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

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  The man’s voice said again, “Madness. This is where you hide?”

  Her curiosity piqued, Tiana paused in her scramble backwards and asked, “What do you see? Do you still see through my eyes? How did you get here?”

  “I followed you. I learn. It’s my great strength. But this—this is… madness. Everything happens. At once. Now. How can you—but I suppose you’re mad already.”

  Tiana rose to her feet, giggling. The giggle bloomed around her, red and yellow, and drove the mist before it. “You’re not made for pretty lies, silly sword. It’s in our blood. I suppose you didn’t taste enough of Cathay’s to learn the knack.”

  “I could take some of yours….”

  “That would be the opposite of protecting me, you understand,” Tiana observed as her pink hills grew around her.

  “It’d just be a nip. Can you really feel pain in here? You scarcely seem aware of anything.”

  Tiana stared at the windswept hills. A crimson rose danced before her, bowing like a suitor at a ball and she looked away. “Yes. There is pain here. Are you still trying to track the physical world? It takes decades of experience to master that; no wonder you’re so lost. Stay or go, but don’t try to straddle both worlds.”

  “That’s exactly what I will do. Anything could happen, and you still have eyes for me to see through.”

  Tiana shuddered. Aviani the Blind, an ancestor, had clawed her eyes out while in the phantasmagory. She resisted the temptation to rub at her own eyes.

  The phantom woman stalked past, flowers swirling and following her like a train. The landscape changed behind her. It was desolate and dusty, scattered with the skeletons of animals and monsters, most of which never existed outside the phantasmagory. The eidolon graveyard.

  “What do you see?” Tiana wondered. “Jinriki? Sword?”

  “Did something change? I see the same. I am aware, as I am aware of blood on my blade, of you, mired within a morass of… memories. The memories of a thousand souls, all moving and flowing together, interacting and changing. Dreams?”

  “A delusion so powerful it overwhelms every other sense. Influenced by the outside world, though, and by my worries and desires, and others of the Blood. It comes with the magic.” That wasn’t strictly true; long before she’d manifested emanations, she could access the phantasmagory and Shanasee used the phantasmagory while refusing the magic.

  “I’m not personally familiar with dreams. Why do you stay? You seem coherent. Can you not control your return?” The man’s voice was as close as her shadow.

  “When I want to return, I do. If I don’t want to return, I can’t.”

  Jinriki demanded, “Well, come back, then.”

  She said, “But I don’t want to.” She set off walking across the eidolon graveyard.

  Chapter 17

  The Secret Voices

  Once, the fortress had been just an old wing of the Palace. But when Benjen the Bastard announced his second Blight by kidnapping the baby son of King Math from his nursery, that old wing changed almost overnight. As Math, Shonathan, and the cousins hunted Benjen, Pell the builder and Yithiere the guardian turned a near-ruin into a twisty stronghold for the other children, for the spouses, and for the Regents.

  When it was all over, when Math and Benjen were both dead, the family was happy to leave the fortress behind. But Yithiere kept the locks clean, the traps ready to arm. He rebuilt some of the corridor maze, and rememorized the routes. And after his Regent Zavien died, he moved back in.

  Kiar laid her head on his shoulder as he carried her down grey halls. He moved quickly, silently. He was always silent unless there was something he needed to say. When Kiar was ten, he’d told her, “The less you say, the less those who listen can learn about you.”

  Then he was putting her on her feet again. “Can you stand? Can you walk?” he asked her, feeling her forehead. “I need a hand free to work the doors.”

  She smiled at him and tried to tell him about the words in her head. The road, the plague, the guardsmen. The cattle. He put his hand to her mouth. Then he touched the wall. It swung open silently and he pulled her through it. The floor beyond was bright and dark, like Logos and eidolon.

  A moon-bright wolf emerged from Yithiere, shedding a dull glow. It led them across the floor. Then Yithiere slid another door open and drew her through into a dusty sitting room and bolted it behind him.

  “What did he do?” she wondered. “Twist. Don’t let him bother you. It’s too much trouble, and once you start being bothered you just can’t stop.” For some reason, that was funny, so she snickered.

