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

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  “Why do you fear her?” Jinriki asked.

  “Shh. She’s spooky. I’ve seen her in the real world, too. That’s not the sort of thing that normally happens when somebody is sane.”

  The ghost woman was standing so close that she could have touched Tiana, but she was looking somewhere else. “What’s she looking at?” she whispered to Jinriki, unwilling to change her focus.

  “I cannot see anything meaningful. The stuff of the phantasmagory, the dreams and memories and such. I do not know if she is aware of the set in the same way you are. Ah, but now I see. The biters.”

  The woman tilted her head and cinders whirled around her, each one with a white speck at its core. They settled over her, flaring as they intercepted her shape. She spread her arms and the cinders flew away, coalescing into the blurry silhouette of a human. It glided toward the woman, who back stepped. It spread its arms as the woman had done previously and the woman blurred, then fuzzed into the general phantasmagory.

  The silhouette’s hazy head lifted like a hunting dog’s, swiveling this way and that. It moved in Tiana’s direction and her heart leapt into her throat. Biting motes swirled around her and if the creature hadn’t seen her before, it certainly did now. A long, shadowy arm reached out, finger pointing at her. Tiana breathed out, pushing the motes away with her meditative wall and wondered if she could defend herself like that.

  Before she had to find out, the ghost woman fuzzed into existence behind the silhouette again. The silhouette’s head snapped around, and it flowed towards her, spreading its arms a second time. Again, the woman back stepped and then twirled like a dancer. She curtseyed to the silhouette, and it stopped its advance, its arms half-dropping.

  The woman raised one hand to touch a biter, and the tip of her finger turned white. The biter flashed brightly and something glittering pulsed out from it. When it washed over Tiana, she tingled. And when the pulse was gone, so was the biter. There was, instead, a tiny tear in the night city, as if the backdrop had been damaged.

  The silhouette tilted its head, looking at the tear. Then it exploded into motes, the little flecks streaming out of its form until the woman brought her hands together and the silhouette compressed back down to a figure again.

  Jinriki moved between Tiana and the tableau. “Can you come out?”

  “Now?” She couldn’t tear her focus away from the mysterious scene unfolding.

  “I’m starting to wonder if you’re more trouble than you’re worth. Yes, now. Your father’s here.”

  Tiana said, “I wonder if anybody else has seen the ghost or that other thing. Oh! Daddy!” She concentrated, until she could feel the bed beneath her, smell the fireplace and the dried apples that scented her room. Jinriki was in her hand. She could hear voices in the sitting room, and an eidolon was peeking through her half-open bedroom door.

  She opened the door fully and stuck her tongue out at the eidolon, which of course returned the sentiment. A guard—Tiana made an effort to remember his name and thought it was Saul—was arguing with her father in the middle of the sitting room, while his eidolons wandered around exploring, as if they’d never been there before.

  “Daddy!” Tiana said. “Are you here alone?” Saul backed off, returning to the door, and the King frowned at his daughter.

  “Of course not,” the King said indignantly but then he tapped his nose and looked sly. “I did give that Chancellor fellow the slip, though. Have to keep him out of the way, or there’s no telling what trouble he’d get into.” He looked around, as if assessing the room.

  He had five eidolon twins out now. Two of them were standing just behind him, staring at each other, while the other three continued to explore the room, picking up cushions, looking in drawers, ambling after each other around the breakfast table. But Tiana was good at ignoring them.

  “How did you do it? Are you on the run, then?” Whether he was lucid or distracted, teasing him was always safe.

  “Oh, I told him I’d turned one of the Blight fripperies into doll’s clothes. That sent him right off.” He looked around again. “Man’s more taken with Jerya than I think a fellow of his age should be. I’m sure he’s older than me.”

  “Jerya’s rather taken with herself these days,” Tiana said glumly. “She’s gotten all bossy. Even of us. Was Mama so pushy?”

  “She’s a very determined lady. But so was your uncle Math. Jerya takes after him, I think. