Ninthborn (The Ninthborn Chronicle Book 1)

by J. E. Holmes

  Ediline shrugged. “So? Why are you parading me around as the eighthborn?”

  “Please, Ediline, don’t be stupid. Think. Play your part in this, and we might all survive.”

  Her words had a cold gravity that stuck Ediline’s feet to the floor. Her tongue tingled with fear. She caught herself before she turned to look over her shoulder at Javras.

  The name sunk in. Eight years ago, an artifact had been discovered in the ruins of Attenia, a relic from the darkest day of the Lords’ holy kingdom. A sword called the Ender. And the man who wielded the sword, who had ended the Imperial War almost singlehandedly, was called Ashwin the Endbearer.

  “That Ashwin?”

  “I have to go, Ediline.” Betrys faced the center of the chamber, the space between the alcoves. Beyond them, Javras waited by the entrance. His presence was more foreboding than it had been before, as if he were standing beneath a towering shadow. He looked straight at Ediline.

  “I never would have chosen you for this,” Betrys said. “Do not disappoint us.”

  — Chapter 2 —

  “In the absence of the Lords and their guidance and strength, humankind was left with a sliver of their abundant power—the ability to use the natural world around them for their own survival, the ability to burn these Emblems and emulate the power of the Lords. These small magics are little recompense.”

  —The Words of the Lords, ed. ix

  “As has been the case with humankind and any tool at its disposal, this echo of power from the Lords has been used largely to subjugate and kill one another.”

  —A footnote, anonymous

  Nothing about her house had changed since the afternoon, except that the towel and muddied clothes she’d dropped had been picked up by the manor servants who snuck in and out like the fog. Marv lay on her bed, curled up, tail tucked under and clutched by his tiny claw-hands.

  Ediline stared at her bed but couldn’t think of sleep right now. Her head buzzed with questions and worries. How her family planned to hide the armies they were building from Ashwin the Endbearer, how she was supposed to perform her task if she didn’t know their ultimate goal, and why she of all people had been picked to play this role.

  She paced until she’d gone ten times around the room, then opened her wardrobe. If she couldn’t figure out what was happening, she could at least try to figure out what to wear to impress Javras tomorrow. Surely she had to have some clothes that were nice, different from what she’d changed into today. Formal? Cute? She didn’t really know.

  Marv grumbled, black nose twitching, and he squinted, bleary-eyed.

  “Something wrong?”

  She sat on the bed, sinking into it, and stroked the critter’s head. Then she heard it—thudding footsteps outside. This would be the most visitors she’d had in the last three seasons. Marv bristled and sunk back into her pillows. Something wasn’t right. Her front door burst open a moment later, rattling the walls.

  Ediline dropped off the bed and settled into a crouch behind it. She extended her arm slowly toward her bedside table. There was a small knife there, if she could slide the drawer open. Her heart pounded.

  “Edi? Lords banish you, whore, where are you?”

  Shit. She knew those affectionate slurs, the drunken slosh to the consonants. She’d never even had a first kiss, but Deffren had been calling her a whore since she could dress herself. She would suffer less by coming out now. Hiding or trying to flee—or, worse, going for the knife— would be brutally stupid. So she steadied her shaking hands, held fast her rapid breaths, and stepped casually into the living room. Growing up with Deffren had helped her control her body’s natural reactions to fear.

  “Deffy, not so loud,” she said.

  Deffren swung around as she spoke and barreled toward her. It took great concentration not to flinch. Any fear, and he would feed on it. He stopped just short. Deffren was a dozen years older than Ediline, big and thick-bodied, thick-bearded like their father, strong and thick-headed. He was a warrior, and a drunk whenever he had no one to bloody.

  “You,” he seethed. He smelled so strongly of alcohol that Ediline could taste the bitterness all the way to the back of her tongue. It made her want to gag. “What have you done, ketrat?”

  She coughed. “I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You think someone like you can insult the King in his manor?” He loomed over her.

