A Conjuring of Light

by V. E. Schwab

  Would the world climb up over the sleeping bodies?

  Would it claim them, inch by inch?

  It began to snow in earnest (strange, close as they were to spring, but not the strangest thing befalling London, then), and so Rhy brushed the ice from still cheeks, tore canvas down from the ghostly bones of the night market, and took blankets from homes now haunted only with the memories of breath. And patiently, the prince covered each and every person he found, though they did not seem to feel the cold beneath their shrouded safety of spellwork and sleep.

  The chill ate at the prince’s fingers. It seeped through armor and into aching skin, but Rhy did not turn back, did not break his vigil until the first light of day broke the shell of darkness and the dawn thinned the frost. Only then did the prince return to the palace, and fall into bed, and sleep.

  TWELVE

  BETRAYAL

  I

  Dawn broke in silence over the Ghost.

  They’d dumped the bodies overboard—Hano, with her throat cut, and Ilo, whom they’d found dead below, Jasta, who’d betrayed them all, and every last one of the Serpents.

  Hastra alone had been wrapped in a blanket. Kell fastened the fabric carefully around the boy’s legs, waist, shoulders, sparing his face—the shy smile gone, the glossy curls now lank—as long as possible.

  Sailors went into the sea, but Hastra wasn’t a sailor. He was a royal guard.

  If they’d had flowers on the ship, Kell would have laid one on the rent over Hastra’s heart—that was the custom, in Arnes, to mark a mortal wound.

  He thought of the blossom waiting back in the Basin, the one Hastra had made for Kell that day, coaxing life from a clod of dirt, a drop of water, a seed, the sum more than its parts, a sliver of light in a darkening world. Would it still be there, when they returned home? Or had it already withered?

  If Lenos were there, he could have said something, sent a prayer to the nameless saints, but Lenos was gone too, lost to the tide, and Kell didn’t have any flowers, didn’t have any prayers, didn’t have anything but the hollow anger swimming in his heart.

  “Anoshe,” he murmured as the body went over the side.

  They should have cleaned the deck, but there seemed no point. The Ghost—what was left of it—would reach Tanek within the day.

  His body swayed with fatigue.

  He hadn’t slept. None of them had.

  Holland was focused on keeping wind in the sails while Alucard stood numbly at the wheel—power was precious, but Lila had insisted on healing the captain’s wounds. Kell supposed he couldn’t fault her. Alucard Emery had done his share to keep the ship afloat.

  Lila herself stood nearby, tipping the Faroan gems from hand to hand, staring down at the blue chips, her brow furrowed in thought.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I killed a Faroan once,” she mused, tipping the gems back into her first hand. “During the tournament.”

  “You what?” started Kell, hoping he’d misheard, that he wouldn’t feel compelled to mention this to Rhy—or worse, Maxim—once they docked. “When would you have—”

  “That’s not the point of the story,” she chided, letting the gems tumble between her fingers. “Have you ever seen a Faroan part with these? Ever seen one trade in anything but coin?”

  Kell frowned a little. “No.”

  “That’s because the gems are set into their skin. Couldn’t pluck one off if you wanted to, not without a knife.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  Lila shrugged, holding her hand out over a crate. “It’s the kind of thing you think about, when you’re a thief.”

  She tipped her hand, and the gems clattered onto the wooden top. “And when I killed that Faroan, the gems in his face came free. Fell away, like whatever was holding them in place was gone.”

  Kell’s eyes widened. “You don’t think these came from a Faroan.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they did,” said Lila, taking up a single gem. “But I doubt they had a choice.”

  II

  Maxim finished his spell sometime after dawn.

  He slumped back against the table and admired his work, the faceless men standing in formation, their armored chests locked over steel hearts. Twelve deep cuts ran along the inside of the king’s arm, some healing and others fresh. Twelve pieces of steel-clad spellwork bound together before him, forged and welded and made whole.

  The strain of binding the magic was grueling, a constant pull on his power, amplifying with every added shell. His body trembled faintly with the weight, but it would not take long, once the task was started. Maxim would manage.

