Nocturne

by Kat Ross

  “If you have something to say, spit it out,” she said briskly.

  “Were there ever daēvas who could work fire?” he asked in a rush.

  He heard a sharp intake of breath. Not the question she was anticipating, but she knew something.

  “Who told you that?”

  “No one. I…I’ve dreamed of it.”

  The silence seemed to stretch for an eternity. Then he heard the scrape as she stepped back from the door, the soft creak of hinges rarely used.

  “You’d better come in.”

  Something loosened in his chest as he moved inside. It was even colder than the corridor. Culach liked to think of himself as tough, but Gerda took it to a whole other level.

  “When I was a girl, we didn’t use shields of air outside the windows,” she said in a disapproving tone. “The wind blew straight into the room. Much healthier.”

  Culach made a noncommittal noise and tried not to shiver. A disturbingly strong hand closed around his arm and guided him to a chair.

  “Tell me everything,” she commanded.

  “First tell me if it’s true. Was there ever a fourth clan?”

  He didn’t mention the tale Mina had shared—he wanted to see what Gerda knew first. When he was a small boy, she’d been a treasure trove of colorful stories. Eirik never paid him much attention until he was old enough to hold a sword. So he’d visit Gerda. She’d give him a spoonful of too-sweet syrup and a rough pinch on the cheek, neither of which he’d liked very much. But her stories…They were grisly and terrifying, like the tale of the chimera or the eyeless specter that haunted the armory. In other words, good stories.

  “It’s true,” she conceded. “They called themselves the Avas Vatras. Children of Fire.”

  “How could it be?” Culach felt stunned, although he’d known in his heart there was some truth to the visions. They were too vivid, too real. “Do you remember these daēvas?”

  “I’m not that old.” Gerda’s voice was dry. “The events we’re talking about happened at least a thousand years ago.”

  Although he’d never dare say it, Culach wouldn’t have been surprised to learn Gerda was ten thousand years old. Even in his earliest memories, her hair looked soft and fine as spider silk. It took a very long time for daēvas to show signs of aging, but Gerda’s mouth and eyes had a network of deep creases from centuries of wind, cold and ill humor.

  “I saw a battle,” he said. “Not even a battle, a slaughter. The Avas Danai forests burned down and the seven great houses were driven into exile.”

  Gerda made a clucking noise with her tongue. “More than the forests burned, boy. Half the world was reduced to ashes. It only ended when the very heavens were sundered in two. Nocturne and Solis.”

  The knowledge rocked him. “You mean it wasn’t always this way?”

  “I heard the tale from my own grandmother, who died before you were born,” Gerda said. “She said that long ago, the sun moved across the sky, rising and setting on all lands the way the moons do. That half the day was sunlit and half was dark.”

  “That’s…bizarre.”

  “To you, perhaps, because you don’t know any better. The sundering was the price of defeating the Avas Vatra.”

  Culach thought of the mad king and his scheming advisor.

  “So where are they now? Dead?”

  “They must be. No one has heard a peep from them since. Good riddance, I say.”

  “The Avas Vatra,” he repeated, tasting the name on his tongue. “Where did they live?”

  “Somewhere out in the desert. West of the mortal cities, I believe, in the part they now call the Kiln.”

  “I saw a palace surrounded by yellow sand. There were gardens, but none of the flowers or trees were familiar. I saw a city too.” He trailed off. “Why am I having these dreams, grandmother?”

  “Perhaps because you were exposed to fire.”

  So Gerda knew about what had happened to him. Culach wasn’t surprised.

  “You mean…the girl who did this to me might not be human?”

  Gerda snickered. “You think the Vatras have come back from the grave for you, boy?”

  “She summoned fire, grandmother.”

  “But she’s not of this world, is she? She came through the Dominion.”

  “That’s what Neblis told me.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. You know nothing of her world. Perhaps it’s perfectly normal for mortals to work fire there.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Culach wasn’t convinced. He didn’t think his sister would have neglected to mention such a thing. And none of it explained why he had dreams of the distant past looping through his head on a nightly basis.