  Her comments about their father’s uncontrollable tendency toward making children. How had he heard about that? It couldn’t have been Javras. Betrys, maybe? Outraged at Ediline’s behavior, letting Deffren loose on her as retaliation? Shit. “Come on, Deffy,” she said, faking a laugh, “you can’t deny that our father has had plenty of sex, with many, many, many different—”

  Dull orange pain crackled outward from her torso, and she doubled over. She hadn’t even seen him throw the punch. She swallowed down the rising contents of her stomach as she gasped and coughed for air. Oh, she shouldn’t have said anything. This was Deffren. She could mouth off in front of other people, and they might just chastise her or ignore her. But this was Deffren. And there was no one else here but Marv.

  “Can you open your mouth without making us regret you?” he snarled. “Can you manage not to offend us? Show me you can.”

  She swallowed again and struggled to right herself. After a moment’s effort, she got up, put her back to the wall, and leaned her head back. He’d half-turned away from her, so she was spared the noxious breath. For eight breaths, she said nothing.

  “Show me your respect,” he said.

  His narrowed eyes cut a baleful glare her way, and she met it with her own. No one could make her wish to be cruel the way Deffren could. He could hit her, push her around, insult her, but she didn’t wither. It only made her want to fight back harder and crave to be vicious.

  Her lip curled. “I’m just shocked you’re lucid enough to understand that I’m trying to offend you—you addled blundering brainless dickless festering growth on the side of this family,” she bit off, smacking balled up fists into the wall behind her. “You’re just angry that Father chose me to do something because you’re incapable of doing anything besides being drunk, being stupid, and being both of those things at the same time.”

  This one she saw coming. He whirled and swung the back of his fist across her cheek. She felt the cut of it, the blood trickle down her face, before she realized the swollen pain of the blow and the fact that she was on the ground in a heap. She coughed and wiped her hair back. With a snarl, he brought a kick into her chest while she steadied herself. A sharp, deep pain ran from her breasts to her throat. She curled on the ground, her body squeezing in on itself to try to shut out the pain.

  “Edi,” he seethed. “Your mother chose you to do this. I don’t know how she convinced Father that you could manage to do anything, but I can’t change that now. Not after you’ve already met the blasphemous bastard.”

  Her chest was shaking, her face hot. There were bright spots all across her vision, radiating from left to right. She focused on regaining her breath and not letting herself look any feebler than she already did. She wouldn’t make a sound, wouldn’t cry. She tasted acid in her throat.

  “You had better not ruin a thing.” His voice had dropped to a violent whisper.

  “Do you think Javras might wonder about the bruise on my face?” she said. Her voice came out far steadier than she felt. Inside, she was cringing on the verge of wailing in pain. Inside, she was weeping and screaming and going for that knife in her bedside table. “Do you think he will wonder where the bruises come from? They’ll all find out it was you.”

  “You like making shit up,” he said. “Make something up.”

  “Even if I do, Father will find out.”

  “He already knows.”

  She shut her eyes. The punishment he’d mentioned. Ah, yes. “Anything else, Deffren?” It was difficult to push the words past the lump of despair in her thr
oat.

  “Edi,” he said, “this is your one chance to be useful to this family. If you ruin it, I’ll make sure you don’t get another chance. Dirty ninth.”

  With that, he stormed out. Ediline lay curled up in her bedroom doorway and felt the slam of the door in the floor and the wall behind her. Moments after he was gone, Marv reemerged and bumped into her elbow. He nuzzled for her hand, and when he found it, she scratched his head without moving more than her fingers. Her body was still hot with pain, she was close to retching, warm tears threatened the corners of her eyes, and an aching sob remained choked in her throat. Counting slowly with each stroke of her fingers on Marv’s soft little head, from one up to eight, she steadied herself, fought the panicked breath, and grounded herself. Marv grunted softly and settled next to her leg.

  “You’re a little coward,” she cooed. Her voice caught, but that was all. It had been years since she had allowed her siblings to make her cry. Even alone, even with no one here but her solitude and Marv, she wouldn’t do it.

