by Joshua Khan
“I don’t belong here,” Lily said to herself. This was her parents’ bedroom. The table was where her father used to sit, the old armchair creaking as he moved to dip his quill in his inkpot. Her mother would stand in front of the full-length mirror with its frame of black iron. Lily had loved to watch her mother get ready, weaving a string of black diamonds into her hair. She’d told Lily that one day those diamonds would be hers. A day Lily had thought would be far, far in the future.
The cold gems now lay waiting for her on the dressing table.
Lily didn’t want to wear any of her mother’s jewelry. It felt as if Lily was robbing her tomb.
“Will you hurry up and just sit in front of the mirror?” said Mary, waving a silver-handled hairbrush. “I’ve still got to get the rooms ready for our visitors and sort out tonight’s feast.”
Lily did as she was asked and threw herself down on the chair.
Mary set to work.
“Ow! That really hurt!” Custard growled on his owner’s lap. “I don’t know why I still have you, Mary. I’d be better treated by a…a zombie!”
“Oh, is that right?” Mary snorted. “Like the one your grandfather had? What was his name?”
“One-Eyed Ron.”
“More like One-Eyed, One-Legged, One-Armed, and finally No-Headed Ron. I was always sweeping up pieces of him.” Mary gave Lily’s hair another violent, eye-watering yank.
“I said, ‘Ow!’”
“Just sit still. Your mother never fussed like you. Honestly, child, think about who you are, what you represent, before you open your mouth. How many times have I told you? You’re Lady Shadow now.”
“I’m not.” It still hurt, remembering what had happened to her parents and brother. “I was never meant to be.”
Mary put her soft, warm palm against Lily’s cheek. “I know, child. But you are, and that cannot be changed.”
“I would rather practice magic. If I could hear their voices again, just once, Mary…”
“Hush, sweetheart. Don’t upset yourself.”
“I dream about them,” said Lily.
Mary smiled. “I sometimes see my boys in my dreams, too. Even though it’s been five years, they haven’t changed. Still causing trouble.”
“There are other ways you could see them….” started Lily. She was House Shadow and the blood of necromancers did flow through her veins, no matter what Mary thought. “To speak with the dead, even visit—”
The hairbrush clattered on the floor. Mary stared at her, horrified. “You want to enter the Twilight? Have you lost all sense?”
“Grandfather did it. He went and spoke to—”
“And look what happened to him.” Mary glared at her. “Now you listen to me, my girl. I do not want any more talk about…such things. Ever.”
“But, Mary—”
“Ever.”
There was no point arguing. Not when Mary had her “war face” on. Lily sat still as her nanny brushed through her black hair in long, smooth strokes, moving from the scalp down to the very tip until it shone like a raven’s wing. Lily closed her eyes. She felt the pull and slide as Mary took out the tangles and knots.
I could sit like this forever. Just hide in this room with Mary and Custard. Leave all the horrible world outside. This would be perfect.
“You’re as beautiful as your mother,” said Mary.
“You always say that.”
“Because it’s always true.”
Lily sprang up and kissed Mary’s cheek.
“What was that for?”
Lily blushed. She hadn’t meant to act like a little girl. She straightened to all her thirteen years’ worth of height, a whole six inches above Mary. “Oh, I just want you to know that I…that I’m quite fond of you. After all these years. Yes. Quite fond.”
Mary sniffed loudly. Too loudly. “Quite fond? How I’ve longed to hear those words. I think I might faint. I am quite overcome. Emotionally.” She pointed to her eye. “There. I think that may be a tear.”
“You may think you’re funny, Mary, but you’re not.” Why did Lily ever bother trying to be nice to this impossible old woman? She decided to change the subject. “Is Tyburn back yet?”
“Not that I’ve heard. Do you want me to send a bat?”
“No. Leave it.” Why was it taking him so long to track down one man? Or had something happened to him? Something bad?
Don’t be foolish. Bad things don’t happen to Tyburn. Bad things happened because of Tyburn.
