by J. E. Holmes
“Flay me alive,” Remer whispered. “How did you do that?”
“Let me out.”
“Tell me how you did that.”
Ediline staggered to her feet and leaned on the ironwood bars. Remer was far back, out of reach. “Let. Me. Out.”
“That was—”
“Remer, you perfect little rodent, let me out of this cell or I’ll kill you from here. If you aren't here to let me out, why did you come here?”
She blinked and looked down. By the time she looked up again, Ediline knew Remer was going to help her escape. The tilt to her expression, the suddenly honest downcast sorrow that blinked away instantly. “To tell you about the shadows. I know you and your sister are interested in them.”
“Do you understand what has happened here tonight?”
“You brought your brother a present.” She put on a mocking frown. Ediline was really pleased that there was a bright red mark on that paper-white face where she’d smashed it into the bars.
“He will kill so many people,” Ediline said.
“And I don’t want to be one of them. Trust me, the shadows are a bigger problem.”
Ediline bottled her frustration and her terror. There was some gravity to the way Remer spoke the words that made her stop. “Bigger how?”
Remer smiled. “Now you’re listening. And you can keep that earring by the way. I don’t want your tainted blood anywhere near me.”
“Bigger how? Explain. I’ll bleed on you.”
Remer snorted. “You’re such a dramatic little creature. The Everquiet and the dark-rains are transitive things, where sound and space from places very far apart can reach each other.”
“How is that possible?”
“It's complex. I wouldn’t expect you to understand it.”
“So you don’t know, either.”
Remer flipped her hair and rubbed absently at her naked ear. “Currently figuring it out. We are just beginning to understand it. My theory is that a single event in the past was so profound that it exists at all times, that everything leans on this gap, like a shared wall.”
An event powerful enough to reach through the shadows across time. The voices from her dreams. It wasn’t completely clear, but it began to make sense. “The fall of the Attenia,” she whispered. “The actual Desolation.”
“Hey, first guess.”
“And if we're pressing on that wall, then the Desolation might . . . .” Beyond the pain wracking her head and body, she felt cold, a vast dread above her. “But why now? There have always been dark-rains.”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out,” Remer said with obvious frustration. “I don’t have all the pieces to my puzzle, and I don’t even know where to put all the ones I do have. So, can you see how this is more important than who has a sword or what he does with it?”
The bloodsword. Oh, Lords, the bloodsword. How had she not seen how it fit in before now? Forged by Loethe the Ninth, betrayer of the Lords of Attenia, bringer of the Desolation. The Ruiner. Undiscovered in the ruins until a decade ago. The sword had everything to do with it.
Ediline’s blood went ice cold. “Remer, you are a brilliant idiot. Step back.”
“What, are you going to smash your head into the bars until they give?”
“I have to do something. Step back.”
“You’ll break the rest of your bones.” Remer rolled her eyes. “Hold a moment. I’ll be right back with someone who can help you sort through the mess in your brain.”
And with a flutter she disappeared from Ediline’s sight, leaving the princess with nothing but incredible pain, a horrible realization, and an earring. She sunk on the floor and gently prodded her head. It was sore all over. She had a noticeable welt on her forehead, and a less noticeable one on the side of the head where, she presumed, she had been kicked. She had pain in her ribs, likely from kicks sustained after she’d lost consciousness, but only one was definitely broken. Her scalp hurt at the roots—someone had given extra care to moving her around. And her nose was tender but, as far as she could tell, back in its proper position. Her face was caked with mostly dried blood.
She slid closer to the ironwood bars. She wanted to crawl out of this cell and get the bloodsword before Deffren could use it. Now it wasn’t even just the people he would kill with it. There were even greater ramifications, if Remer’s theory were correct. Something about using the sword pulled at the Desolation from the other side of the Everquiet.
Remer reappeared with a manor guard at her side. Thule, her mother’s personal doorman. He trudged reluctantly. Remer halted in front of Ediline’s cell and pointed.
