Maxim. Beside him, Isra shot the lord a cold glare.

  “We’ve sent scouts to follow the fog’s line,” she continued evenly, “and there is a perimeter to Osaron’s magic. Right now the spell ends seven measures beyond the city’s edge, carving out a circle, but our reports show that it is spreading.”

  “He’s drawing power from every life he claims.” Tieren’s voice was quiet, but authoritative. “If Osaron is not stopped soon, his shadow will cover Arnes.”

  “And then Faro,” cut in Sol-in-Ar, storming through the doorway. The captain’s hand twitched toward her sword, but Maxim stayed her with a look.

  “Lord Sol-in-Ar,” said the king coolly. “I did not call for you.”

  “You should have,” countered the Faroan as Prince Col appeared at his heels. “Since this matter concerns not only Arnes.”

  “Do you think this darkness will stop at your borders?” added the Veskan prince.

  “If we stop it first,” said Maxim.

  “And if you do not,” said Sol-in-Ar as his dark eyes fell on the map, “it will not matter who fell first.”

  Who fell first. An idea flickered at the edge of Kell’s mind, fighting to take shape amid the noise. The feel of Lila’s body sagging against his. Staring at the empty cup cradled in Hastra’s hand.

  “Very well,” said the king. He nodded at Isra to continue.

  “The jails are full of those who’ve fallen,” reported the captain. “We’ve commandeered the plaza, and the port cells, but we’re running out of places to put them. We’re already using the Rose Hall for those with fever.”

  “What about the tournament arenas?” offered Kell.

  Isra shook her head. “My men won’t go onto the river, sir. Not safe. A few tried, and they didn’t come back.”

  “The blood sigils are not lasting,” added Tieren. “They fade within hours, and the fallen seem to have discovered their purpose. We’ve already lost a portion of the guards.”

  “Call the rest back at once,” said the king.

  Call the rest.

  There it was. “I have an idea,” said Kell, softly, the threads of it still drawing together.

  “We are caged in,” said the Faroan general, sweeping a hand over the map. “And this creature will pick over our bones unless we find a way to fight back.”

  Make him still. Force him to be reckless.

  “I have an idea,” said Kell again, louder. This time the room went quiet.

  “Speak,” said the king.

  Kell swallowed. “What if we take away the people?”

  “Which people?”

  “All of them.”

  “We can’t evacuate,” said Maxim. “There are too many poisoned by Osaron’s magic. If they were to leave, they’d simply spread the illness faster. No, it must be contained. We still don’t know if those lost can be regained, but we must hope it is a sickness and not a sentence.”

  “No, we can’t evacuate them,” confirmed Kell. “But every waking body is a potential weapon, and if we want a chance at defeating Osaron, we need him disarmed.”

  “Speak plainly,” ordered Maxim.

  Kell drew breath, but was cut off by a voice from the door.

  “What’s this? No vigil by my bed? I’m offended.”

  Kell spun to see his brother standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets and shoulder tipped casually against the frame as if nothing were wrong. As if he hadn’t spent the better part of the night trapped between the living and the dead. None of it showed, at least, not on the surface. His amber eyes were bright, his hair combed, the ring of burnished gold back where it belonged atop his curls.

  Kell’s pulse surged at the sight of him, while the king hid his relief almost as well as the prince hid his ordeal.

  “Rhy,” said Maxim, voice nearly betraying him.

  “Your Highness,” said Sol-in-Ar slowly, “we heard you were hurt in the attack.”

  “We heard you fell victim to the shadow fog,” said Prince Col.

  “We heard you’d taken ill before the winner’s ball,” added Lord Casin.

  Rhy managed a lazy smile. “Goodness, the rumors fly when one is indisposed.” He gestured to himself. “As you can see…” A glance at Kell. “I’m surprisingly resilient. Now, what have I missed?”

  “Kell was just about to tell us,” said the king, “how to defeat this monster.”

  Rhy’s eyes widened even as a ghost of fatigue flitted across his face. He’d only just returned. Is this going to hurt? his gaze seemed to ask. Or maybe even, Are we going to die? But all he said was, “Go on.”

