by Lyra Selene
A cascade of crystal in a velveteen sky. Diamonds and dusk, ice wine and ambric. A dream of sharp edges, of hopes flown too high.
The illusion dribbled between my fingers like water down a drain.
Dismay hollowed out the space between my ribs even as vertigo blurred my vision and weakened my muscles. I dragged my heavy gaze to Dowser, but he wasn’t looking at me, or even at my hands, where the illusion was barely a memory. He stared at the trees, at the smooth, polished trunks, mirroring our movements in distorted swoops and curves.
“Mirage,” he murmured. “Where do your illusions come from?”
“I don’t know,” I said, choking on the hot tears smearing my rouge and clogging my throat. “I don’t know.”
“Go home,” he said gently. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”
Sleep was like the Midnight Dominion, near enough to see but impossible to reach.
I drifted toward the window in a nightgown pale as the mythical Moon and soft as a lover’s touch. The sunlight creeping beneath the curtains was red as the cinnamon Lullaby sprinkled on her kachua, and its touch on my skin made me feel feverish, as though I was burning up from within.
I didn’t know how much longer I could do this. I’d come here believing so fully in the promise of a new life that I hadn’t made space for the horrible possibility that none of this would work out. I might never step in time to the intricate choreography of courtly life. I might envision a thousand reveries—midnight and cold fire, bright sand and cobalt, amber and dusk—only to have them drift like wisps of fog from my fingertips. I might have dreamed of a perfect world that simply didn’t exist.
A soft scuff at the door to my chambers jerked my attention toward the foyer. It was past second Nocturne. My staff never came to my rooms this late, and I thought I’d heard rumors of a big soirée tonight.
“Who is it?” I called softly.
There was no response, only another tap at the door. I gathered my dressing gown closer and ignored a warning throbbing in time with my heart.
Surely it’s only Lullaby or Thibo, I assured myself. Who else could it be?
I opened the door, letting in a sliver of crimson light. I glimpsed a streak of white gold. A glitter of green.
Sunder.
Shock strung my bones at hard angles. My heart shuddered against my ribs.
“You.” The word escaped me in a narrow hiss. The specter of remembered pain spangled white-hot against the back of my eyes, and I clenched my fists.
“Calm down,” Sunder said, words clipped. And then, as though reading my mind: “If I wanted to murder you in your bed I probably wouldn’t have knocked.”
I gaped.
He glanced over his shoulder into the red velvet light, furtive, then brushed past me into my chambers. The scrape of his brocade jacket against my bare arm reminded me in an excruciating flash that I was dressed only in my flimsy nightgown.
“How dare you!” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest and trying for haughty.
“Dare what?” Sunder turned on his heel, taking in my blooming chambers with slow disinterest.
“Dare—invade my privacy!” I spluttered. “What are you even doing here?”
“Offering you an opportunity.” He gave an indolent shrug, and tossed a bundle of cloth at me. “Now get dressed.”
I unfurled the cloak in a heavy exhale of green damask and black velvet. Curiosity and fear mingled with the sharp glossy tang of genévrier and frost, making me light-headed. I curled my fingers deeper into the cloth, remembering Dowser’s admonishments. Discipline. Control. Composure.
“And why,” I forced out, “would I want to wear this anywhere?”
“It doesn’t much matter what you want. You’re not supposed to be going where we’re going. So you’ll have to go disguised.”
“Oh?” A flutter of intrigue tickled the nape of my neck, and I suppressed a shudder. I was suddenly desperate to leave my chambers—to go somewhere, do something. I’d been nearly a span at the Amber Court and had barely ventured out of Lys Wing. I didn’t particularly fancy Sunder as a chaperone, but … he was the only one offering. “And where, pray tell, are we going?”
“I’m disinclined to ruin the surprise.”
“And I don’t like surprises.” My voice was flat. “Tell me now, or I’m not going.”
He hesitated, his eyes bright and rigid as polished dristic.
“The Gauntlet,” he said at last. The word was a knife honed too sharp; brittle at the edges and so thin it might have been translucent. “Now hurry, or we’ll miss the start.”