“What?” Thule said.
“Free her,” Remer said.
“Oh, no. I’m not getting the axe over the princess.”
“She needs medical attention. Look at her face! Find her a doctor, and let her out of this dreadful jail. Do it now, soldier.”
“The dark-storm is still going outside,” Thule said. “No doctor is going to come.”
“Did I allow myself to be unclear? Release her immediately.”
“You can’t—”
In a blur of white and black, Remer, tiny and fragile and pale as a high cloud, whirled and dipped low, and suddenly Thule was upended and flying backward. He hit the ground and groaned. Remer fanned her skirts and daintily crouched beside him. With one delicate finger she eased the keys from his belt, and with her other hand she held a small glass knife to his face.
“Don’t move, soldier. I’m going to free the princess, and she and I are going to save this kingdom.” Thule wouldn’t fight back. His pride had suffered, but he had very little true dedication and wouldn’t risk his life. Remer shot a look to Ediline, who needed a moment to pick her jaw up off the ground. “Your brother Deffren is an atrocity. We should remove him at once.”
“We?” Ediline said.
“You clearly can’t do this yourself.”
“Will you explain who in the desolation you are?”
“Perhaps.”
“What about the shadows?”
Remer shrugged. “We’ll have to face them later. Some things are inevitable,” she said, “and some things we have the power to change. Do you think you can unlock your cell from the inside?”
Ediline ignored the haunting way Remer’s words echoed through her. It was just like what she had said to Javras. Remer tossed her the keys. She caught them easily enough, but it took her three tries to get standing again.
“Thule,” Ediline said after she stepped out of the cell.
“You know him?”
“Thule,” Ediline repeated, ignoring Remer. “Where is my mother?”
“I don’t know,” Thule said. “Her Brilliance disappeared the day you did. I thought maybe she went after you.”
Not likely. Even when she had managed to be fond of Ediline, Queen Alarica had not loved her. No, her mother was a political creature. With her husband dead, maybe she felt she was in danger herself and needed to flee to her home nation. Perhaps to warn them of this horrible war. Or perhaps to use that knowledge to put herself in a better position.
“We need to go,” Remer said.
“Fine.” Ediline started up the corridor, away from the jail cells. Thule stayed down. Remer followed.
“Don’t bleed on me,” she said.
“I’ll do my best.”
As her head cleared—though the pain did not dissipate—Ediline had a feeling that Ancil was the only reason she was still alive.
The corridors from the lower jails, which had been carved into the massive mangrove upon which Sladt sat, were dreary and damp. Coming up from them, into the dim halls of the manor proper, felt a little like clearing her head. It only took a flash of a moment to orient herself, and she began leading Remer east, toward the Main Hall.
There were screams.
Despite the throbbing weight of her head, Ediline raced up ramps and through narrow corridors. Remer tried to keep up. Servants scattered and ran away. Edi
line took Remer’s hand and pulled her to keep up, and Remer didn’t object to her blood.
She slid to a halt coming out of a corridor halfway down the Main Hall. The main door was gone, smothered by shadows. The dark-rain spilled into the building, coating the walls and floor. And in the darkness she saw it. Violet flesh stretched thin over a nearly skeletal body, cracked wings folded onto the back of a prowling creature, eyes fixed motes of sickly yellow against the black. The skin pulled away from its mouth, showing jagged teeth like shards of glass. Its glowing eyes were fixed ahead, past Ediline, past everything.
The clack-scratch of claws on the floor was the only sound that pierced the Everquiet. Behind the creature—through its ghostly body—she could see another, and another and another and another. As they walked on the shadowy ground, the darkness spread out before them. Remer caught up and clung painfully to Ediline’s side.
“Fuck,” Remer gasped. “Lords and Tyrants, I’m actually seeing it.”
Ediline kept her mind focused forward. One of the creatures stepped over something, still a long dash away. The obstacle had the shape of a body, as the creature passed over it. Ediline noticed the color of blood on the creature’s teeth. Manor guards. “What are they?” she said.