  He straightened—the room spun dangerously for several seconds before it settled—and went downstairs to share a last meal with his wife, his son. A farewell without the words. Emira would understand, and Rhy, he hoped, would forgive him. The book would help.

  As Maxim walked, he imagined sitting with them in the grand salon, the table covered in pots of tea and fresh-baked bread. Emira’s hand on his. Rhy’s laughter spilling over. And Kell, where he had always been, sitting at his brother’s side.

  Maxim let his tired mind live within this dream, this memory, let it carry him forward.

  Just one last meal.

  One last time.

  “Your Majesty!”

  Maxim sighed, turning. His last dream died at the sight of the royal guards holding a man between them. The captive wore the purple-and-white wraps of the Faroan entourage, silver veins running like molten metal between the gems on his dark skin. Sol-in-Ar stormed down the hall after the men, closing the distance with every stride.

  “Unhand him,” ordered the Faroan lord.

  “What is the meaning of this?” asked Maxim, fatigue wearing down every muscle, every bone.

  One of the guards held out a letter. “We stopped him, Your Majesty, trying to slip out of the palace.”

  “A messenger?” demanded Maxim, rounding on Sol-in-Ar.

  “Are we not permitted to send letters?” challenged the Faroan lord. “I did not realize we were prisoners here.”

  Maxim moved to tear the letter open, but Sol-in-Ar caught his wrist.

  “Do not make an enemy of allies,” he warned in his sibilant way. “You have enough of the former already.”

  Maxim drew his wrist free and sliced open the letter in a single, fluid gesture, eyes flitting over the Faroan script. “You called for reinforcements.”

  “We are in need of them,” said Sol-in-Ar.

  “No.” Maxim’s head pounded. “You will only draw more lives into the fray—”

  “Perhaps if you had told us about your priests’ spell—”

  “—more lives for Osaron to claim and use against us all.”

  The Veskan prince had arrived by now, and Maxim turned his ire on him, too. “And you? Have the Veskans sent word beyond the city, too?”

  Col paled. “And risk their lives as well? Of course not.”

  Sol-in-Ar glared at the Veskan prince. “You are lying.”

  Maxim didn’t have the energy for this. He didn’t have the time.

  “Confine Lord Sol-in-Ar and his entourage to their rooms.”

  The Faroan stared at him, aghast. “King Maresh—”

  “You have two choices,” cut in Maxim, “your rooms, or the royal prison. And for your sake, and ours, I hope you only sent one man.”

  When Maxim’s men led Sol-in-Ar away, he didn’t protest, didn’t fight. He said only one thing, the words soft, strained.

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  * * *

  The Maresh family wasn’t sitting in the grand salon. The chairs stood empty. The table hadn’t been set—it wouldn’t be for hours, he realized. The sun wasn’t even up.

  Maxim’s body was beginning to shake.

  He didn’t have the strength to keep searching, so he returned to the royal chambers, hoping vainly that Emira would be there, waiting for him. His heart sank when he found the room empty, even as some small p
art of him exhaled, relieved at being spared the drawn-out pain of parting.

  With trembling hands, he began setting his affairs in order. He finished dressing, cleared his desk, set the text he’d written for his son in the center.

  The spell was pulling on Maxim with every breath, every heartbeat, threads of magic drawn taut through walls and down stairs, leaching energy with every unused moment.

  Soon, the king promised the spell. Soon.

  He penned three letters, one to Rhy, one to Kell, and the last to Emira, all too long and far too short. Maxim had always been a man of action, not words. And time was running out.

  He was just blowing on the ink when he heard the door open.

  His heart quickened, hope rising as he turned, expecting to find his wife.

  “My dearest…” He trailed off at the sight of the girl, fair and blond and dressed in green, a crown of silver in her hair and crimson splashed like paint across her front.

  The Veskan princess smiled. She had four polished blades between her fingers, thin as needles and each dripping blood, and when she spoke, her voice was easy, bright, as if she weren’t trespassing in the royal chamber, as if there were no bodies in the hall behind her, no blood smeared on her brow.