  Her father looked around. “This will do. Rest on the sofa. Are you thirsty? I can fetch water.” But he stood there, watching her. “I wish Zavien was still alive. I get tired….” He looked around the room and then up into a corner. “I can’t quite….”

  Then he stared at Kiar again, squeezed his eyes shut. “Zavien’s gone. I’m stronger than this.”

  Kiar summoned a smile for her father. “I am very thirsty, yes. And cold.” But of course, there were no windows in the fortress. Her head was stuffed with felt and parts of her skin prickled. “I can watch myself. See?” And suddenly she could see her body from the outside, as if she was standing beside herself. She watched as her mouth moved and words fell out. “Is this the Logos? But there are no shadows on my skin.”

  She watched as Yithiere put his hand on her face and head, and then set his jaw. “I’ll be back. Sit down.”

  “Yes, sit down,” she said to herself. Her knees bent and she sat. Yithiere looked at her a moment more and then strode to a bookcase and touched a volume. The bookcase slid aside and he vanished into the hall beyond. The entire room was dusty and untended, except for the bookcase, which gleamed.

  It couldn’t be the Logos she saw through, for there was no taint at all, not where she sat, not where Yithiere walked. That meant it was pure delusion, a half-step into the phantasmagory. The Kiar she saw was a ghost, an eidolon, just like one of poor Shonathan’s twins.

  The fuzziness in her head became a spike of pain. Time passed while she was lost in fire and misery. Where was the water? She was so thirsty. Then she became aware of a gentle knocking at the door Yithiere had bolted. A voice called through it, “Kiar?”

  Kiar pushed herself to her feet and stumbled over to the door, where she slid open the bolt and fumbled at the latch. When she eased the door open, her older cousin, Shanasee, was standing beyond, with Cara, her Regent, peering over her shoulder. She looked like a more mature copy of Tiana, although she kept her hair as short as Kiar’s.

  Shanasee and Cara both had a glowing inscribed orb, and Cara had a bag with another inactive orb and a bundle of candles sticking out. Even so, Kiar was struck to unexpected tears by Shanasee’s courage, coming this far into the unlit fortress, because she knew darkness upset Shanasee. “So little light. So brave,” she croaked, then fell against a bookcase.

  Briskly, Shanasee said, “If what the servants say is true, we’ll be living by lamps alone in ten years. But for now, I’ve come to bring you out of here.”

  Kiar said, “Father—I mean, Yithiere—has already rescued me from Twist. I’m not sure what Twist was going to do, though. Would you like to come in?” She slipped down to the floor.

  “She’s really sick, Shan,” said Cara, a tall woman whose hair had started greying when she and Shanasee were teenagers. “Let’s get her back to the seat.”

  She and Shanasee crowded through the door and put Kiar on the couch. One of Yithiere’s eidolons trotted in behind them and joined the moon-glow wolf. Jant’s fox eidolon followed and scooted under a chair. Shanasee didn’t have eidolons now either, though she’d manifested them before Benjen had died. Like Tiana, she was dependent on her relatives to protect her Regent from whatever stalked them.

  Kiar wondered if a wolf eidolon was still protecting Lisette as well. How many eidolons was Yithiere maintaining? Again, she was struck to tears. He tried to be so tireless. But the more e
idolons one projected, the less resources one had for one’s self.

  Shanasee said, “We’re here to rescue you from Yithiere, actually. Where is he?” She looked around and Kiar pointed at the polished bookcase.

  Cara sighed. “That man. Well, we can carry you between us.”

  Kiar hesitated and then said, “His eidolons are here. I don’t want to make him angry. And he’s trying so hard.”

  Shanasee said, “Is it true, people have died from the sickness you have?”

  “Am I sick?” She tried to remember how she could have become sick. Had something happened? She was riding home. There was something—

  The chaos in Kiar’s mind overwhelmed her again.

  * * *

  She woke from dry heaves with Cara standing beside her, patting her back, and Shanasee saying, “—through the servant’s hallways. They know you very well and they care about Kiar too.”