“The Church is going to go insane,” Remer breathed. “We’re dead.”
“One problem at a time.”
“They don’t seem interested in killing us.”
“Is that why your nails are digging into my arm?”
“I just—”
“Step into the darkness, then see if they’re interested in killing you.”
Remer jerked back, detaching herself from Ediline. The darkness was spreading, and the shadow-creatures prowled on. More came into view through what must have been the door. Had they opened it, or could they move through it? Was the door still there? was Korv?—or did the dark-rain bring with it someplace else entirely?
“What are you planning?” Remer said.
Her head still reeled from pain and dizziness. She didn't have the bloodsword to fight them, and the light of the hall wasn't enough to push back the darkness. The dark-rain and the shadow-creatures didn’t seem to mind it. They prowled onward.
“Something is different about today,” she said. “There’s somewhere else we need to be right now.”
“Lead the way.”
“Do you have an extra knife?”
She felt something cold in her palm, her fingers being pressed to fold over it. The blade was small, and made of glass, but it was a knife. It was a weapon. It was something.
Ediline pulled Remer across the main hall, through a corridor, away from it. The creatures might be able to prowl straight through the manor, shadows making doors out of walls, but Ediline couldn’t. The corridors were empty. Everyone must know now; they must have hid. It was easy for Ediline to duck outside through a side channel and hurry down covered walkways.
She found the massively thick door to the Hall of Council open.
“You’re going to confront the King now, like this?” Remer said. She grabbed and pulled Ediline to a halt in the rain. Remer’s wet dress clung to her body. Her skin all down her arms prickled in the cold, and water streamed down her face from her hair. Her jaw chattered.
“Yes,” Ediline said. “If I don’t do it now, I don’t think we’ll get another chance. You said we should remove him immediately.”
“I just wanted to make sure you had the stomach for it.”
“My stomach is plenty tested.”
“I’m sure it is.” Remer wiped her hair back and gripped her knife. “The shadows haven’t reached this far yet.”
“I don’t think it will be long.”
Remer nodded. “I’ll follow you.”
Ediline slipped through the open door and into the hall. The chandeliers, the vines, and the plants in the high ceiling above seemed dimmer than before. The hall was silent, but there was a foul smell thick through the air. Horrid memories screamed back to the present. Ediline saw piles of bodies in Tailiet, Liu and her children; she saw the charging soldiers cut down by her single attack; she saw Straad, a conquerer, as Rei and Miu were dragged away.
She turned and slumped to her knees and vomited in the corner. She heaved and hacked, and she heard Remer gagging. Thin arms lifted her from the floor. Those same arms shoved her forward.
“Come on.”
“You don’t have to stay with me,” Ediline said, spitting out bitterness.
“Of course I do.” Remer added nothing more. She nudged Ediline forward again.
The stained glass door was open, dark inside. The foul smell curled out of the darkness.
Holding her breath and her courage at the same time, Ediline flattened herself and went through the door without touching it. Inside, the King’s hall was completely black. The Everquiet was heavy. There were chandeliers here, somewhere, torowood lights, and plenty of glowing oak. Why was everything dark? The air was cold, and she felt the pull of gusting wind and wetness in the air. So that was it. Those high windows had been opened, and the dark-rain had spilled inside. Were those shadow-creatures being drawn here, then?
Cold fingers touched her hand. She jumped in surprise, but Remer’s touch was familiar enough by now. She tried to whisper, but her words were taken by the Everquiet. Devoured by the silence.
She edged forward, out into the chamber. There were no shadow-creatures here yet. Nothing but the Everquiet, the cold, and the foul smell of death. Deffren was here, somewhere. She could sense him. Something from the shadows pulled on her, the same magnetism of an emblem, tugging on her familiarity. It was the sword, the Ender, she could feel it.