  “Your Majesty! I was hoping you’d be here.”

  Maxim held his ground. “Princess, what are you—”

  Before he could finish, the first blade came sailing through the air, and by the time the king had his hand up, magic rising to turn the blow, a second knife was driving down through his boot, pinning his foot to the floor.

  A growl of pain escaped as Maxim attempted to pivot, even so, to avoid a third blade, only to take a fourth through the arm. This one hadn’t flown—it was still in his attacker’s hand as she drove the steel in deep above his elbow, pinning his arm back against the wall.

  It had taken less than a full breath.

  The Veskan princess was standing on tiptoes as if she meant to kiss him. She was so young, to seem so old.

  “You don’t look well,” she said.

  Maxim’s head pounded. He’d given too much of himself to the spell. Had too little strength left to summon magic for a fight. But there was still the blade sheathed at his hip. Another on his calf. His fingers twitched, but before he could grab either, one of Cora’s discarded blades sailed back into her fingers.

  She brought it to rest against his throat.

  Maxim’s arm and foot were going numb—not from pain alone, but something else.

  “Poison,” he growled.

  Her head bobbed. “It won’t kill you,” she said cheerfully. “That’s my job. But you’ve been a lovely host.”

  “What have you done? You foolish girl.”

  Her smile sharpened into a sneer. “This foolish girl will bring glory to her name. This foolish girl will take your palace and hand your kingdom to her own.”

  She leaned in close, voice slipping from sweet to sensual. “But first, this foolish girl will cut your throat.”

  Through the open door, Maxim saw the fallen bodies of his guards littering the hall, their armored arms and legs sprawled motionless across the carpet.

  And then he saw the streak of dark skin, the shine of gems like tears catching the light.

  “You are out of your depth, Princess,” he said as the numbness spread through his limbs and the Faroans slipped silently forward, Sol-in-Ar in the lead. “Killing a king grants you only one thing.”

  “And what is that?” she whispered.

  Maxim met her eyes. “A slow death.”

  Cora’s blade bit in as the Faroans flooded the room.

  In a flash, Sol-in-Ar had the murderous girl back against him, one arm around her throat.

  She spun the needlelike knife in her hand, moved to drive the point into the Faroan’s leg, but the others were on her fast, holding her arms, forcing her to her knees before Maxim.

  The king tried to speak, and found his tongue heavy in his mouth, his body fighting too many foes between the poison and the cost of spent magic.

  “Find the Arnesian guards!” ordered Sol-in-Ar.

  Cora fought then, viciously, violently, all the girlish humor stripped away as they divested her of blades.

  Maxim finally wrenched the knife free of his arm with half-numbed fingers and unpinned his foot, blood squelching in his boot as he moved with uneven steps to the sideboard.

  He found the tonics Tieren kept mixed for him, those for pain and those for sleep, and one, just one, for poison, and poured himself a glass of the rosy liquid, as if he were simply thirsty and not fighting back death.

  His fingers shook but he drank deeply, and set the empty glass aside as the feeling returned in a flush of heat, bringing pain with it. A new wave of guards appeared in the doorway, all of them breathless and armed, Isra at the front.

  “Your Majesty,” she said, scanning the room and paling at the sight of the slight Veskan princess pinned to the floor, the Faroan lord giving orders instead of bound to his palace wing, the discarded knives and bloody trail of steps.

  Maxim forced himself to straighten. “See to your guards,” he ordered.

  “Your wounds,” started Isra, but the king cut her off.

  “I am not so easily dispatched.” He turned to Sol-in-Ar. It had been a near thing, and they both knew it, but the Faroan lord said nothing.

  “I am in your debt,” said Maxim. “And I will repay it.” Fearing he might fall over if he lingered long, Maxim turned his attention to the Veskan girl kneeling on his floor. “You failed, little princess, and it will cost you.”

  Cora’s blue eyes were bright. “Not as much as you,” she said, her mouth splitting into a cold smile. “Unlike me, my brother Col has never missed his marks.”

