Artemi had asked Silar if showing such mercy might somehow alter Mirel’s course of action, if it would cause her to act more kindly towards her former adversaries. But he had shrugged his shoulders and mumbled something about more immediate problems. Relocating an entire city had placed incredible pressure on old supply routes, hygiene and local food sources. Silar had worked hard to make sure they chose only the most forgiving of local lordlings to impose upon. That, together with his obsession over the identity of her children, had left the man looking like he needed a break from his numerous responsibilities. There was the further issue of Silar’s collection of prophesies, but he seemed content now that Morghiad had reclaimed his sanity. Perhaps that particular disaster had been averted. The Mirel problem, on the other hand, would have
to wait.
“You are angry with me.”
“No. Yes. But you made the right choice.” She frowned at him. Blazes, it was impossible to stay angry at the man! “We will be ready for her.” Artemi pushed him to the floor forcefully and straddled his hips. He had made one decision today; it was only fair that she took control of the decisions for this evening.
They both rose early the following morning to collect their horses and ride ahead of the column of citizens. Artemi wanted to reach the ruins before the sheer number of people became obstructive to her plans. The construction sphere was buried somewhere inside her saddlery, and she was beginning to feel the pressure of her task. The words uttered to her by the original builders of Gialdin still echoed through her mind. Wilful and errant. But she could do it – she’d had millennia to refine her wielding and learn techniques those women could never have conceived of. They had spent mere centuries working on their skills.
“We should dismount here,” she heard Morghiad say behind her. The ground was becoming more uneven as the broken-brick roads became evident. There was very little of them left visible through the overgrown foliage now. “Not necessary.” Artemi leapt into the fires that surrounded her being, and filled herselfwith their searing power. She used it to push aside the thick undergrowth and pull out the vast network of roots. A muddy and uneven road was then revealed, coated with a
dense layer of earth, decay and broken pieces of itself. She began working on re-laying the brickwork as fast as she could.
Morghiad reined in beside her as she worked. “How do you do that, with so many separate forms at once?”
“Practice. Here.” She took his hand and completed the rest through him, which he seemed to enjoy rather more than he should. “You try it.”
His attempts were a little fumbled at first, sending sprouts of flame that arced into the damp trees. But, as was so characteristic of his nature, he rapidly grasped the technique.
“A few more days’ practice and you’ll be even faster,” she grinned before moving away. The cleared road was smooth enough to canter down, and soon they found themselves
facing those familiar white shards of Gialdin city. Its peculiar energy touched her skin, and the birdsong was as loud as ever.
“Were there always Jade’ans here?” Morghiad asked as they dismounted.
“I believe so, yes. That’s a question for Dorlunh, when he returns. There was all sorts of mythology about how they came to rule Gialdin. I was living in Idorra Island at the time – that’s Rhofin now, and where the Founder Sisters’ Palace used to be. Anyway, the Jade’ans had some sort of power over The Sisters, because they managed to convince a team of them to build this place.”
“And they didn’t take you?”
“I was not allowed to join them. I was considered too... unruly.”
Morghiad laughed at that, but only
briefly. “Like putting a hurricane in a box.” He smiled.
She wasn’t that difficult! She just knew perfectly well when others were making idiotic decisions! “You’ve been spending too much time with Koviere. But yes, your family had many secrets. Medea tried to explain one of them to me before she died, but there was no time.”
“She knew I would marry you.”
Artemi looked at him in surprise. How could he even have remembered that, and how long had Medea known it? “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He smiled broadly. “She said I had to make sure you took good care of me.”
“I was your father’s sworn bodyguard and yours by default. That is probably what she meant.”
Morghiad shook his head. “No. She said those words only to me. Not my sister or anyone else. And she knew she was about to die.”
Artemi tried to think back to those years as she gazed over the glittering, crystalline ruins. Hedinar and Medea had become somewhat... sombre before the attack. And there was the morning when she’d been practising sword skills with the new soldiers, shouting and yelling at them to pick up their pace. But when she’d turned she’d caught sight of Hedinar and Medea watching her, whispering to one another. Had they really known she would wed their son? And had they approved of it? Would they have been easier to force a smile upon than her own father? Toryn had remained steadfastly sour-faced through
the first half of the wedding celebrations, only mustering a grin after his fourth ale.
“They approved of you,” her husband said softly.
She squeezed his hand and turned to reach inside the bulging pocket of her saddle. The construction sphere sat heavily in her hand once she had extracted it, and a thousand images of buildings and rooms span about within it. “This one is perfect,” she said, “Not a single chip or fault.” The queen placed Morghiad’s fingers on the cold, blue crystal and filled them both with her power. “We can work even faster together.” She guided him as they lifted the first swathe of rubble, and broke it down to dust that drifted away upon the warm morning air. The next section was removed with even more rapidity, and each subsequent
area dissolved with ever greater speed.