Light flashed above. A crackle of lightning somewhere in the storm. She could see it in the sky through the opened windows. Its light didn’t touch the surfaces covered by the dark-rain, but the dry corners were lit in that flash. The alcoves appeared for an instant. Bodies slumped into them in piles. And the thunder crashed.
A scream spilled out, but it was swallowed. Ediline’s entire body tensed, and Remer’s grip became an unbreakable vice. She felt Remer huddle closer. This girl was tough and clever, but she was no hardened warrior. She was terrified. Ediline wasn’t a hardened warrior, either. She wondered where she managed to draw the courage to move into this room, to continue onward when she was wounded, blind, and outmatched. Courage and stupidity were eerily similar.
Another light shone, not a flash but a glow. The chandeliers, one after another, began to give off light, and that light pushed away the motes of darkness in the ceiling, on the tops of the walls. The Everquiet, like an unending rush of water, softened, and real silence was palpable beneath it.
“Is that you?” Ediline asked Remer. She could hear her own voice. That was good.
Rather than speak, Remer just gave Ediline’s hand a single squeeze. Yes, she hoped that meant. Ediline gripped her glass knife.
The glow continued to spread through the room, down from the walls. The darkness retreated, fading gray before disappearing and allowing the color to return. The light spread down the back wall, the carving of the Battle of Semnal Valley, from The Words of the Lords. The scar from Ediline’s escape remained.
Light crept onward to the floor, to the rosewood throne, and then in a dark silhouette Deffren appeared. Spreading outward from him were bodies. Bodies of his own soldiers. The blood on the floor was a splatter, all lines drawn from a single center, from the powerful man at the heart of the killing. Like a splinter of darkness, the bloodsword was in his hand. It was red with not-yet drunk blood.
“Tell me what you know about it,” Deffren said. His back was to her. He turned slowly, the bloodsword carving a line in the air. There was so much blood. Easily as much as she had used to kill a dozen soldiers in a single swing. She was dead. She and Remer were dead. It was just a matter of how Deffren wanted to do it. She had to keep him from making that decision.
“I know its oaths are seriously hard to break,” Ediline said. “Almost kill
ed me.”
“Don’t play games with me. I’ll kill you and your friend.”
“We aren’t friends,” Ediline said. “She’d rather see you strangle me.”
“You traveled with it. What did you learn?”
“You and it both like to drink.”
He didn’t rage at her, the way he once would have. “What does it do with the blood?”
“It uses it, to do whatever you ask.”
He stepped without a limp, without any sign that she’d stabbed nearly clean through his thigh. He must have used emblems to heal the wound, or maybe just dull the pain. Or maybe he’d used the sword, and he could heal from any wound she could inflict. She couldn’t turn away, couldn’t run, no matter how impossible this felt. These bodies were just the start of it. If she didn’t stop him now, nothing could.
“Why did you kill them?” she said. “They were your own.”
Deffren shrugged. “I needed blood, and then they turned on me. It didn’t last long.”
They had the courage to turn on their wicked king. Ediline felt incredibly small and pitiful with her little glass knife. It was all she had. That and an earring and a frightened companion who could make the chandeliers glow—or not glow. The torowood was the only thing lighting the Hall.
“What will you do?” Ediline said.
“I’ll create the empire our father always wished he could have. He was working so hard toward it, but I’ll be able to do it easily with this.” He lifted the sword high. Blood dripped down the night-black blade. His hand and arm were coated in it.
“Remer,” Ediline whispered. “When I squeeze your hand, bring us back to the darkness.”
Remer squeezed once again. Yes.
“What do you think will happen if you kill everyone in your path?”
“Then I’ll have a clear path,” Deffren said.
She shuddered. There was no mania in his voice, no obvious signs of unhinged insanity. He was lucid, perfectly clear, and frighteningly excited. This was his dream, his life’s ambition. A war that could last all of his lifetime. The last war. The Ruiners would no longer curse their Tyrants of Attenia, not after Deffren had come and gone and left his mark.