In the Shadow of the Rook (The Sons Incarnate Book 1)

by JDL Rosell

  The nightstalker drew closer, walking as if on air, as if it were more phantasmic than corporeal, but he knew how solid it would be when it reached him.

  “Leave!” He didn’t look back to check if they were still there, but covertly pulled out his knife and hid it in his sleeve. It might not kill the beast, but it was something of an edge. I’ll need all of Shelter’s good fortune and Er’Lothe’s prowess for enough of an edge to count. His muscles tensed, like a snake ready to lash out, but he had none of its quick strength, nor its venom.

  The mooneyes was twenty paces off. It took another step, then paused, its hind legs bunching beneath it.

  Erik tightened his grip on the knife and planted his feet, trying somehow to prepare for the inevitable pounce.

  Then it came.

  One moment, the mooneyes was far off—the next, it soared through the air, the mighty leap taking it across the distance as quick as if it were diving off a cliff. It flew towards him, jaws open, dagger claws extended, ready for the kill.

  Erik threw up one arm, the other tight on the knife, bracing.

  Then the beast tore into him, its weight crushing and grinding him down into the stones. His ribs groaned, his breath flushed out, and its fangs ripped into his arm. Blood sprayed across his eyes and streamed down his shoulder, while his shoulder moved loose with a loud pop as the force of the nightstalker’s pounce slammed it to the ground.

  He knew he should be blind with pain, crazy with it, but the pain was distant, half-remembered, and his mind clear. He worked his hidden hand free, the knife still clasped in it, and pushed with all his might against the underbelly of the creature. At the same moment, the creature having risen to tear into him again, it brought itself down onto his knife, and the blade shoved deep into its abdomen.

  The nightstalker reared in silent agony, no cry escaping its jaws, and stumbled back on hind legs. Erik rose to follow it, lunging with his knife leading. The blade pierced the soft flesh again, and the lion-like beast arched its back and swiped at him. But it was the mooneyes who scrambled back, falling to the earth, trying to escape his knife as it found its flank again.

  But it was far from done. It batted him with a great paw, the motion looking effortless, but the force of it knocked his breath out and threw him to the ground. His dislocated shoulder throbbed, but he didn’t have time for pain. Rolling to his good arm, he awkwardly gained his feet, every breath acting as bellows to the fire running through his body. He expected at any moment to be bowled over again, to feel the nightstalker’s powerful jaws close down on his neck and end his pathetic resistance.

  But when he looked up, the beast was frozen in the same spot, no matter the silvery pink blood that streamed from its side. And it didn’t stare at him; its still eyes were fixed elsewhere, up and behind Erik.

  He looked back and saw Tara trying to pull Persey away, while the small girl fiercely met the mooneyes’ gaze. In that moment, he wasn’t sure which of them he feared more.

  No need to let an opportunity go to waste. He heaved his broken body forward and stumbled towards the nightstalker. It twitched as he charged, but it didn’t—or couldn’t—move, and his knife found the side of its neck. When he pulled it back, blood poured out in a fountain, but it wasn't enough. He stabbed it again, this time in one eye, then the other. But it didn’t fall. He wouldn’t stop until it fell. He wouldn’t stop until the thing couldn’t move again, until it couldn’t threaten them, until it just fucking died—

  “Wil!”

  He blinked and looked down. The dark beast’s body lay on the stones, a pool like a melted mirror spread about it. It was silent. It was still.

  “Scram,” Erik said hoarsely to the dead nightstalker, and weak laughter wracked his body.

  He collapsed to his knees, the fight draining from his limbs, and tears, blood, and sweat dripping down his face like a macabre raincloud had stared a downpour over him. He was still living, and the blighted beast was dead. But it was little thanks to his efforts. That girl, he marveled. He didn’t know whether to thank her or shake with fear.

  He’d have to make his decision—Tara and Persey were running down the street towards him. “Wil,” the relict said again. “How are you…?” She looked him up and down with a mix of confusion and amazement. “How are you still alive?” she whispered, as if calling it into question might endanger him.