  Deffren had just threatened to kill her. It wasn’t the first time. He’d tried halfheartedly, once, by throwing her off a manor walkway and into the Rodiv below, but with frigid certainty she knew he meant it even more this time. Nothing had ever been asked of her. Don’t get in the way. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t embarrass us. She’d always rebelled against that by getting away with whatever she could and accepting the punishment that then stormed after.

  But now they needed her. To swallow that pride, to look past how much they despised her, it was no surprise that her mother was involved. And now that they had called on her, now that they needed her, it was past the time to rebel. She wouldn’t just meet their expectations—she would obliterate them.

  Over Marv’s objecting grunts, Ediline rose and crossed to her bathroom. From behind a trick door at the back of her cabinet, she withdrew a small jar. In it, a precious small pinch of sageleaf. She took just a few of the trimmed leaves and set them in her open hand, inhaled deeply, and felt the line drawn between her and the sageleaf, an emblem of Presence and of Acuity. She drew on her Inherence and evoked its magic—she burned it, strumming that line like a strung chord. It warmed in her palm, and as the leaf shrank, the pain in her throbbing torso, her chest and stomach, also began to fade. She took a single shred of the leaf and dabbed at her face. In the small mirror over her washbasin, she looked at herself. Her eyes were red, cheek cut, lips drawn into a quivering line. The sageleaf reduced the swelling and the pain.

  Deffren didn’t see her. He only saw everything she represented, all the curses and misfortune preached and accepted without question. He hated her, what he saw, but he didn’t know her. Deffren didn’t know a thing about her.

  Would Javras see her, or would he simply see an eighthborn princess? A diplomatic opportunity—or even, Lords forbid, a sexual one? Would he notice the cut on her cheek? Could she, somehow, get him to see her? If he did, would that somehow make her circumstances more bearable? No, she knew immediately. Not if it was all a lie.

  Her house was quiet. She swore she could still feel the tremors of Deffren’s departure, somewhere in the stillness that he left behind. This was where she was supposed to be safe, able to be herself, and he’d broken that. She didn’t want to sit around and stew in her pain. She gave Marv one last scratch, gathered her satchel, and went out.

  Ediline loved to walk through Korv at night. Along the rope bridges and staggered plank platforms affixed to the mangroves, lightpoles lit the way. They glittered an array of colors, and from a distance looking out over Korv was like a sea of prismatic stars.

  Beyond that, in the border jungles, quiet dark. Ediline hated being in the Everquiet when it grew thick, the stagnant silence that came along with covering darkness. It was like bugs buzzing in her ears, like a monster lurking all around her. It was utterly quiet, but it could also feel like a blanket of sound so loud it was impossible to hear anything. She tried to tell herself not to fear it, but she feared it still.

  Ediline wrapped herself in her cloak and drew up the hood as she walked the markets. She liked the movement. She liked the sounds. The conversations between friends, lovers, business partners, and strangers relaxed her. After the pain and horror of Deffren’s intrusion, this was a welcome relief.

  With her Grace, she made a game of weaving through the throngs without touching—or with only barely brushing against—other people as she went. Like a needle trailing thread, she darted through the tapestry of people.

  On a rope bridge, she stopped a moment and turned toward the center of Korv—the royal manor Sladt, bright pinpoints in a capsule of darkness. It sprawled out and shot up and sank down. It seemed so far away, yet she was never out from under it. Passersby paid her no mind, and the way they made the bridge pitch and shake did not bother Ediline. With her Grace, she shifted her weight and kept her balance on instinct.

  She took a long, shaky breath.

  “Is that a sigh, Princess?”

  She didn’t turn. The soft voice was unmistakable. Geltir joined her at the edge of the rope bridge, but he had to hold on tighter than she did to keep his balance. As always, she marveled at his appearance. He wore an off-the-shoulder maroon robe, his hair was gathered in a curly swirl and fastened with a glistening pin, and he wore a long trailing skirt, longer and more flowing than what most men would wear. His arms were protected against the insects by a sheer shawl with sleeves.