It was only when they reached the centre that Artemi realised the true scale of the work that needed to be completed. Gialdin had been vast, much broader than she remembered. At her feet lay the fractured remnants of the top of the golden spire, formerly the tallest tower in the city. The crowning statue of the giant, leaping panther had broken into two halves. Its carved lines were still sharp and clear in spite of its great age. Only Acher’s attack had been able to damage it. “We should save this.”
Morghiad crouched and ran his hand along the muzzle of the giant cat. The broken Blaze forms buzzed oddly against his skin. “Whoever made this knew about panthers.”
“What they looked like?”
He shook his head. “No. How they
move. How they think. This one was hunting.” Artemi’s features filled with bemusement. “You can speak panther?”
He compressed his lips and his forehead creased at her jibe. “I just... I know it. And I feel like I ought to.”
“You know, there’s a wolfthat used to follow me, fight with me.”
Morghiad stood. “Dannae. I read about him in a few of your tales.”
“Danner,” she corrected. He didn’t have to know that it meant fluffy. “Yes. I was sure I could read every one of his emotions from his movements, the things he thought. ThoughI was probably imagining it. I haven’t seen him in several centuries.”
“Animals can be vanha-sielu?”
“Of course.”
Morghiad seemed rather surprised at that.
“Do you think there are many more cats out there?” she asked him.
He scanned the tree line closely, placing his hands on his hips. “Perhaps. I can’t... sense them or smell them or...” His words drifted on his thoughts.
“Let’s remove the last of this. There’s so much to do and little time before an entire city of people arrive.” She raised the construction ball to Morghiad’s hand once more, and threw a good helping of Blaze into it. The remains of the tower were easily dismantled by their combined forms, softly turning to powder amongst the flames. But as she reached into the gargantuan foundations of
the building, something felt out of place. It was
hot and... alive. “What is that?” Artemi broke contact with Morghiad and tucked the sphere under one arm. A broad ring of white crystal, roughly forty feet in diameter, was seated firmly in the ground before them.
A wide set of steps led down into a black hollow in the ground. She hadn’t felt any of it with The Blazes inside her, which was odd. How could a void that large be hidden from a wielder? She was already walking to the top of the steps when Morghiad called her, “Are you sure that’s safe?”
“Only one way to find out!” She padded quickly into the darkness, her husband grumbling quietly behind her. The construction orb acted very nicely as a rudimentary light once the daylight had become insufficient, and Morghiad loomed protectively over her while
they descended. She could feel the cold hilt of his sword against his palm and the extra energy he fed into his senses. He was very quiet for a lumper when he walked. Perhaps he really did share his blood with panthers.
The white steps ended abruptly at the opening to a tunnel, and the heat became more obvious. It felt a little like Blaze heat, and a great deal like something intangible, almost invisible.
“That is whatI sense in you, my heart. It’s the same thing,” the king whispered.
Artemi pressed forward into the tunnel that had clearly been carved from the Gialdinian bedrock. The orb in her hand started to feel very hot suddenly; it started to warp toward the end of the tunnel. “Ouch!” She was forced to drop it onto the bare earth at their feet. The
sphere’s shape seemed to distort and wobble.
“Artemi, we have no idea what we are doing down here!”
She shook her head. “No. This is what Medea was trying to tell me about. We have to drop anything made with Blaze. Come on.” Her swords were smoking as she withdrew them from their holsters. She placed her engagement dagger on top of them and all-but-dragged Morghiad into the darkness.
After trotting through the lightless passageway, they reached a door made of blue shimmering and glowing stone. It surface was striated with golden rivulets about a hollow, a depression about the size of a hand. Artemi pressed her fingers into it, and felt the beautiful heat of the fires embrace her. When she opened her eyes again, the king was still behind
her, but they had stepped into another room. It was a vast underground chamber, its floor filled with water. And in the centre was something truly magnificent. A thick column of bright light swam from floor to ceiling, shedding rays of Blaze all over the cave. Artemi sprinted into it, ignoring Morghiad’s protestations behind her. Light of Achellon, that fire felt good!
She bathed in it, drank it and savoured it. It wasn’t The Blazes per se, but it was beautiful. She could feel the discarded weapons, the earth above, the broken panther statue and the clear surface surrounding it. She could sense Morghiad drawing near to her, and he was enjoying it as much as she was. He rapidly drew her into a kiss, which brought searing flames that amassed and grew beneath her skin. He tore her clothes from her body,
revealing her nakedness to the hot light of the non-Blaze. She could feel his violent hunger for her as he wrestled her to the floor and forced her back into the shallow water. Her sex ached as he entered her, though it was the most supremely pleasurable ache. She allowed him complete control, only offering the weakest of struggles against his persistence. It should never have been like this. Not for her. She reached out to the tunnel beyond as he took what he wanted from her, and lit the construction sphere outside. The torrents of ecstasy that ran through her muscles formed into spirals of a power beyond Blaze. They tunnelled outwards through the sphere and up to the surface. She was aware she was building something with each level of pleasure he pushed them through, but could not have explained what she was
creating. Wilful... always so errant. She was screaming from the things he was doing to her, she realised. Artemi bit down on her lip to quell the sounds. It was a poor effort.
