When Siobhan was shaken, the world was a frightening place.
They had managed to escape, with a combination of Siobhan’s fighting skills, Ashraia’s wings, and some clever magic from Caduan — which he had used to raise the tidewaters and freeze it around the creatures’ feet. At that, I couldn’t help but shoot him a glance of surprise. Magic, at least in the Pales, was often ritualistic and slow. Not the sort of thing that was utilized in battle.
“Thank the gods that you were able to escape too,” I muttered, when the story was done, and Siobhan nodded.
There was a long, drawn out silence, all those eyes on me.
“You are an Essnera,” Ishqa said, at last.
“You are cursed,” Ashraia spat.
I flinched.
And there it was. Essnera. I hated the word — hated the way it had taken everything from me. But most of all I hated that it was the truth of what I was. Cursed. Tainted. Life-thief.
Could I argue with any of those definitions? That was what I was. A creature that stole magic from others, like a carrion bird. Scriptures told of people like me. Essneras were incarnations of corruption. Mathira, the mother of all souls, sheltered the bodiless spirits of all Sidnee away from the corrupted forces beyond her reach. But before birth, my soul must have slipped from her grasp, wandering out into the poison beyond her safety. It was very rare, and it was terrible.
“She saved your general’s life,” Siobhan said, sharply.
“By stealing our magic. That’s why the Sidnee sent her — to steal.” Ashraia stalked back and forth before the fire. Ishqa was still and silent as glass.
“That is not true,” I said. Even though I didn’t fully understand why my father had sent me. “I am here because we have a bigger threat to worry about than you.”
“It is dangerous for her to be here,” Ashraia sneered. “The gods cursed her.”
Siobhan let out a hiss through her teeth. “That is a silly superstition.”
“Not so silly that your own Teirna doesn’t believe it,” he shot back. “I had been wondering. But now I understand why her title was stripped—”
“She is still a loyal Sidnee,” Siobhan snapped. “And a good soldier.”
I flinched. The truth of it was a stabbing pain, striking deep before anger overwhelmed the hurt. The anger was for Ashraia, because I’d be damned if I was going to let a Wyshraj brute speak to me that way. But the hurt — the hurt ran deeper. I did not miss Siobhan’s choice of words. “Still.”
Siobhan respected me, and I treasured that respect more than any precious gemstone. But that one word reminded me that she respected me in spite of what I was. She still saw the corruption in me, still judged it, even if she thought my character was stronger.
Caduan’s voice came from behind me.
“Perhaps it’s easier for you to hate what you know than to hate what we just saw. But we don’t have time for you to make yourself feel better by tearing apart a false enemy. Aefe’s magic is the only reason she and Ishqa made it out of there alive. And who would have saved them if she didn’t have it? The gods?”
He drawled the word, the sarcasm as sharp as a blade drawn across skin. I could not look at him, but I could imagine the intensity of his stare as it dismantled Ashraia, piece by piece, the same way it did me.
“What we saw,” he said, deadly quiet, “is what could become of us. And we do not even understand what it is.”
There was a long silence.
And then Ishqa’s stare fell to me.
“Thank you,” he said. “You saved both our lives.”
Ashraia started to protest, but Ishqa shot him a harsh look.
“We have bigger dangers looming over us than this,” he said. His gaze slipped far away, and I knew he was thinking of what we had seen. Those people. Those monsters.
“No one found any survivors?” I whispered.
“Nothing but those… things,” Ashraia said, voice gruff. “Entire population of the House of Reeds, surely.”
I muttered a curse beneath my breath and cast Caduan a sidelong glance.
“Was that anything at all like—”
“No.” He shook his head. “No, that wasn’t what they did to us.”
“They,” Ishqa repeated. “Then we believe this to be the work of the humans?”
I scoffed. “Of course we do. Who else would it be?”
