Citadel of the Sky (Thrones of the Firstborn Book 1)

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  “And the other troubles?” Jerya laced her fingers together.

  “The weather. It’s been so… wrong.” The sour rage under his terror leaked through his voice. His brother tried to stand again and was jerked down. “It’s hurt the harvest the last three years running.”

  Jerya said, “Your count is not sympathetic? There has been peace for almost a decade.”

  “We’re farmers, Your Highness. The failure of the harvest is our own fault, or so our lords claim.”

  Jerya frowned for the first time. “I see. And does your count protect you from the bandits?”

  The man looked down and chose his words with care. “I’m sure he tries very hard, Your Highness.” Then he turned to look silently at the King, who was tapping his fingers together in sequence and watching in bemusement.

  Jerya said, “Very well, Wallis Jacoby. I will investigate the situation. I would like you and your brother to be our guests for the next few days, in case I need any clarification.” He slumped, looking beaten.

  He’s expecting a prison, realized Kiar.

  But Jerya went on, “Berrin. Escort these men to the Palace housekeeper and see that she finds them appropriate quarters. Comfortable ones, please.”

  The man blinked and then rose to his feet, bowing and pulling his brother after him. “You’re very kind, Your Highness.” His hunched shoulders smoothed out as he bowed.

  After Berrin shepherded the men out, the King said, “Yithiere stopped the last Blighter at the border. It had almost no impact on the common folk. What they remember is Benjen.” He sighed. “What they fear is us.”

  Jerya glanced at her father and then said, “Kiar? What did you see?”

  Kiar said, “The simple one was touched by eidolons. Not like the pendants, but like Lisette or Iriss.”

  Iriss said suddenly, “I could read his lips. At least, I think so. The brother. Clary.” She said his name like she was tasting it. “He was saying the same thing over and over, mostly. Like he had a song in his head.” She absently began strumming her viola again.

  “Well, what was it?’ Tiana asked.

  Iriss said, “Oh! Um. Let me see. Dead, dead, dead star, between midnight and dawn. Dream, dream, dream, night drags on. Monster, monster, monster, it’s not real. Never, never, never, nightmares don’t heal.” She fell silent, and as the silence dragged out, she turned pink. “I didn’t say it made sense. But I did see it. I practice!”

  Kiar blew out her breath. “Very cheerful. So. Eidolon pendant. Eidolon-touched plague victim. Unfamiliar eidolon at the funeral. I think there must be an unknown member of the Blood.”

  Tiana said, “Are you sure it was eidolons? Our magic?”

  Kiar’s patience snapped. “Benjen the Bastard gets not one, but two, entries in the history of Blighters. Why are you so set against the idea that any of the Blood could do something bad?”

  Tiana looked frightened. “I’m not. I just don’t think it—I don’t want another Blood Blight. I—” she glanced at Jerya. “I know how bad they are. This isn’t anything like Benjen. A plague? Is it, Daddy? Tell them. Whoever it was would have to be here, and you can’t make people sick with eidolons or emanations.”

  Kiar took a deep breath. Then, begrudging the words, she said, “You’re probably right. Without seeing more survivors of the plague, I can’t prove a supernatural influence. Depending on where his village is, Clary may have run afoul of Cathay or Yithiere on one of their rides, or something even more arcane. The pendants date from long ago. And one stray eidolon does not, strictly speaking, make a Blight.” Even if it killed Tomas. “But it was an eidolon, Tiana.”

  Tiana lowered her gaze and sat, chewing her lip. Iriss asked, “Will they ever forget, Your Majesty?”

  Kiar said, “Not as long as bastards of the Blood go Blighter.”

  Lisette said sharply, “It’s not limited to bastards, Kiar.”

  The King said to Iriss, “I don’t know. You know me and memory. Rinta and Yithiere didn’t think they would. But Tomas… Tomas had a plan for easing some of the nightmares.”

  Jerya said, “What was it?”

  The King scratched his chin. “I’m not really sure. He didn’t want to burden me with it. Something to do with the Justiciars. I don’t attend council meetings much, you know.” Another eidolon stepped out of the King. “Tomas did that for me.”