Mary tapped the brush against her palm. “I’ve got to get down to the kitchens. I’ve left the red ledger with the cook, and I don’t trust her. She can’t count to twenty without taking her socks off.” She waved toward the clothes Rose was spreading out. “So I need you to get washed and dressed. Your guests will be arriving soon.”
“I don’t want to see them.” She’d been dreading today. She had to find a way out of it. “Tell them I’m sick. Diseased.”
“Not see them? What sort of talk is that? You will get dressed and be in the courtyard before sunset. After all, don’t you want to meet your new husband?”
A hazy drizzle fell upon the courtyard of Dead Man’s Gate. Lily and Mary waited on a newly built podium with a few other nobles—allies to House Shadow—under a wide black canopy. The rest of the household were lined up in the mud, miserable and wet.
The only one having fun was Custard. The puppy yapped and dashed among the impatient lords.
“This is lovely,” said Lily. “Standing in the cold rain. Enjoying the icy wind. And the mud. Nice, deep, and squelchy. I’m so glad you forced me out here, Mary.”
“You’re not standing in the mud. The servants are,” Mary replied. She stood beside Lily, clutching the red ledger against her chest. She carried that accounting book everywhere.
“You’re right. We should let them go back in and get warmed by the fires. This is pointless. Our guests are late. Cancel the feast.”
“Enough,” snapped Mary. She rubbed her temples. “You’ll be the death of me, my girl. You’re marrying Gabriel Solar, and that’s that. It’s…it’s for the good of Gehenna.”
“Why can’t it wait?” asked Lily. “I’m thirteen, Mary.”
“Other noble houses often arrange early weddings between their offspring. In the Sultanate of Fire, they do it at birth.” Mary picked a stray thread off her gown. “Anyway, this is merely the engagement feast. You won’t actually marry for another three years.”
“But I don’t even know Gabriel.”
“You’ve seen his portraits. And what about the minstrels’ stories? They have only praise for the young lord.”
“Give a minstrel enough silver, and he’ll tell you a frog is a prince.”
“We’ll know soon enough.” Mary glanced at Lily. “I wish you’d wear a little color. Just some red lipstick. Who would really notice?”
“We are House Shadow, black is our color.”
Black for her heritage.
Black for mourning. For Father, Mother, and her brother, Dante.
And the Mantle of Sorrows did itch. Really badly.
“They’re only here for three days,” said Mary. “I only need you to be polite and smile and keep that sharp tongue of yours under control for three days.”
“I’ll try.”
A host of bats swirled overhead, emerging from their hidden places along the castle walls and towers. Big and small, they flapped and shrieked as they chased insects in the twilight. Other noble houses used birds for hunting and message carrying. She couldn’t understand why. Bats were beautiful and smart.
“I wish they’d get a move on,” grumbled Baron Sable. The gruff old man was smoothing down his walrus mustache, a sure sign of annoyance. “I should be out on patrol.”
“How goes your progress, Baron?” asked Lily.
“Badly, m’lady. There have been raids along the River Lacrimae; farms have been burned. Some grave robbing, too.”
“Grave robbing? Do you know who’s d
oing it?”
“Bandits, mainly. Now that there’s peace between us and the Solars, the countryside is filled with unemployed mercenaries. It doesn’t take long for them to turn into brigands.” He stroked his mustache, twisting the tips into points. “It’s usually outsiders who break into the tombs. They’ve heard that we bury our dead with gifts, so they think they’re filled with gold and jewels. They’ll be lucky to find more than some old furniture and a few pieces of cracked pottery.”
“Make sure these thieves are punished,” said Lily. Things must be bad if people were stealing from the dead. “What of the pirate raids?”
“Ah. Now that is strange. They’ve stopped.” Sable smiled. “Captain Barracuda is dead.”
“Good news at last.”
Sable wasn’t finished. “Stranger still was the manner of his death. He drowned.”
“Sailors drown, Baron. It doesn’t seem strange to me.”
“In his bathtub, m’lady. In the port of Cutlass. I understand Tyburn went to Cutlass.”