A long silence. Here sat some of the most powerful warriors of the most powerful houses in the Fey world, and yet we were all too frightened for words. It was one thing for humans to attack a small House with the power of their numbers alone. But this?
“We should go back and burn it,” Ishqa said, at last. “It would be the most respectful thing to do.”
My head whipped towards him. “Burn it?”
“That is a mistake,” Caduan said. “We need to investigate further.”
“The things we saw,” Ishqa said, “were hardly alive. And whatever is left of them has been debased beyond all recognition.”
My chest ached at the thought of it. I couldn’t bring myself to answer. He was right, of course. The House of Reeds were a proud people. It would be a great dishonor to them to allow them to live this way.
Caduan spoke, his voice low. “I thought there would be nothing worse than for them to kill us all. But now here they are, making us do it for them.”
“It is the only mercy we can give them,” Ishqa said.
Caduan gave Ishqa a cold stare, then got up and left without another word.
The House of Reeds was difficult to burn. The air was damp and the ground wet, and we needed to start fires all around the perimeter of the walls, then accelerate them with Ishqa and Caduan’s whispered spells. It was dusk by the time we succeeded, the orange flames bleeding into the mist. The sky was bright red when the screams began, sickening shrieks that raked down my spine.
The fire moved slowly. They wailed long into the night, and we just lay there and listened.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Max
The excitement around our trip to Meriata was palpable. Everyone was hungry for rest and fun, more than ready for all the delicious trouble the city had to offer. This, after all, wasn’t just any stop. It was Meriata — the city famously willing to cater to any vice.
“Meriata?” I heard one of the soldiers mutter to his friend once the news of our stop began to spread. “Was that Farlione’s idea?”
I tried very hard not to smirk as his companion let out a snort and replied, “I doubt he’d even know what to do in a place like that. After what, a decade off in the mountains?”
Oh, if only they knew. I’d spent plenty of time there, years ago, though the city probably remembered me more than I remembered it. In the years following the war, when I’d wandered the country in a grief-and-drug-induced haze, Meriata had welcomed me with a lover’s open arms. After all, there was no better place to lose yourself, and myself was the only thing I had left to lose.
I remembered very little from that time. Still, once we got there, the atmosphere dredged up memories that I thought I’d long ago buried. Even from a distance, the city was beautiful — glittering glass spires lit with strings of lights, all rising to the city’s famous domed peak, which was topped with flower arrangements that spilled down its sides. That dreamy, glamorous excess trickled down the streets, which were winding and narrow, teeming with music and the scent of sweat and perfume.
That was what got me. The little things. The faint whiff of those Meriatan flowers, the twang of a song, the misty image of inns lit up with warmth. All painfully-sharp shards of memories I thought I had discarded, but still couldn’t assemble.
The soldiers dispersed almost immediately upon entering the city limits, though Moth lingered by my side.
“Ever been here before?” I asked him, even though his round-eyed staring made the answer very obvious. He shook his head.
“It’s easy to find trouble here. So don’t go wandering into any— no, Moth, definitely don’t go th
ere,” I grumbled, yanking his arm. He had slowed a bit too much while walking past a gaudily decorated building surrounded by even more gaudily decorated women. Still, even as I dragged him along, his neck craned as he turned back to wave back at the giggling ladies.
I rolled my eyes. Sammerin was a bad influence.
“Listen,” I said, “this is probably the only time off we’re going to have for quite awhile. So you’d be smart to use the chance for some actual—”
“Ey! Moth! Moth!”
We both turned to see one of my soldiers, Jorge, a teenage boy just a few years older than Moth, waving wildly from down the street. Without another word, Moth was already hurrying off to meet him.
“See you tomorrow, Max!”
“Don’t do anything idiotic!” I called after him, somewhat insulted to be so easily abandoned. I watched him go, and fought an inexplicable tension in my chest as I considered all the trouble that one especially accident-prone teenage boy could get into in a city as seedy as Meriata.