  Yithiere growled, “Kiar is not theirs, or yours, to be concerned over. Get out.”

  Kiar remembered freshly shaved skin under her fingers. “Where’s Twist? Why isn’t he here?”

  Cara said, “Oh, sweetheart, he doesn’t want to make things worse with your fool of a father.” The moon-glow eidolon began growling at Cara. The two eidolons protecting Cara growled back.

  “No, please, don’t fight,” Kiar begged. “I’m sorry I got sick. I’m not sure how—” She gasped and curled up into a ball, clutching her stomach as cramps seized through her.

  Shanasee said, “Give her some of that water, Yithiere. Or let me.” She reached out for the pitcher and goblet Yithiere still held.

  Cara said, “The fortress can’t protect the children from this.” She stroked Kiar’s hair.

  “No!” he said. “I don’t have to listen to you. I don’t have to listen to any of you. None of you. You don’t know what I know.” He held the water away from Shanasee, narrowing his eyes at the inscribed orb in her other hand. “You have those. That’s how you got here.”

  Shanasee flinched away. “Don’t touch my lights.” Something in her voice had changed, something crackled under her words. “If you have ever loved me, don’t.”

  “Then go! Leave, or else….” The two wolf eidolons stopped growling at each other and turned as one to fix mad, yellow eyes on Shanasee.

  Shanasee froze. Cara stood up hastily. “Neither of you want to hurt each other. Let’s all agree that we want Kiar better and give her some of that water, hmm?” She reached across Yithiere for the pitcher. He jerked, looking around wildly. The water spilled on the floor.

  Comprehension finally seeped through the fog in her brain. Kiar realized she was very sick, and her father was not just refusing to allow other people to care for her, but arguing with them and threatening them. Fear boiled through her. She moaned and began sobbing: dry, painful cries that threatened her ability to explain and calm matters. “People… have been dying. But… not fast. I was fine yesterday. Yesterday? Was it yesterday? I don’t remember.”

  The wolf eidolons snarled in response.

  Kiar stepped outside herself again and stared, horrified, at the tableau around her. Then, she fled. She left madness for the phantasmagory, but the wolves of Yithiere howled and hunted her into the dark.

  Chapter 18

  Storm

  Tiana walked in the eidolon graveyard. It had the dunes of a sand desert, but there was no wind, no sound, not even of her own footsteps. She passed through the shadow of a great skeletal beast and patted the ribcage as she passed under it. It felt like rough silk, not sand-etched bone. There had always been dragons in the phantasmagory, just as there were dragons in stories. “But nobody’s ever seen one for real. I wonder why?” she asked it.

  “What do you see?” demanded Jinriki.

  “Why do you stay so close, if it doesn’t help you understand? I won’t translate for you.” She looked up at the maw of the creature. Some memory or forgotten fantasy, left to the untender mercies of the phantasmagory. She turned away. There were walls of stone ahead, deeper in the wasteland, rising from the sand to the sky.

  “I can see you. If I can’t bring you out, I must stay with you. That I am blind I lay at your feet.” There was a new edge to the voice.

  “Exactly why I’m in here, fiend.” Then sound filled the world. Tiana’s thoughts vanished as a set of howls spilled across the desert sky. A scream of anguish rose louder than the howls.

  A wall of darkness rushed across the wasteland, unstoppable as the tide. After it came only a deep silence.

  “Is this sleep?” Jinriki asked.

  The darkness parted, and she was standing on a green hilltop, looking over a beautiful bay. In the center of the bay was an island, edged by high cliffs. Behind her was the desert wasteland she’d crossed. “That was Kiar,” Tiana said. “And wolves.” She shivered.

  Something flashed, moving on the beach below the hill. As it came closer, Tiana recognized Shanasee’s rainbow flying fish. At first a single creature, the shape shimmered and split into a school of smaller fish when it saw her on the top of the hill.

  Tiana moved to intercept her. “What happened? Where is Kiar?”

  The school spoke in a dozen high-pitched voices. “He has her—he holds her—Yithiere—she is ill—she is frightened—he is mad—no Regent—Cara—they are within—he drove me away.”