It was after third Nocturne as we passed through eerily deserted palais halls. The constant glow of the sun steeped through glazed windows and stained panes, but torches and ambric lamps were extinguished, and gloom lurked in the silhouettes of things.
I hurried after Sunder, nearly trotting to keep up with his long, spare strides. The borrowed cloak was too long, flapping around my ankles and threatening to heave me onto the floor. It smelled like its owner too—a disconcerting bite of ice and greenery that crept up my nostrils and conjured vague visions of shadowed forests and frozen lakes. I shook my head, fighting the urge to hurl off the cloak and run in the opposite direction.
Sunder stopped suddenly in the shadow of a marble pillar along the Esplanade, flinging out an arm to halt my progress. I stumbled, knocking into his outstretched palm with my shoulder. I jerked away, but not before a coil of pain rippled down the length of my arm.
“Don’t do that!” I yelped. I curled my hand around my wrist, but my fingers were cold and trembling and offered no comfort for a chilly ache that had already disappeared. “Don’t you ever touch me like that again.”
Savage shock pulsed raw across Sunder’s face before he looked away. When he glanced at me again, his mask of practiced indifference was intact.
“You ran into me, demoiselle.” His words were piercingly polite. “Perhaps you ought to ask Lullaby to school you in the sophisticated art of walking in a straight line.”
“Perhaps you ought to—” I began, but Sunder’s attention jerked away from me, and my hot words died in my throat.
Beyond the colonnaded arcade of the Esplanade, the terraced jardins of Coeur d’Or had been transformed into an arena. A broad oval court had been flattened and sanded, ringed by tiers of delicate benches draped in flaming pennants. Braziers of fire roared at both ends of the arena, melting the armor of stiff Skyclad Gardes into shades of amber and blood. I watched openmouthed as courtiers paraded past in wild, revealing costumes and extravagant headdresses. I glimpsed a bare, muscular stomach painted like the gaping maw of a vicious beast; necklaces of thorns and bracelets of coals; tiaras of sharp glass and slippers of obsidian.
“What is this?” I whispered, but Sunder had already told me.
The Gauntlet.
The court began to file into the tiers of benches and seats. Their taut whispers filled the air with uncanny music, and their crystal goblets chimed like a hundred tiny bells. I reluctantly scanned the crowd, and recognized Thibo with a dreadful jolt. He stood with his arm slung around Mender, who was practically carrying his beau as Thibo sagged at the knees. I squinted: Thibo’s eyes looked glazed and unfocused. I frowned. Even from here I could tell he was blind drunk.
I took one step forward.
“Don’t.” The quiet word was a dristic-tipped lash; when I turned my head Sunder’s gaze was unforgiving. “Stay.”
A manic energy throbbed through the crowd, and my own heartbeat quickened as my gaze fell upon the last courtier to join the gathering.
Severine. The Amber Empress.
She rode slowly out of the jardins on a massive chestnut destrier, wearing a dress of purest white and f lanked by six feather-plumed chevaliers. The blazing braziers gilded the horse’s coat with molten kembric and dazzled across the diamond-bright gown until Severine was a celestial vision astride a tongue of flame, outshining the dim sun. I could hardly breathe for the beauty of it.
“Tonight,” Severine said, her voice ringing like the Compline bell, “we welcome the delegation from the Sousine Isles to our humble court. With vast bolts of rich silk and coffers full of jewels they thank me for my patronage—I intend to repay that thanks with hospitality! Let no request go undenied, no whim go unindulged, no fantasy go unrealized.”
Sousine Isles. I scanned the faces of the group Severine indicated, looking for a hint of pelagic skin or aqua eyes, but besides the heavy medallions hanging around their richly clothed chests, the party looked no different from the courtiers. I frowned again. Why wouldn’t the Sousine delegation include any native Gorma?
“So with no further ado,” Severine was saying, “from Sinister, I choose … Bramble!”
A tall girl extricated herself from the crowd and prowled to the center of the sand court. She had sable hair coiled in a towering chignon and brown eyes ringed in kohl. Living vines entwined her torso, the creeping tendrils of green stark against her fair skin. She lifted her arms, and Sinister cheered and stomped. Her answering smile was cool with confidence and ripe with ruin.