  Memories.

  That’s what they felt like to him. Events witnessed firsthand by the raspy-voiced daēva.

  “Do you think it means anything?”

  Culach heard the splash of liquid in a goblet, followed by the eye-watering fumes of cheap red wine. Naturally, she didn’t offer him any. Gerda took a greedy gulp before answering.

  “I don’t know, but there is one other part to the story. An important part, mind you. The sundering came later, but their defeat was brought about by three talismans.”

  “Talismans? What sort?”

  “My grandmother didn’t know. Only that without them, I wouldn’t be sitting here to tell you the story, and you wouldn’t even exist.”

  Culach rubbed his thick brush of inch-long hair. He knew a little about talismans. They were objects that channeled elemental power for a specific purpose, but they were exceedingly rare and Culach had never heard of one powerful enough to freeze the moon and stars in the sky, or to defeat fire-wielding daēvas.

  His mind still rebelled at that last part. It was beyond unnatural.

  “What happened to these talismans?” he asked, remembering the way the Valkirin woman had somehow turned back the flames.

  “Who knows?”

  “Someone must.”

  “Look, kid, there aren’t many older than me and I don’t know. They must have disappeared after the war.”

  Culach got the feeling she wasn’t telling the whole truth, but he let it go for now. Push Gerda too hard and she might stop talking out of spite.

  “What else do you know?” he asked casually, as if he didn’t really care either way.

  “Not so much. It began with the Avas Danai and the burning of the forests. The houses fled north until they came to our mountains. The Valkirins lived in the foothills then, in timbered holdfasts. The refugees begged for sanctuary and we gave it to them, not realizing the depth of their enemies’ rage. When the Avas Vatra came, we had no defense. Imagine seeing a wall of flame a thousand feet high bearing down on you. That’s what the Danai brought to our doorstep.”

  Culach had seen it, if only in dreams. He’d always taken the enmity between the clans for granted, a simmering feud that went back generations. The Danai were proud, stubborn, haughty, stiff-necked. Now he understood the roots of the discord.

  “The Vatras burned us out too,” Gerda continued. “My grandmother said that’s why we build above the timberline now, and with stone instead of wood.”

  Culach flexed frozen fingers against the carved armrests. The chill had sunk deep into his bones. Gerda’s rooms felt like a crypt.

  “But if the other clans had such powerful talismans, why didn’t they use them earlier?”

  “Who knows?” She sounded irritated. “That part might not even be true.”

  “What was the King’s name? The Avas Vatra King?”

  “There are no records from that time. My grandmother called him the Viper for his cunning and cold-blooded nature, but I don’t think she knew his name. It was our darkest chapter, Culach, and once it ended, the clans wanted to forget it had ever happened.”

  “I’ve seen him. He had red hair. And he loved with a Danai girl who refused him—”

  Gerda clapped her hands, not in delight but like a teacher silencing a rowd
y schoolroom.

  “Enough talk of the Vatras,” she said. “Since you speak of Danai girls, there is a matter I would address with you, grandson. I hear Victor’s old flame has been hanging around.”

  Culach didn’t like hearing Mina described in those terms.

  “Eirik’s orders,” he said shortly.

  “For what purpose?”

  “He thought she might be able to heal me.”

  “And has she?”

  “No.”

  “Eirik is a fool sometimes,” Gerda sniffed. “Take it from me, you should keep your distance. The Danai never appreciated the help we gave them or the price we paid for it. They only care about their stupid trees.” Her tone sharpened to a semi-screech. “Look what they’ve done now. Darling Petur is dead. And I hear they won’t even return the body, those bastards—”

  Culach listened to a rambling diatribe about the Avas Danai until he managed to make his excuses and leave, promising to return in a few days. Despite Gerda’s deep-seated prejudices, he was burning to share what he’d learned with Mina. There was a mystery here and he intended to solve it. Perhaps once he did, the visions would go away.