Lily said nothing. She’d learned long ago that it was best not to dwell on the activities of her executioner.
Sable got the hint. “Still, it’s going to be a harsh winter for some.”
“Give the farmers grain from our stores,” said Lily.
“That grain was earmarked for Glimmer Hall, m’lady,” replied Sable. “It’s coin we sorely need.”
“The needs of my people come first.”
“Of course.” Sable bowed. “I’ll see to it.”
The needs of my people.
Her people. It still didn’t feel right, thinking about the Gehennish like that. They’d been her father’s people. After that they should have been Dante’s people. Anybody’s but hers. How could she be expected to look after a whole country? She had her hands full looking after Custard.
Could they see how scared she was? How lonely?
Everyone was too busy to see. Mary fussed about the castle keeping track of the maids, and the money being spent by the cook, and whether they could save on candles. Good old loyal Baron Sable had the borders to guard. And Tyburn…he was Tyburn. Did he truly feel anything?
There were plenty of people ready to give her advice, but in the end, she was House Shadow now and she was expected to rule. If they knew how lost she really was, it would all fall apart.
And that’s why I must marry Gabriel Solar.
For peace. The two countries had been at war for generations. House Shadow against House Solar. Darkness against light. It had gone on so long that everyone just thought that was the way things were. Every family here had lost someone. Both of Mary’s sons had died fighting against the Solars.
Do they think I’m betraying them by making peace with our enemies?
There had been little celebration at the news of the proposed match, more weary resignation. Better to join the two houses through marriage than be conquered.
Maybe it was for the best. Life could improve. Solar gold would allow people to rebuild their farms, buy grain and livestock. She might even repair Castle Gloom. Lumina had better access to the sea, so trade would flourish. They’d have goods and minstrels traveling up Merchant’s Road again instead of penniless beggars and crippled soldiers.
Everyone knew that face-to-face, sword-to-sword, Gehenna could never defeat Lumina. The Solars had too many troops, too many horses, too many of everything.
Gehenna wasn’t rich. It had craggy mountains whose peaks lay in mist all year long, and summers here were short. Its ground was hard and stony—too poor for crops—and the population was sparse and thinly spread.
Its power had never lain in its armies or wealth. Its power was in magic. Iblis Shadow, Lily’s father, had been a great sorcerer, and his magic had protected Gehenna’s borders.
Now he was dead, leaving the country all but defenseless.
If only Father had taught me magic alongside Dante. Then things would be different.
But it was the eldest son’s duty to learn the magic of darkness and be the next Lord Shadow. From Lily’s first scream at the world she’d been given a very different destiny. Because she’d been born a girl.
Women could not practice magic. The law was ancient and the penalty simple: death.
So House Shadow, one of the six ancient families of sorcerers, was now reduced to a thirteen-year-old girl and a handful of servants.
Castle Gloom had once housed tens of thousands. It wasn’t so much a castle as a huge, walled city. Now most of it lay in ruins, home to spiders, bats, and mice.
And Lily loved every inch of it. Every tumbledown wall and tottering tower and dusty statue. She’d named each gargoyle on the Great Hall and climbed up to visit them on their pretend birthdays. She and Dante had spent endless nights feeding baby bats in the caverns under the castle.
How could she not love it? It was her home. It had been her parents’ home, her grandparents’ and theirs before that, going all the way back, thousands of years, to the time of the Six Princes.
Castle Gloom was as much part of her as her own bones, and she would do anything, anything, to protect it.
Even marry her enemy.
“I wish we had more soldiers here,” said the baron. “It would make a better impression.”
Twenty men stood by the gatehouse, dressed in black armor and trying to look fierce while rain dripped off their noses.
The famous Black Guard. The greatest knights of Gehenna. Lily and her brother had been raised on tales about them. Dante had convinced his father to have a suit of armor made for him, identical in all but size to the one worn by the great Sir Ironside. Legend was that Ironside was eight feet tall and could carry a warhorse on his shoulders. Lily had always had to play Lady Lamia, Ironside’s true love. Sometimes she was imprisoned in a tall tower, sometimes in a cave or mighty castle, waiting to be rescued. Lily smiled at the memory. She’d never minded being saved by her big brother.