  “You’re mistaken,” Ediline said. “I am a princess, and princesses never sigh.”

  “Ah, of course, what a foolish mistake.”

  He peered at her, but she remained hidden behind her cowl. Most wouldn’t have been able to recognize her—with the distinctive white-gray streak through her hair, inherited from her mother, hidden beneath her hood—but Geltir was far more perceptive than most. If people had recognized her, they would have kept farther away. Some of them honestly believed that her ill luck was contagious.

  “A lovely night,” Geltir said.

  “Lovely indeed. If you can ignore the buzzing pests.”

  “Who isn’t used to them by now?”

  “Who indeed.”

  He peered at her further. She felt his inspection, his read of her. He wasn’t of Insight, but he was nonetheless excellent at reading people. She supposed it might have come from his Inherent Acuity.

  “You are melancholic, my dear.”

  Geltir was a friend, possibly her only one, but even he didn’t truly know her home life. She’d met him in the halls of her home, five seasons ago, and he’d admired her crass humor and recognized her as a mutual outcast. She’d doubted him for some time, but something like friendship bloomed from that encounter. She welcomed any opportunity to be around someone who treated her decently, with whom she could talk and laugh. So, if she were going to tell the truth to anyone, it would have been him—and yet she couldn’t.

  “I’m just tired,” she said.

  He hummed, then slinked closer and lowered his voice. “There is talk of a mysterious visitor in our midst.”

  She stifled her reaction. “Oh?”

  “Oh, yes. A handsome, flaxen-haired stranger from afar, and I’ve heard rumor that you, my dearest, have been chosen as his escort.”

  “Ah. Well, I don’t know if I’m that.”

  “So, it’s true?”

  “He does exist,” she said. “What else have you heard?”

  “Her Brilliance the Queen orders that, if asked by visitors from Ronrónfa, that you are the eight-born heir instead of Ancil. Do you find it peculiar?”

  “So people know.”

  “People don’t know why.”

  “You won’t learn it from me.”

  Geltir made a small whining noise. “Princess, please, my social reputation hinges on my ability to have the best gossip. Everyone wants to hear it from me.”

  “You won’t learn it from me,” she repeated, “because I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  �
�Hmph. My guess is fairly straightforward.”

  She tilted her head and eyed him, half-behind her cowl. “Which is?”

  He smirked, leaned back, and gestured to her with his hand, up and down. She grumbled and returned to sulking in the direction of Sladt. She’d been worried the case was exactly that, but seduction was one item absent from her repertoire of skills. Her Presence could only get her so far. No one wanted to get close to her, anyway, believing every superstition her family and the Truist Church spoon-fed them.

  “This news has been circulating for only a few days,” Geltir said. Ediline was not surprised that she’d been the last to know, but it was still frustrating. “And,” he continued, “some speculate that you will be married to the young man.”

  She coughed and caught herself on the rope bridge railing, then whipped around. “I will be what?”

  And then Ediline felt a fool for not considering that possibility herself. Her father had never had a use for her before. Now, maybe, after seventeen years of regret, Ediline’s accidental birth would pay off for the King, and they could finally be rid of her. She’d made herself determined to excel at this task, to prove herself to spite them, but she couldn’t marry him out of obligation, dressed up in a pretty lie.

  “Lords,” she said, “do they think I’m going to keep up the charade forever? Am I supposed to lie to him the rest of my life?”

  “I hope this isn’t the case.”

  “Please tell me your sources are unreliable.”

  “Most, yes. Spectators with nothing better to do.”

  She felt ill. “Most?”

  “One client,” he said, lowering his voice further. Her little outburst a second ago had drawn some looks, but little more. She tried to contain herself better.

  Ediline shivered, like an ice-rain under her skin, and she swallowed. “Geltir, tell me—no, don’t. Yes, please, tell me—nope, forget that.” She groaned. “Just . . . is it one of my siblings?”