  His fingers trailed along the wall, guiding him back to his chambers. To an outsider, the keep would be a labyrinth of endless corridors and twisted staircases, most without railings that could prevent a misstep from becoming a shattered skull. But Culach had grown up running through these graceful stone galleries. With a little concentration, he found he could summon a mental map that proved surprisingly accurate.

  The return trip to his rooms passed swiftly, but he was struck by how quiet Val Moraine had become. Once the mightiest of all the Valkirin holdfasts, now reduced to two dozen people. And their sacrifice meant nothing since he’d failed to bring Neblis home. Instead, Victor returned with a wife and son—along with the mortal girl who had brought ruin upon Val Moraine.

  Still, Culach felt the stirrings of a new purpose. Now he knew his dreams were a window into the past. There had to be some reason it had opened for him.

  Cukach thought back to that moment at the gate. Something had happened, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He couldn’t even remember being burned. Why? The girl hadn’t been near him at that point. He saw her hovering nearby. Her eyes had widened. What had she seen?

  Something else was there. The tender skin on his scars prickled.

  If there’s a connection, I will find it. And Mina will help me.

  He hoped she’d be waiting, but his chamber was quiet. He sat on the bed, thinking about what Gerda had said, bursting with questions. What exactly were the talismans she spoke of? How and why was their world sundered into Solis and Nocturne? What had happened to the Avas Vatra? The minutes ticked past and Culach’s stomach rumbled. Lunchtime came and went. He began to worry that something had happened to her.

  Although Mina had lived at Val Moraine for years, Culach hadn’t a clue how she spent her free time. He knew she avoided the places where people tended to gather, because he’d seen her only rarely before his injury. That ruled out any of the great halls, the kitchens, the armory or baths.

  Culach wandered through the keep until he found someone who knew where Mina’s chambers were, but she wasn’t there either.

  He leaned against the radiant summerstone wall and gathered his thoughts. Mina had free run of the holdfast since escape was impossible. She could have gone anywhere. But there was one place she might be drawn to.

  Culach left her chambers and counted the corridors past the armory until he reached the fourth one. He ran his hands over the stones in the wall, testing them with his fingers until one gave way and a doorway opened. Then he descended a long staircase, winding his way down into the deep heart of the mountain.

  The Valkirins’ wealth derived from the gemstones and metals they traded with the seafaring Marakai clan. No one wanted ice or snow or rock, but gold? Silver? Iron and nickel? They were worth a fortune to the mortals, whose sunlit lands along the river delta were fertile for farming but barren of ore. So once a month, emissaries from Val Moraine met the Marakai ships on the shore of the White Sea and traded the bounty of the mountains for luxuries like fresh-baked bread, and iron blades and shields.

  It required mortal smiths to forge and cast the raw ore, and daēvas to mine the veins. The Valkirins ended up buying back their own metal for twice the price, but no one resented it because that was simply the way of things.

  Of course, they didn’t rely on the humans for all their food, only the dishes that needed cooking. The other clans joked that the Avas Valkirin subsisted on air and their own arrogance. Only the Valkirins themselves knew where their larder came from, but Culach instinctively understood Mina would be drawn there. It was the closest thing she could get to the forests of her own home.

  The stone walls grew rougher, the ceiling lowering until it brushed the top of Culach’s head. Cold drafts tingled against his skin as he passed secondary tunnels snaking into the mines and he took care at these junctures to stay in the main passage. If he got lost, he might never find the way out. But he remembered the way from his days poaching fruit with Petur and soon he sensed the space opening out around him, his footfalls echoing against distant walls.

  “Mina?”

  Warm, humid air filled the cavern. Culach thrust his hands out, fingertips brushing leaves and stems as he navigated between the orderly rows of plantings. Despite his newfound confidence, he still couldn’t quite believe he’d strayed so far from the safety of his chambers. Was it only a week ago he refused to get out of bed?

  Culach knew it was Mina’s influence, her prodding and chiding and refusal to treat him like an invalid. He couldn’t have borne excessive kindness—or worse, pity. Culach smiled. He’d gotten neither of those things from Mina. Just cool indifference. And it had made him stop wallowing.