“And from Dexter,” purred Severine, “I choose … Rill.”
A cascade of some unspoken sentiment surged through my dynasty. Thibo lunged forward, only to be dragged gently back as Mender whispered hurriedly in his ear. I craned my neck to spot whoever the empress had selected. My stomach curdled when I saw him.
Rill couldn’t have been more than fourteen. He had a man’s height but a boy’s body, all gangly limbs and skinny shoulders without an ounce of muscle. His eyes were huge in his face as he slowly descended to the arena. Bramble hissed at him, and he jerked away, trembling hard enough that a brisk wind could have blown him over.
“But, Sunder,” I heard myself say, “he’s just a child.”
“Yes.” Sunder’s eyes went glassy with the reflection of some ancient torment. “Once upon a time, we were all just children.”
“Let the pas de deux begin!”
The empress’s cool clarion jolted my attention back to the ring. Bile climbed my throat in an acrid stream as I watched the duel progress, and end mere moments after it began.
Bramble dived at Rill like a desert cat pouncing on prey, shrieking with glad fury. Ropes of black-thorned vines sprouted from her fingertips, whipping through the air at the boy. They wrapped around his wrists and climbed his arms. Where they traveled, they raised painful welts that dribbled blood onto the sandy arena. Rill screamed, jerking his arms ineffectually against the tangle of barbed tendrils. A burble of clear water squirted from his palms in a pathetic attempt at defense, but that only seemed to egg Bramble on.
“Come on!” she screeched. “Is that the best you can do?”
Rill was crying now, leaking water from his face and skin as he fell to his knees in the sand. The thorns had climbed over his shoulders and snaked around his chest, pinning one of his arms to his side. He jerked, managed to free a hand, and with a sobbing gasp, pointed it directly at Bramble. A surge of water, stained pink with Rill’s blood, punched the girl in the face. Her kohl smeared, and her tower of hair collapsed in a soggy mess. Fury contorted her face into harsh lines. She sneered, and stalked closer, whipping more green-black vines at Rill.
They slapped around his shoulders. Coiled around his neck. Climbed the sides of his face, punching ragged holes in his cheeks. He screamed with agony as the brambles invaded his mouth. He gagged as he wept for mercy. Still Bramble pushed forward, curling vines toward his nose, his ears, his eyes—
“Enough!” The empress’s voice pushed through the choking silence. “Victory to Sinister!”
The vines retreated with Bramble, leaving Rill sobbing and broken and bleeding on the sand. A girl with Mender’s cool-dark skin and lustrous eyes pushed out onto the court, dropping to her knees beside the boy and smoothing her hands over his lacerations.
With a sudden burst of vile heat I realized I was livid. My fingernails sliced into palms burning with fire, and when I glanced down I saw a jardin of creeping vines skulking at my feet. Their spiny leaves had long thorns that sprang sharp as needles from fat trailers. Drooping flowers hung tattered like Dominion shadows. Ichor dripped black as venom onto the marble.
Control. I bit down on the wash of hues. My chest contracted. The illusion disappeared. I looked up to find Sunder staring at me with brittle incredulity.
“Time to go,” he said.
I dashed after Sunder, hiking the borrowed cloak around my knees. Confused emotions roiled thick and sour through my head, slowing my thoughts to sludge.
“Wait!” I hissed as I struggled to catch up with his receding back. “Stop!”
He paused beneath an archway carved with crystal arabesques. I skidded to a halt beside him.
“Why did you show me that?” I demanded. “Why did you bring me to the Gauntlet tonight?”
Sunder opened his mouth to say something, but the raucous sounds of celebration ricocheted down the passageway. The shouting and laughter was gaudy in the muted Nocturne hush. My jaw hardened when I glanced over my shoulder and glimpsed smeared eye makeup, damp black hair, and a tight, gloating smile.
“Not here,” said Sunder, and grasped my wrist.