  He looked down at his torso, at the rivulets running down it like liquid fire was said to have run down Mt. Brunnen's cliffs long ago. “Erik,” he said.

  She blinked. “What?”

  “My name’s Erik.” He looked up Tara. “I thought you should know.”

  While Tara’s face twisted with more confusion, he looked at Persey. “I’m alive thanks to you,” he said. “I—”

  “No time,” Tara interrupted. She almost touched him, but retracted her hand, looking afraid to hurt him. Or herself. “Can you…?”

  He blinked, even the simple motion suddenly difficult. “Yes,” he said slowly.

  “Then let’s go.”

  They set off as fast as they could, which wasn’t fast in his condition. His thoughts drifted, and he let himself be led by the hand through the streets. He thought about dancing, gliding across a ballroom with a lady who shone like a mirror, the white marble floor tracing their steps with lines of silver. Then he thought about stalking a lurcher, a young, fresh one, half-rusted sword in hand, heart hammering his chest, waiting, waiting, but when he rushed forward, he fell a long, long way down, and the sea rushed up to him, closer—

  Water came as a shock of cold and hot pain as the salt found his wounds. Flailing, he heard himself cry out, but it was half-swallowed by the sea as his head went under. He took a breath, but it was water. He had no air.

  “Stay close to the beach,” Fafa had said, but you didn’t. You wanted to see how far you could swim out. Everyone else could swim out far, why not you? You wanted to swim all the way to Suden, back to the home you never knew. Too far out. You never listened. But then his arms were there around you, lifting you up, laughing. You loved the way water sprinkled from his eyes like jewels, even as you were gripped by terror. You were both rich: you with life, him with you.

  Arms wrapped around Erik, and pain stabbed him in a hundred places as they squeezed around his chest. He felt someone swimming hard next to him, fighting against the water, fighting for him.

  His head broke the surface.

  “‘Qed take you, Wil, Erik, whatever your damned name is,” he heard Tara sputter. “Grab the blighted boat!”

  Half-conscious, he flailed his good arm out and found solid wood, but his fingers couldn’t latch on.

  “Don’t give up on me now,” he heard her say. “Don’t you dare give up.”

  He swam and swam, keeping afloat. He got one hand on the boat again and kept hold, and with Tara pushing from below, and Persey’s small hands grabbing from above, he managed to gain the side of the boat. It was over. He slumped against the deck, broken ribs burning holes in his gut.

  He closed his eyes, but he wasn’t alone in the encroaching darkness. He felt something press against his eyes, in his ears, against the lining of his skull. You, Oslef whispered from the depths of his memory. You.

  “Who are you?” Erik whispered. The words were caught on the water in the bottom of the boat, spurting across the wood. “Oslef?”

  You. You, I know.

  The pressure increased, pressing into his mind, pressing him away from the pain, from the boat, from his body. It felt as if he were on the broken edge of the world, the sun burning just under the falling water, and he was on a boat drifting towards it. The current pushed him, and the edge drew him closer, foamy with water that fell into nothing.

  He couldn’t hold on. He was done fighting. He let himself drift into the horizon, into the sun, and everything was seared away, everything but the red memories.

  A’Qed pushed his brother’s head beneath the waves

  And Er’Lothe breathed of the water


  Salt poured into his veins

  Salt crystalized his heart

  When he pulled him up, only a white statue remained

  What had become of he who was once man’s savior?

  Nothing but a white, matted bust

  That the barest breeze could send spiraling to dust

  Look at your king! He shouted. Heed his downfall!

  The Lastborn’s followers stood, sentinels in the mist

  Look at your king! A’Qed demanded again

  What will become of your salvation now?