Afterwards, she retained a few dim memories of the last buildings forming, and how Morghiad had pulled her from the water to hold her close at the summit of their passions. But much more than that was absent, and she awoke with her head resting on one of his sword-hardened arms. The light around them appeared to have softened, though it was more likely that her eyes had adjusted to its brilliance. It still felt as hot and powerful as before. Understanding flooded into her then. “This is where you were born.”
Morghiad sat up groggily and rubbed at his thick, black hair. “What?”
“Kanaala are born at full potential. That’s why their mothers die. Your power has to come from somewhere. But for you it could come from here. That was Medea’s secret, the city’s secret.”
He looked around at the chamber with blinking eyes. “If this could save you and every other wielder with child, then why would she keep it a secret?”
Artemi shook her head slowly. “I don’t know.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong, but we ought to find out first.” He kissed her and lifted her to her feet.
Her mind worked as she dressed. There was something familiar about this place. A drawing she’d seen somewhere, or a description she’d read? Ten-thousand years of memories could often be a burden rather than a boon. Dorlunh would know. He always had the right knowledge pocketed away somewhere, categorised in his catalogue-like mind.
Their clothes were dry as soon as they stepped out of the broad column of light, as if the water somehow did not belong in the world outside of this new power. And yet this power remained within them. It was the mysterious awareness they recognised in each other; the spark that lay atop The Blazes. So now it was clear where his spark had come from, but from where had she acquired hers? She’d never known any of her birth mothers; none of them had survived in the memorable past, so she couldn’t have been born in a place like this. None of the other Kusurus had it, not even Mirel. Had Morghiad passed it to her? And if
so, how?
They walked back to the tunnel while she pondered these questions, and discovered the construction sphere had melted into a clear puddle on the floor. It still sparkled with echoes of the Energy that had passed through it. “Well that‘s done with,” she sighed. If Artemi had made any mistakes in building an entire city whilst receiving the attentions of her husband, there would be no correcting them now. The Founder Sisters would never have approved of this. But then, they never had approved of her much; they never believed her when she’d told them the broken fort was an accident, or that the crater at the bottom of the garden had been Lisbetta’s doing. Arrogant, moth-brained women!
Artemi reached down to pick up her
abandoned pile of weapons. They felt even hotter to the touch than before. She made a gentle swipe at the granite wall, and the gale sword cut cleanly through it as if it were wet clay. She cursed. This was a very strange place indeed.
Even Morghiad’s river bubbled with amazement. “I need to find someone who could make me one of those.”
Artemi smiled. “We’d need another friendly wielder. Let’s see what we’ve built out there,” she said, and together they ascended the ancient white stairs at the end of the tunnel. They soon entered the white glow of the reconstructed tower. Above, a surprisingly even spiral of stairs spun their way into the distant height, their apex out of sight.
Morghiad ran out and into the
courtyard beyond the floating steps, and Artemi felt his surprise grow. Bloody blazes, what hideous monstrosity had she created? She followed him quickly to step into the curiously pink light of day, and found herself similarly filled with surprise. The palace and the city where one began and the other ended she couldn’t have said – were sheer structural impossibilities. Columns arced over spires and bridges swept high into the sky, meeting yet more towers in obscurity. There were roads and pathways large enough to accommodate the usual traffic, and these looped around the white buildings in mid-air. Artemi followed her husband up a glassy ramp that led to a sinuous plat
form, supported by only the thinnest spindles of crystal. She drew her hot gale sword along the white surface to test its
hardness. Not even a scratch was made. From here she could see the vast network of tiproofed white houses, clustered around fountains and glittering courtyards of their own.
But the principal oddity in this place was the river. Where previously it had lazily ambled through the earth, it now arched in the air between the buildings. Between the high tower and a cluster of spindles it split around the repaired figure of the leaping panther, before recombining and flowing back toward the ground. Artemi was sure she could see fish still swimming along it, apparently unperturbed by their new route.
“Do you think a boat could cross that?” Morghiad asked softly.
“Yes.” She wasn’t quite sure how she knew, but she felt as if she’d made allowances
for it somehow.
“Is this how it was before?”
“No.” Gialdin city had been elegant and delicate, but it had never looked quite so... implausible. It had never been errant. “Do you like it?” she found his mind difficult to interpret.
“I do.” Warmth emanated from him. “It is you: tough, impossible, exceptional and beautiful.” He took hold of her hand. “The others will be here soon. We ought to be waiting for them at the gate. I presume you remembered to build a gate?”
The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle Page 96