There were no Sir Ironsides in the Black Guard now. No Sir Blackblades nor Skull Knights.
Just old men and beardless boys, their old armor rattling as they shivered in the icy drizzle.
But Gehenna wasn’t only defended by the living….
“Where are the Immortals?” Lily looked around. She knew something was missing. “We have a battalion of them.”
Sable shook his head. “The zombie soldiers? None left. It was only your father’s magic that kept them going. With his passing, they just…fell apart.”
“Couldn’t we find some ghosts? Just to wail about the gates a bit? I hear there are a few still in Gallowsgate.”
“I’m sorry, m’lady.”
A door crashed open, and a man stumbled out. He steadied himself against the wall and belched.
Mary sighed. “Your uncle’s drunk.”
“When is he not?” said Lily.
The man tried to close his wine-stained jacket around his swollen belly. He belched again. Then he saw Lily, and his blotchy face broke into a stupid grin as he stumbled up the steps of the podium. “My dear niece. What a vision!”
“Good evening, Uncle.”
Earl Pandemonium Shadow’s bloodshot eyes brimmed with tears. “Beautiful. Your parents would be proud.” He kissed her cheek, and Lily held her breath so she wouldn’t be choked by the fumes.
Light flashed on Merchant’s Road. Drums echoed in the wind.
Mary squeezed Lily’s hand. “They’re here.”
Pennants flapped on long white wood lances, and the armor of a hundred knights shone with the brightness of polished mirrors. Their horses were pure ivory with manes of silver.
“The paladins,” muttered Baron Sable. “The Solars’ elite cavalry.”
Then came the musicians and foot soldiers with spears and shields, and ladies in white fur cloaks and silk. Wagons rolled along the rear, drawn by massive draft horses. Wagon after wagon.
“Why are there so many of them? How are we going to feed them all?” exclaimed Mary.
“They want to dazzle us
with their strength,” said the baron.
The procession wove its way along Merchant’s Road between two mounds: Lamentation Hill and the City of Silence.
The City dominated the eastern side of the road and spread all the way to the border of Spindlewood. It had never been measured, but Lily reckoned it was as big as Castle Gloom and within another hundred years would be larger. It was the family graveyard, and every Shadow was buried there, sometimes reluctantly.
Lily knew how the other Great Houses dealt with the dead. They cremated them in the Sultanate. House Typhoon performed sky burials, putting their dead on towers to be devoured by vultures and other carrion birds. House Coral tipped the bodies into the sea.
How could you honor the dead like that?
The Gehennish built tombs. Even the smallest hamlet had homes for the dead. Houses with tables and chairs within, beds made of stone, and portraits or statues of those that had passed into the Twilight and beyond. And the City of Silence had the grandest tombs of all.
Her parents were housed in the newest, along with her brother. Not six months had passed since she’d left food, drink, and gifts within and sealed the doors. The sound of the great stone doors closing forever still echoed her heart.
Bats flocked around Lamentation Hill. They hung off the spindly, twisted trees like so much rotten fruit. Even from this distance, Lily could make out the five tall poles rising up out of its summit and their dreadful decorations. She turned her gaze away.
What did it say about her kingdom that the only main road ran between a place of execution and a graveyard?
“A new age is dawning, Niece,” said Uncle Pan with a sigh. “An alliance between the House Solar and Shadow. Between light and darkness. We shall make Castle Gloom great once more.”
If you don’t squander it all on drink and wild schemes.
That wasn’t fair. It had never been easy for her uncle. As firstborn, he should have been ruler of Gehenna. But try as they might, no tutor had been able to teach him even the simplest of spells. Instead, his brother, Iblis, had become Lord Shadow.
Mary spoke. “I’ll need to send for more sheep. Two dozen at least, and the farmer will want double for the short notice….”