  Kiar announced, “I’m dropping the Logos-vision now.” No one protested immediately, so she did so.

  Jerya bit her thumbnail. “I wonder what it was. I don’t think it’s working.” She shook her head. “I’m concerned that he didn’t bring these troubles to our attention.”

  Tiana said, “Maybe it was just politics making things bad. Politics aren’t our job.”

  “But fiends are,” said Jerya. “And Tomas hated politics. Something’s going on. I think the only way we’ll find out is by going to Court.”

  Chapter 6

  Love Me Not

  Kiar slouched down the Palace hall that evening, deliberately taking the longest possible route to Twist’s chambers. It wasn’t where she wanted to be, but Jerya had insisted.

  “And you,” she’d said. “You keep saying Twist would know these answers. You’re his apprentice, go ask him. Today. I know you’ve been skipping lessons with him.” Kiar had argued for procrastination, tried to forget, tried to ignore the request, but Jerya was indomitable.

  She took the long route. She skirted the Crystal Room, where some reception of the Regency Court went on and on. The Blood attended a few of those, but the Regency Court had a great deal of work to do managing relationships with the nobles, and it seemed to require many parties. She avoided as many as she could.

  She wandered through the kitchens, stealing warm bread before Min Baker chased her out. Her earliest memories were of carefully shelling beans by the kitchen fire. Her mother had been a Palace maid who won her father’s rarely-given trust for a short time, before war had come again. But she’d died just after Kiar had been weaned and Kiar didn’t remember her enough to miss her. The kitchen had been her nursery, the kitchen maids her nurses.

  There’d been reason, at the time, for all of Kiar’s mother’s friends to think her daughter would be safest if no one important knew her father’s name. The Blood fought among itself, and children died. Even after she’d been taken away to join her cousins on the floors above, the kitchen was warmth and order and strength for her.

  She walked along the Palace wall, until a strolling lordling tried to engage her in conversation. The greater nobles rarely courted her directly: her servant’s blood and blond hair were a bit too base for them. But if a lesser noble could win her, it would be quite the stepping stone for their family. That wasn’t going to happen, of course, but they were always so hopeful. She corrected his poetic description of the stars, then escaped back into the main Palace.

  She stopped by the Scrivener’s Office and asked them to recopy the maps Tiana had found. Then, she lingered to admire the Vassay hand press they were clustered around, until they closed the office. The scribes bid her a cheerful good evening and went off to their supper, taking away her last distraction.

  And now she was standing outside of Twist’s chambers. How had Jerya known? Had Twist told her? She hadn’t attended a weekly lesson in months, but no one had seemed to notice.

  She felt like she was standing before an executioner. Jerya, or Twist? She told herself Jerya was family and knocked at the door.

  There was no answer. Relief rushed through her.

  “Right!” Kiar said. “I came by, he was out, oh well, ask him yourself, Jerya.”

  But she didn’t leave.

  “I’m not good enough to be here,” she said to the door. “I’m aware of my problem. Jerya should be talking to Twist directly; she’s wasting her time with me. Just like Twist’s wasting his time with me. I wasn’t meant to work with the Logos. It was a mistake. I was confused.”

  She remembered standing before this door eight years earl
ier, scared and determined, tired of feeling small and powerless in a world of the powerful. She knocked, and there was no answer.

  Then, as now, she pushed on the door.

  It was unlocked. “Why doesn’t he lock his door? Why?” she demanded. “What if another confused child wandered in here? Didn’t he learn anything from my mistake?”

  When the door opened wide enough to step through, she gasped in horror. Scholarly, wizardly, and personal possessions were scattered around the room indiscriminately. She started instinctively cataloging it all. A work shirt was draped over a chair, a collection of geometric wooden blocks in primary colors littered the floor, rice spilled from a bag in a corner, the fireplace overflowed with cinders, dozens of books had been removed from shelves and incorrectly replaced, six folded paper birds occupied the desk chair, and a pair of empty boots dominated the desk. A ripped pillow rested on a table, feathers spilling everywhere, and a crust of dried bread lay in front of it. Four empty wine bottles formed the arms of a cross on the floor, right next to the door, and a rag doll sat in the center of the cross. More dolls leaned against each other on a shelf. A stack of bowls teetered on another table, threatening a mug encrusted with a patina of old tea. There was a jar of mysterious, lumpy goo beside the mug.