Ascended above. I was getting old.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and turned out towards the streets. Crowds surrounded me, which, of course, I hated. If Tisaanah was here, it might — might — have been worth putting up with it just to watch her as she experienced it all. It would have delighted her. I remembered her face the day I had brought her to the Capital. She’d gotten this look in her eyes, this gleeful, overwhelmed amazement, and for the first time I had thought to myself, I suppose I could get used to seeing that look.
I allowed myself the wistful memory, then shrugged it away and started walking. There was a reason I had come here, after all. I had work to do.
The city was quieter as I left downtown, venturing beyond the throngs of partying visitors. In these neighborhoods, sparkling lights meant to entice were replaced by shadows meant to conceal. My memories of my time in Meriata may have been a blur, but my footsteps still knew the path. The building looked exactly as it had seven years ago, though perhaps a little more run down. The peeling paint around the arched door was now covered up with velvet fabric, perhaps in some attempt at sophistication. Fake, gold-sprayed flowers adorned the windowsills. There was no sign. But then, it had never needed one.
When I stepped inside, I was hit with the scent of rose so strong it made my nostrils burn. Slightly-off-key music hung, too-loud, in the air. It was so dark that it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Even the arrangement of the place hadn’t changed — the small lounge lined with benches topped with velvet pillows, little chipped cafe tables, and the suspicious couches that, even back when I was out of my mind on Ascended-knew-what, I knew better than to sit on.
I sat down at an empty table — wooden chair, of course, hard surfaces only — and watched the room. They were doing good business tonight. Topless women and topless men leaned over their shadow-draped patrons, dispensing honeyed whispers.
“Good evening, soldier. What can I—”
I pulled away from a set of hands sliding over my shoulders. “No, thank you.”
The woman arched an eyebrow, pushing blonde curls behind her ears. “Are you sure about that?”
“Very much so, I’m afraid.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she muttered, wandering off to a more accommodating patron.
“After so many years,” a familiar voice purred from behind me, “you really have so little interest in seeing what you’ve been missing, Lord Farlione?”
I turned to see an old friend standing behind my chair, her arms crossed and lips pursed. She was swathed in silky, brightly-colored fabrics, a low neckline cradling several gold and silver necklaces. Her grey-streaked, chestnut hair was pinned away from a regal face that hadn’t aged much since I had last seen her.
“If I remember correctly,” I said, “paid affection wasn’t my particular vice.”
“I’m surprised that you remember anything at all about the years you spent passed out on my floors.”
I winced. “That does sound more familiar.”
Her eyes narrowed at me, and she regarded me for a long moment. Then her face broke into a grin, and she waved to the barkeep. “Come. Tell me what you’re drinking these days. And tell me why you’re wearing an Ascended-damned military uniform.”
“Let’s talk somewhere more private.”
She paused, eyebrow raising. “That’s very flattering, Maxantarius, but I’m long retired.”
Still, I saw the concern in her gaze. Concern— and interest, like a hungry cat with its appetite piqued. Prostitution wasn’t the only thing that Eomara was “long retired” from.
She sighed, then waved me to the back of the room. “Oh, fine. Come. I’m getting us wine, though. We talk and drink.”
Eomara’s office hadn’t changed much since I was last here, either. It was jarringly different from the cafe up front, blue-and-purple seductive lights replaced with the warm glow of lanterns, gaudy decoration switched out for bookshelves packed with tomes of every possible color and shape. The room was just large enough for two desks, which faced each other. A middle-aged, spindly man with sandy hair and gold glasses hunched over one of them. He looked up as we entered, pushing the glasses up his nose as his eyebrows leapt.
“Maxantarius Farlione. Ascended be damned, I thought we’d seen the last of you. Actually, thought you’d probably wound up dead in an alley somewhere, to tell you the truth. Until I started hearing those stories about you and Antedale—”
“Max has plenty of time to tell us all his stories, Erik,” Eomara said, waving a silencing hand at her brother. She perched on the edge of her desk and motioned for me to take a seat, opening the bottle of wine.