  But they pointed, and the Firstborn looked at his hands

  And his brother’s still form was no longer still

  Eyelids, crusted and rimmed with lime, opened

  And limbs stretched, cracking the brackish skin apart

  Then Er’lothe’s lips parted, and he spoke softly,

  What dies will always rise again

  What dies will always rise again

  Brother, if you could but understand

  Death is no fit end for man

  - The Sons Incarnate, “Parable of Salt,” fifteenth cantus

  Witnessed by Sanct Eckard, the Living Testament

  190 IY, Seventh Cycle of Our Broken World

  Fifteen

  7 Years Before

  “Come on,” Oslef grinned. “You can’t still see her as Plug. She’s grown now, Erik. You know what I mean.” He cupped his hands to make sure.

  “I know what you mean,” Erik answered dryly. He imagined all the ways she was grown as he picked the seeds off the tops of the river grass: her dark honey hair, spilling down her back; her full lips, red without needing any paint; and those eyes, those salmon-hued eyes, pink as the sky around the setting sun, as coral from the southern seas.

  And, yes, the parts Oslef indicated.

  “If you don’t see her that way, I’ll give her the attention she wants.”

  He perked up at that. “She doesn’t want anything from you, rot-head.”

  “Incorrect,” the count’s son replied, casually peeling a reed in half. “She doesn’t want anything from a mud-roller like you.”

  Erik flushed. Oslef had been letting slurs loose more often—too often. It hurt coming from a friend, but Erik had a thick skin. It was either that or fight every Vestorian-pale boy in the town. Again.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You have to court women of your own… what was the word? Oh—caliber.”

  “Don’t remind me,” the thick youth said, grimacing. “Laced-up bodices and long skirts is all I see. They probably haven’t even seen their own cunts since they first pissed from them.”

  Erik laughed and cringed at the same time. Still, he knew the reason the Twice-Late Viscount was down on the fairer sex. “Rose rejected your advances?”

  “Like she has the right to!” Oslef tossed his reed away. “Her father’s a scribe! A request to Father—a small one—and her father’s livelihood is out with the fek pail.”

  Erik’s smile fell away. “That’s kind of a bastard thing to do, Os.”

  The count’s third son stood up and tossed another reed into the river. Erik watched as it floated away.

  “That’s the way the world works. People get what they deserve.” Oslef looked down at Erik. “The Mother provides, right?” He laughed without mirth and started walking towards the bridge that crossed back to the south side of Zauhn, the rich side. Where he belonged.

  Erik stayed. He was already in Tar Court, among the poor, ostracized common folk and immigrants. Where he belonged.

  But sometimes, he wished his friend hadn’t figured that out. Sometimes he wished he would still risk talking by the river for more than a moment with his foreigner friends, with those who didn’t have titles or money or prospects for either. He wished Oslef would be a lion, like his childhood name, brave in standing up against the derision of the aristocracy.

  But boys became men, and men did not always keep their courage.

  “There you are!”

  Erik knew that voice. He didn’t dare look up as he saw her step into the room from the corner of his eye.

  “I—we, that is—have been looking all over for you. Should have known you’d be down here.”

  “Uh…” he muttered into the vials, formulae, and alchemical tools on the worktable before him. He could barely talk around Ilyse anymore.

  “What? Is something wrong, Erik?”

  He finally met her gaze with a sheepish smile. Between the yellow hue of the piston-lights and her Thousand Star Blessing outfit, she was shrouded in an almost angelic aura. Her dress, though made of homespun wool, was dyed the light blue of woodberries, and new and clean, it glowed in the light, their being in a cellar notwithstanding. Her hair also caught the glow, peeking out from beneath her leather bonnet, making it all the more luminous and fetching by its secrecy. Though her father was of meager means, she still had nature’s ornamentation: a flower garland of white estar blooms and yellow dandelions woven into the bonnet.

  Then there was the leather lace only she could make so wonderfully. Her father being a tanner, leather was in plentiful supply in her home, and Ilyse had long since saw it for more than utility. She’d transformed the fine leather into intricate patterns to adorn dresses and headgear. It wasn’t all for herself; all the goodwives and girls in Tar Court had at least one wristlet to wear for festivals, and all adored her for it. Erik himself admired its beauty, and the skill it required. That day, she wore quite a bit more of it than was her usual habit. It bloomed on her sleeves, bonnet, cuffs, hem, and even shoes.