  Maxim’s blood ran cold as he spun on Isra and the other guards. “Where is the queen?”

  III

  Rhy hadn’t gone looking for his mother.

  He found her entirely by accident.

  Before the nightmares, he had always slept late. He’d lie in bed all morning, marveling at the way his pillows felt softest after sleep, or the way light moved against the canopied ceiling. For the first twenty years of his life, Rhy’s bed had been his favorite place in the palace.

  Now he couldn’t wait to be rid of it.

  Every time his body sank into the cushions, he felt the darkness reaching up, folding its arm around him. Every time his mind slid toward sleep, the shadows were there to meet him.

  These days Rhy rose early, desperate for the light.

  It didn’t matter that he’d spent the better part of the night holding vigil in the streets, didn’t matter that his head was cloudy, his limbs stiff and sore and aching with the echo of someone else’s fight. The lack of sleep worried him less than what he found in his dreams.

  The sun was just cresting the river as Rhy woke, the rest of the palace still likely folded in their troubled sleep. He could have called a servant—there were always two or three awake—but instead he dressed himself, not in the princely armor or in the formal red-and-golds, but in the soft black cut he sometimes wore within the interior rooms of the palace.

  It was almost an afterthought, the sword, the weapon at odds with the rest of his attire. Maybe it was Kell’s absence. Maybe it was Tieren’s sleep. Maybe it was the way his father grew paler by the day, or maybe he’d simply grown used to wearing it. Whatever the reason, Rhy took up his royal short sword, fastened the belt around his hips.

  He made his way absently to the salon, his sleep-starved mind half expecting to find the king and queen taking breakfast, but of course it was empty. From there he wandered toward the gallery, but turned back at the first sounds of voices, low and worried and wondering questions to which he didn’t have the answers.

  Rhy retreated, first to the training rooms, filled with the exhausted remains of the royal guard, and then to the map room, in search of his father, who wasn’t there. Rhy went to ballroom after ballroom, looking for peace, for quiet, for a s
hred of normalcy, and finding silvers, nobles, priests, magicians, questions.

  By the time he wandered into the Jewel, he just wanted to be alone.

  Instead, Rhy Maresh found the queen.

  She was standing at the center of the massive glass chamber, her head bowed as if in prayer.

  “What are you doing, Mother?” The words were said softly, but his voice echoed through the hollow room.

  Emira raised her head. “Listening.”

  Rhy looked around, as if there might be something—or someone—he hadn’t noticed. But they were alone in the vast chamber. Beneath his feet, the floor was marked with half-finished circles, the beginnings of spells made when the palace was under attack and abandoned once Tieren’s spell had taken hold, and the ceiling rose high overhead, blossoms winding around thin crystal columns.

  His mother reached out and ran her fingers along the nearest one.

  “Do you remember,” she said, her voice carrying, “when you thought the spring blossoms were all edible?”

  His steps sounded on the glass floor, causing the room to sing faintly as he moved toward her. “It was Kell’s fault. He’s the one who insisted they were.”

  “And you believed him. You made yourself so sick.”

  “I got him back, though, remember? When I challenged him to see who could eat the most summer cakes. He didn’t realize until the first bite the cooks had made them all with lime.” A soft laugh escaped at the memory of Kell resisting the urge to spit it out, and getting ill into a marble planter. “We got into a fair amount of mischief.”

  “You say that as though you ever stopped.” Emira’s hand fell away from the column. “When I first came to the palace, I hated this room.” She said it absently, but Rhy knew his mother—knew that nothing she said or did was ever without meaning.

  “Did you?” he prompted.

  “What could be worse, I thought, than a ballroom made of glass? It was only a matter of time before it broke. And then one day, oh, I was so angry at your father—I don’t remember why—but I wanted to break something, so I came in here, to this fragile room, and pounded on the walls, the floor, the columns. I beat my hands on the crystal and the glass until my knuckles were raw. But no matter what I did, the Jewel would not break.”