  Tiana stared at Shanasee and then looked at the island, remembering what Twist had said. “Sick? The plague?”

  “Says Twist—are you lost—I was to bring her out—but he said there was a way—an idea—I cannot do it—where are you?”

  Tiana shifted her weight, moved her hands in a restless pattern. “In the Morning Room, I think.”

  Jinriki whispered in her ear, “Yes.”

  The school of fish became agitated. “He is moving—he is here and there—Cara says he is moving—departing—how can he? So focused—such discipline—always—but he tried to break my lights.”

  Tiana closed her eyes. No one was better than Yithiere at walking in two worlds at once. He claimed it was a matter of survival. But how could he have even considered taking Shanasee’s lights? It was unthinkable. And yet, he was less resilient without Zavien, and he was degenerating under the strain of maintaining multiple eidolons. She wondered what Twist had done to trigger this. “What was Twist’s plan? He only said something about fighting an eidolon before he ran off.”

  The school scattered and then reformed. “To attack the eidolon in her—with our own—but I cannot—I cannot—I wished to convince Yithiere—I did not.”

  Jinriki’s voice was acidic with amusement. “That was his idea? How very desperate. I could find a better solution myself.”

  “Don’t even think about moving my body,” Tiana snapped. Shanasee startled again, then reformed into the larger fish, murmuring to herself or her Regent.

  His voice was silky. “Where would I go?”

  “Nowhere,” she muttered. “Stay where you are. Stop eavesdropping. No wonder Yithiere took her away. But she’s got her own gifts; she did that thing with the enemy eidolon before. Absorbed it.”

  Lightning crawled across the sky and a foul stench drifted up from the place where the sea touched the shore. It was the smell of putrescence and bile, as if the sea was sour instead of salty, and all in it dead and rotting. Tiana looked at the lightning uneasily, then made a decision.

  “I won’t ever find him in the fortress alone. Shanasee… you’re strong. You can do it. You can just step out.”

  The fish swished her fins fretfully. “I have no magic. Do not ask me.”

  Tiana said, “I’ve heard the stories, Shan! You were the tempest, you’re the primus. Kiar needs you!”

  “It doesn’t matter! I did my part! I trapped Benjen, I held him while they pulled his secrets from him, I swallowed him down. Wasn’t that enough? I cannot bring the darkness from myself again. You do it. You are wind and fire, to cleanse and burn. The darkness contains only… horror.” Shanasee’s voice trembled as a shadow c
rept across her form. “Cara, Cara, light the lamps. There isn’t enough light anymore.”

  Tiana waved her hands. “I’m not there! I can’t find him!”

  Shanasee said, “Then it must be Yithiere, as I said. We must convince him. Come with me; we will return to his stronghold, across the sea.”

  The sky was low and ominous, crowded with charcoal clouds. There was a sound from the heavens as the clouds passed over and under each other: a slow ripping sound, like silken fabric, deliberately torn.

  “What’s happening?” Tiana looked behind her and the sand wasteland was gone, replaced by another shoreline, another cliff island.

  “It’s responding to Yithiere, becoming his stronghold. If he can, he will turn it against us.” The fish turned and swam away, towards the island. Tiana drifted after her.

  The stench of decay and vomit grew stronger at the waterline. Tiana put her hand to her nose and imagined rose petals. “Do you smell that? Is it me or the phantasmagory?”

  “I taste it,” said Shanasee. “And I see it, the color of rot and darkness across the water.” She approached the water and then backed away. “I cannot cross that now. We need another way.”

  “You—” Tiana began, and stopped. She blew out her breath. “I will see if I can magic us across.”

  “It’s better if you try than I. And… thank you.”

  It was more complicated than it would be in the real world. Using family magic in the phantasmagory was what made the phantasmagory so very dangerous. The Regents trained to assist the Blood in doing so. Without skill, what was done in one world was echoed in the other: to fly in the phantasmagory was to fly in the physical world. To strike at something in the phantasmagory risked striking someone in the physical world as well.