  Breaking from his trance, Erik saw she was flushing under his lingering stare, and felt himself go hot. “Uh—” he said, a hand going up to rub his hair, but he stopped himself just in time. Smelling of vinegar and hyacinth petal extract all night wasn’t exactly how he wanted to present himself, not when Ilyse was dressed like this. His hand fell back to his side, and his head continued to stir emptily for something to say.

  “Well,” she said, hands going behind her back and feet shifting. “I—”

  “Sorry,” Erik rushed to say. “I just got a bit… caught up.”

  Her lips tweaked. “Pouring liquids into bottles can be very enthralling, I’ll bet.”

  “It can be when they could eat through your skin.”

  Ilyse’s eyes darted to his hands nervously, but seeing them bared and unmarred, she wrinkled her nose. “Not funny.”

  “What?” He kept a straight face. “You didn’t know vinegar and petals can kill you?”

  She seemed about to playfully punch him, but restrained herself. Playing the lady tonight, he thought. His throat was dry, and he had to swallow to form the next words. “So, you all were doing what?”

  “Oh!” she said, jumping as if he’d surprised her. “A lot of us are at Dead Army again in the woods. I—we don’t have to go back there if you don’t want… unless you would…?”

  Erik turned away and pretended to wash his hands as he hid a smile threatening to engulf his face. It wasn’t for Dead Army, though stumbling about intoxicated in the fields and forest while trying to tackle other youth had its merits, not the least because of the electrifying ever-present danger of nautded. No, it was in what she implied: that she planned to go where he went.

  “I’d love to go,” he said evenly. “Just let me—” But his original purpose came back to him, and his elation plummeted. “I can’t. I forgot for a second, but I can’t. Father put me in charge of the fountain dye for the ceremony. And he’s gone on one of his trips, so he can’t cover or anything.” Erik had often wondered at those long trips of his father’s, and wondered even more that he would never let him come with, but at the moment he was only frustrated that it had to be now.

  “Oh,” she said, salmon eyes falling like the setting sun.

  “I can’t really let him down,” he continued quickly. “It’s the first time he’s really entrusted me with anything.” Sixteen, and he only lets me in on the secrets to half the formulae. Inc
luding that damn elixir he puts in me every week. He shook his head, trying to clear it of the sudden anger and frustration that rose in him. Thinking on how his father held him back from formulaism always put him in a sour mood, all the more because his father—rational, reasonable Tacitus—never gave a reason for it.

  “I understand,” Ilyse said, glancing up at him. “You wouldn’t want to fail him.”

  Didn’t he fail me first? Don’t I deserve this? Ilyse—the girl I think about until I fall asleep, and when I first wake—she wants to spend time with me. What’s a dumb blue fountain to that?

  “No.” He shook the water from his hands. “Never mind that. I can put it off.”

  She lifted her eyes again, hopeful. “Are you sure?”

  He wiped his hands on his trousers. “Never surer.” He looked down at himself, then back at her. “Though I’m not nearly well-dressed enough to be in such fine company.”

  “I don’t think that will be a problem.” Her smile shone even in the dim light.

  Erik breathed in deeply. To still his beating heart, yes, but mostly to alleviate the building pressure below. As he inhaled, all the scents of the cellar came to him: the slight mildew from the constant dampness; the formaldehyde, chlorine, iodine, and thousands of other solutions that were kept down there; the burning vinegar in his nose and on his hands and all over his clothes. Yet for all that, there something in the air altogether sweeter.

  Ilyse stepped forward, and his heart went galloping again. It could have won a race as she reached forward and took his cold, clammy, vinegar-soaked hand. “Come with me,” she said softly. She smiled mischievously, peering up into his eyes. “It’s not every day you get to be with a lady in the dark.”

  Erik swallowed, trying to rein in his imagination, even if his heart was out of the stable. He managed a smile despite the rebellion in his stomach. “I’ll be sure to appreciate it.”