I steeled myself for the jolt of pain. It never came. There was just the bracing frisson of his cool fingers against my hot pulse. My outrage at his touch bled away as my curiosity took over, and I let him lead me through a tangle of hallways. Finally, he pulled me into a shaded alcove dripping with breezy silks. They breathed and bloomed around us like captured clouds, caressing our skin with sleek, soft fingers and hiding us from view.
“Why didn’t that hurt?” I blurted out.
A muscle in his cheek leapt as he clenched his jaw.
“Politic as ever, demoiselle,” he said. “That’s the question you want to ask me?”
“Now I do.” A mulish stubbornness gripped me. “Can’t you control your legacy?”
His eyes were metal. “Can’t you?”
A blush painted my face with restless heat. “I’m an untrained fantast from the edge of the world. You’ve lived in the palais your whole life.”
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know they call you Severine’s dog.”
His head jerked back, sifting his pale hair between the drapes. His nostrils flared. He wordlessly turned to leave. I reached out, suddenly repentant, and snatched his wrist. This time, a sting zipped up my arm to my elbow. I dropped his hand like it was on fire.
“Your feelings,” I guessed. I thought of how my own legacy ebbed and flowed with the tides of my emotional states—bursting out of me unbidden when I was frightened, or angry, or awestruck. I swallowed the uncomfortable sensation of having anything in common with the arrogant blond lord. “You can’t control your legacy when your emotions are heightened.”
“Our gifts”—he spat the word like it was poison—“are a reflection of our inner selves. Our inclinations, our experiences, our emotions. None of us are ever fully in control of our legacies. Some of us never are.”
“But—”
“Enough.” He forced a listless smirk. “Don’t you have packing to do?”
“What?” Confusion rocked me off-balance.
“Packing,” he repeated, enunciating the word until it was sharp and bright. “The process by which one readies one’s belongings for departure.”
“Departure?” My face twisted into a knot. “Who’s leaving?”
“I assumed you would be.” One burnished eyebrow lifted. “After everything you just saw—?”
“So that’s why.” Realization swelled, hued in faint shades of humiliation. “That’s why you took me to the Gauntlet. To intimidate me. To frighten me away from the palais. To manipulate me.”
“To give you an opportunity.” Sunder stepped closer in the sighing silk sanctuary until we stood toe-to-toe. “The
Gauntlet is more than just a political maneuver disguised as entertainment. It is a show of power. To the Sousine delegates, to the world, but most importantly, to us. At any moment, for any reason, any one of us could be called to the Gauntlet. Dexter versus Sinister. And the Gauntlet always has a winner. And a loser.”
I shivered.
“I don’t know why you came here, Mirage.” His voice was barely audible. “Whether you want fortune or fame or you just have some dusk-addled fantasy about what it means to be aristocracy, I don’t know. I don’t care. But I don’t want you here. And you shouldn’t want to be here.”
“I chose—”
“Make a different choice,” he interrupted. “Leave the palais. Unless you’re eager to find yourself lying in the sand of the Gauntlet in a pool of your own blood.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No.” I could taste his cool breath on my cheek. “But it might be a promise.”
We faced off, as stiff as the breathless silks were pliant. I tried to banish the image Sunder’s words had conjured back up—poor skinny Rill, covered in vicious vines as tears and blood and the water from his useless legacy pooled around him. Was that my fate? To be trussed up for slaughter and fed to another legacy, all for someone’s twisted idea of entertainment? That wasn’t the world I’d promised myself.
But no. Lullaby, Thibo, Mender—they were nothing like that. And I’d barely been at court a span—taking a single event like the Gauntlet out of context was jumping to conclusions at best, and social suicide at worst. I still had time to hone my legacy, to find my strength. Rill was young, nervous, weak. I’d gotten worse treatment from the mean brats in the Dusklands—I wouldn’t let myself surrender to that fate.
What good are illusions against an army of thorny vines? whispered a traitorous voice in the shadows of my mind.
“I’m staying,” I breathed. “This is where I belong.”
Sunder loosed his breath and pushed his hair back from his forehead. His eyes blistered my skin where they touched my face.