  At that point, Kiar squeezed her eyes shut in horror, but still couldn’t block out the old, acrid smell in the air. “It’s never been this messy in here before,” she said, outraged. “It’s a good thing I’ve been skipping class. How could he expect to have a lesson in here? It’s intolerable!”

  When she’d come here eight years ago, it had been untidy, but she’d hardly noticed. She’d been so intent on finding the plepanin. It was a powder, she’d read, dull red. It made things and people magical. Maybe it could make her more like her cousins: braver and stronger and more talented. He’d had a shelf full of jars then, each one carefully labeled: spices, teas, poisons, plepanin. There was only a little, but it only took a little. He’d never notice.

  Kiar looked around until she spotted the nearly-empty jar of red powder, high atop one of the bookshelves. He’d peeled the label off long ago, but that didn’t matter. She stepped over clutter on the floor and absently began to reshelf the books. She couldn’t see it from here. It was out of sight, but she could practically feel it, all the same.

  “A mistake,” she muttered. “It made things worse. These stupid lessons, where I just get to see how bad I am at something else. Jerya and Tiana relying on me for answers I can’t even see properly. It didn’t help at all.”

  She moved to the next shelf of books, making a disapproving sound under her breath at the state of the shelving. “This never happened before. I wonder what’s going on?” Then, she looked up at the jar she couldn’t see.

  Sometimes, she wondered if she just didn’t have enough. If it didn’t fully sensitize her to the Logos like it did to normal people. Inscribed objects need a refresh every once in a while, after all. Maybe the Blood did too.

  She shook her head violently.

  “You’re so predictable,” said a calm, familiar voice behind her. “I’m disappointed.” She whirled around, spilling a stack of books across the floor. Twist stood in the door leading out of his chambers, a long dark coat dripping water on the floor. His dark hair was barely damp, which looked like a neat trick. She bit her tongue on asking him about it.

  He chuckled, removing his coat and tossing it over the back of the nearest chair. “I thought you’d quit your studies. Or died of that sore throat. Three weeks claiming illness, and then you stopped even sending messages.” He smiled at her and her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “I was hurt.”

  “You saw me at Court meals,” she protested. “You never said anything.”

  “Well, what if you’d died and the King had made an eidolon of you? If I’d spoken to you, I would have ruined it for him.” He swept a pile of papers off an upholstered chair and sat down, looking her over. She dropped her eyes to the messy floor nervously, and then wrenched her gaze up again.

  He sprawled back and continued, “But I thought that if you were still alive, I’d find you here someday, sneaking in when I wasn’t home, reaching for the plepanin again.” His blue eyes glittered. “More wouldn’t help you, Kiar.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I came here for Jerya. No other reason.”

  “For Jerya you came to my workroom and began to clean the case with the plepanin? Oh, yes. You climbed the shelves when you were nine, as I recall.”

  She took a deep breath, ignoring his final comment. “The door was open. How can you exist in this… travesty of a workroom? I thought I’d come in and wait for you. Jerya was very insistent. She wants answers, you see, to certain questions.”

  Twist waved a hand dismissively. “Perhaps we’ll get to those tonight. At the moment, I want to hear your excuses for the last six months. Since you aren’t dead.”

  She stared at him in horror. He stared back at her, apparently serious. Then he added, “Pick up the books while you’re at it.”

  She looked down at the pile of books she had knocked off the shelf. That little mess was her fault. She knelt down and stacked the books again, unfolding bent pages and checking the spines. She would clean up her mess. She had always cleaned up her messes, from the very beginning. “Jerya wants answers, not me. I didn’t want to come. She insisted. If you’re not going to answer, I’ll just go. Maybe she’ll come herself.”