  Kell fumbled for his thoughts. “We can’t evacuate the city,” he said again, turning toward the head priest. “But could we put it to sleep?”

  Tieren frowned, knocking his bony knuckles on the table’s edge. “You want to cast a spell over London?”

  “Over its people,” clarified Kell.

  “For how long?” asked Rhy.

  “As long as we must,” retorted Kell, turning back toward the priest. “Osaron has done it.”

  “He’s a god,” observed Isra.

  “No,” said Kell sharply. “He’s not.”

  “Then what exactly are we facing?” demanded the king.

  “It’s an oshoc,” said Kell, using Holland’s word. Only Tieren seemed to understand.

  “A kind of incarnation,” explained the priest. “Magic in its natural form has no self, no consciousness. It simply is. The Isle river, for instance, is a source of immense power, but it has no identity. When magic gains a self, it gains motive, desire, will.”

  “So Osaron is just a piece of magic with an ego?” asked Rhy. “A spell gone awry?”

  Kell nodded. “And according to Holland, he feeds on chaos. Right now Osaron has ten thousand sources. But if we took them all away, if he had nothing but his own magic—”

  “Which is still considerable—” cut in Isra.

  “We could lure him into a fight.”

  Rhy crossed his arms. “And how do you plan to fight him?”

  Kell had an idea, but he couldn’t bring himself to voice it, not yet, when Rhy had just recovered.

  Tieren spared him. “It could be done,” said the priest thoughtfully. “In a fashion. We’ll never be able to cast a spell that broad, but we could make a network of many smaller incantations,” he rambled, half to himself, “and with an anchor, it could be done.” He looked up, pale eyes brightening. “But I’ll need some things from the Sanctuary.”

  A dozen eyes flicked to the map room’s only window, where the fingers of Osaron’s spell still scratched to get in, despite the morning light. Prince Col stiffened. Lad
y Rosec fixed her gaze on the floor. Kell started to offer, but a look from Rhy made him pause. The look wasn’t refusal. Not at all. It was permission. Unflinching trust.

  Go, it said. Do whatever you must.

  “What a coincidence,” said a voice from the door. They turned as one to see Lila, hands on her hips and very much awake. “I could use some fresh air.”

  IV

  Lila made her way down the hall, an empty satchel in one hand and Tieren’s list of supplies in the other. She’d had the luxury of seeing Kell’s shock and Tieren’s displeasure register at the same time, for whatever that was worth. Her head was still aching dully from whatever she’d been slipped, but the stiff drink had done its part, and the solid plan—or at least a step—had done the rest.

  Your tea, Miss Bard.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d been drugged, but most of her experience had been of a more … investigative nature. She’d spent a month aboard the Spire collecting powder for the tapers and ale she intended to take onto the Copper Thief, enough to bring down an entire crew. She’d inhaled her share, at first by accident, and then with a kind of purpose, training her senses to recognize and endure a certain portion because the last thing she needed was to faint in the middle of the task.

  This time, she’d tasted the powder in the tea the moment it hit her tongue, even managed to spit most of it back into the cup, but by then her senses were going numb, winking out like lights in a strong wind, and she knew what was coming—the shallow, almost pleasant slide before the drop. One minute she’d been in the hall with Kell, and the next her balance was going, floor tipping like a ship in a storm. She’d heard the lilt of his voice, felt the heat of his arms, and then she was gone, down, down, down, and the next thing she knew she was bolting upright on a couch with a headache and a wide-eyed boy watching from the wall.

  “You shouldn’t be awake,” Hastra had stammered as she’d thrown the covers off.

  “Is that really the first thing you want to say?” she’d asked, staggering toward the sideboard to pour herself a drink. She hesitated, remembering the bitter tea, but after a few searching sniffs, she found something that burned her nose in a familiar way. She downed two fingers, steadied herself against the counter. The drug was still clinging to her like cobwebs, and she was left trying to drag the edges of her mind back into order, squinting until the blurred lines all hardened into sharp ones.