  Again he called her name and received no response. Perhaps he’d been wrong. Culach drew a deep breath, the air heavy with earth and ripening fruit. The caverns were lit by special lumen crystals that mimicked sunlight. Just as the Danai held the secrets of their forest, the Valkirins hid their groves deep within the mountain, an oasis of soft, fragrant breezes and lush greenery nestled amid leagues of lifeless stone.

  And then he caught an unmistakable trace of Mina’s scent. A welcoming smile spread across his face as he heard footsteps approach.

  “Gerda’s charming as ever,” he said with a crooked grin. “But she knew some interesting—”

  Culach reeled back as a hand cracked across his face. He lost his footing, stumbling backward through dense foliage and slamming into a wall. Mina panted with rage. He knew the rhythms of her breath as well as his own now.

  “What the hell was that for?” he demanded, holding a defensive palm out in case she intended to attack him again.

  Her voice sounded colder than the frozen waterfall of ice coating the outer walls of the holdfast. “You didn’t tell me Eirik sent elementals to House Dessarian. Chimera, Culach. Chimera.”

  Culach tested his jaw. He’d been hit by women on more than one occasion; Mina didn’t pull her punches.

  “Do you always go around assaulting the blind and infirm?”

  He heard her move closer and took an involuntary step back.

  “How could you let him do it?” she hissed. “Those things can’t be controlled, can’t be called back. They’ll kill every man, woman and child in the settlement if there’s resistance.” She swore. “You’ve both lost your minds. Haven’t you shed enough blood?”

  Culach winced. He’d been so preoccupied with his own problems he’d hardly spared a thought for the packs of chimera. Of course, they would have reached House Dessarian by now, possibly that very day.

  “Who told you?” he asked.

  “Your father. He taunted me with it.”

  Damn you, Eirik.

  “They weren’t sent after anyone you know,” he said quietly. “Victor’s other son Darius, and the mortal girl who can work fire. She’s a da
nger to us all, Mina. And the boy killed Petur.”

  “After Petur tried to kill the girl,” Mina pointed out. “And it doesn’t matter if I know them or not. They’re still my people. My house.”

  Culach felt a flush of shame. Not that they’d sent the packs, but that he’d hadn’t told her himself. Knowing Eirik, Mina had been given the news in the worst way possible and he couldn’t blame her for being angry.

  “I’m sorry—” he began.

  “Do you know why I’m here at Val Moraine, Culach?” Mina asked, and now she simply sounded weary. Lost and alone.

  He wanted to take her in his arms, tell her it would be all right, but he knew she despised him more than ever and whatever fragile truce they’d forged had just been irrevocably shattered.

  “I volunteered,” she said. “When Victor left, I thought you might try to kill Galen, since he was Victor’s son.”

  Culach made a small noise of protest, although the thought had crossed his mind. He’d been livid at the way Victor had treated Culach’s twin, and then to have Victor disappear and deprive him of vengeance was a hard rock to swallow.

  “Your parents agreed that a hostage swap would help keep the peace between our clans, so I was traded for Ellard. But it was my choice.”

  “I always thought they forced you.”

  “Tethys wouldn’t have done that. We’re not like you,” she spat. “I did it for my son. And by the way, I couldn’t care less about Victor. He’s a self-serving bastard who left me when I was pregnant with his child. But I’m not such a fool that I hold Darius responsible for his father’s shortcomings.”

  “Nor do I,” Culach said, though he saw in an instant of clarity that it wasn’t entirely true. How deep their hatreds ran—for generations, Danai against Valkirin. And if Gerda could be believed, they’d once been allies against a far more dangerous enemy.

  “What if you’re wrong?” Mina asked. “What if Darius didn’t kill Petur? How can you be certain? But you never think before drawing blood, do you?”

  Her doubts came too close to his own. Culach shook them off.

  “What’s done is done,” he said roughly. “Darius and the girl will die and there’s no stopping it now.”