  “If she wants her information soon, that might be for the best,” Twist agreed. “What happened, Kiar? For four years, you were the brightest student I could imagine. And then it all started… disintegrating.” He sounded sad. She could imagine the disappointment on his face, and she couldn’t bear it.

  “The Blood just shouldn’t use the Logos, that’s all,” she said. “The histories say so and we had proof as soon as I took the plepanin. Everything after was just salvage. I was always slow. Clumsy.” She aligned the spines of the books carefully and then picked the stack up and put it on the shelf again. She managed to avoid looking at him even once. “You did what you could. Don’t worry about me.”

  She risked a glance and discovered he was standing right behind her. He could do that, travel without crossing the intervening space. It was his special Logos trick, and it was always surprising. She recoiled into the bookshelf again, and he put a hand out to steady her. “I was proud of you. Did I push you too hard?” He turned her around, searched her face.

  She flushed again, uncomfortably aware of how close he was. He hadn’t aged a day since she’d met him. The plepanin did that sometimes, preserving those who survived it for an extended period of time. And he was still as shockingly attractive to her as he’d ever been.

  Not noble born, oh no; he’d told her stories of his life as an urchin before his mentor Hook had collared and adopted him. His skin was city-folk pale, and his hair black as tar; he was her opposite, coloring-wise, which made them the same, somehow. It was irrational, but she felt it all the same. And while he was handsome enough, it was the way he practically buzzed with energy and strength and humor that made her want to simultaneously throw herself at him and run away.

  Then he sighed, pulled his hand away, and stepped back. “Don’t lie to me. It won’t do you any good. I’ve been planning on bringing you back to lessons for a while now. I was just… busy.” He frowned and scratched his chin, his eyes going distant.

  “It’s a waste of time,” Kiar said wretchedly.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” he said, his gaze snapping back to her. “I won’t allow you to wander around, barely functional.”

  Her lips tightened. “I have other things I’m doing now. And they’re none of your business.”

  Pleasantly, Twist said, “I’ll find you at them and remove such distractions. There are those who will help me.”

  Kiar flinched. He leaned close again. “You can’t hide from me, Kiar. I will find you and I will not let you lock me out.” His words were harsh, his voice gentle. Sh
e fought a tremble at his nearness and swallowed hard. He smelled like old leather and apples. He’d always smelled like apples, even then….

  She was nine, and the red powder had changed her. She saw the inherent order of the world around her and where it was out of place, and she couldn’t fix it. No matter how she organized and sorted, she couldn’t order things to her satisfaction. It overwhelmed her. She panicked, as she had once before, three years earlier, and an eidolon crowded around her, an unbreakable shield against a world of madness. Except that after the red powder, the eidolons and emanations of family magic were… nothingness, nothing she could see, nothing she could manipulate. She was trapped inside a shell she couldn’t control, and she was screaming….

  His eyes, such a deep blue, widened as he stared down at her, and his mouth parted, as if to speak more. Then he shook his head, twisted the Logos around himself, and was once again back at his chair. “Tuesday,” he said calmly. “Come at the usual time and we will have a lesson.”

  She sagged against the bookcase, trying to find a line of reason, a purpose within the buzzing in her mind. But all she could find was Tuesday, Tuesday, and the memory of a tall man wrapping a long coat around the shoulders of a sobbing nine year old. She bowed her head and said, “Yes.”

  Then she trudged out of Twist’s chambers, aware of his gaze on her every step of the way.

  * * *

  Halfway back to the residential hall Kiar realized she’d let Twist drive her from his chambers without gathering the information Jerya was expecting. For a heartbeat, she wanted to go back. But she knew she was too much a coward to face Twist again tonight, and too tired besides. Better to face Jerya’s disappointment after all.

  The Logos-vision flickered; her exhaustion made it hard to keep it suppressed after activating it earlier. When she’d been attending lessons, she had spent half her time with the Logos-vision active. She knew that as a master wizard, Twist had it active almost all the time. She looked at her hands, at the darkness within them, and shuddered. She could never understand how he could teach her, how he could function so close to the Blood, without going mad.