“Tell me what brings us the pleasure of your visit. Like Erik said, we did hear all about Antedale. People around here were shocked when it fell.”
“Not just Antedale. I’ve been following all of it — the others, too.” Erik blinked at me, as if his eyes were struggling to adjust to something that wasn’t ink-stained pages. “Took me awhile to realize what you’ve been doing. Taking the cities down indirectly. Seemed like a strange strategy for you of all people—”
Eomara handed me a glass of wine, which was halfway to my lips when I set it down and gave Erik a hard stare. “Me of all people?”
“Well…” Erik shrugged. “You know. With your history.”
Eomara shot him a glare. “Enough talk of the ugly past. We were glad to hear that you were back. Though I will say, I was surprised that Aldris is the one you came back for. You held a special kind of hatred for him, years ago.” Her gaze went far away. “I always liked him, though. Scrappy, that man. And look where it’s gotten him.”
Look indeed. I took a long drink of wine, mostly to stop myself from getting into an argument that would serve no purpose. Then I set it down.
“Eomara,” I said, “what do you know about life magic?”
Eomara’s face lit up. She set her own drink down and leaned forward, her chin in her palm, looking at me with an interest that was nothing short of ravenous.
“What sort of life magic?”
“Would it be possible for someone to create a spell that bound one life to another? If one person dies, so would the other?”
“That would be terrible,” remarked Erik.
“Oh, yes,” agreed Eomara, a gruesomely delighted smile tugging at her lips. “Terrible.”
“I didn’t think that such a thing was possible,” I went on. “Certainly not something that Valtain magic nor Solarie magic could accomplish on their own. No one can manipulate life force like that. And with such poorly-defined parameters?” I shook my head.
“It’s not possible,” Eomara said, and for a split second I almost breathed a sigh of relief — until she added, “with traditional magic. But…”
“But?”
“But perhaps… with Fey magic.”
I let out a scoff. “So you’re saying that it is impossible. Considering that the Fey have been extinct for, what, five hundred years?”
Eomara’s dark eyes sparkled with silent laughter. “Come now, Maxantarius. You’ve seen too much to be so naive.”
I hated it, but she was right. I blinked, and as they always did in times like these, my second eyelids seemed so much more noticeable now, a constant reminder of all the magic in the world that I failed to understand.
“So you think that they’re still out there.”
She shrugged. “I have heard stories. Who hasn’t? But even if they are, have a little imagination. Humans have only had magic for a few hundred years. Nothing, in the grand scale of innovation. There’s still so much we haven’t discovered.”
“Like?”
“Perhaps hybrid approaches. Valtain and Solarie and Fey magics, all manipulated until they become something that is all and none of them at once.” Her eyebrow twitched. “A fourth type that we’ve yet to fully uncover.”
A fourth magic. Like Reshaye. Like the magic that it had left inside of me.
“Even if such a thing did exist,” I said, “a typical human wouldn’t be able to Wield it. Just as a Valtain can’t Wield Solarie magic, and vice versa.”
“It would need to come from somewhere deep. They certainly would run a significant risk of going insane or contracting a nasty case of A’Maril.”
A’Maril — magic toxicity sickness. A fucking awful way to die.
“But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” Eomara went on. “Very few things are, actually, when you have a little vision.”
I scoffed. I didn’t need “vision.” I had seen plenty and could imagine much worse. Besides, Eomara’s problem had always been her vision. She had too much of it, and many people in the Orders did not like the specters that lingered in its shadows. She had never gotten the support, neither moral nor financial, for her research. Still, she was one of the most brilliant people I’d ever met.
Now she leaned back in her chair, taking another long sip of wine, clearly deep in delighted thought about all the possibilities I had laid out.
Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts Book 2) Page 18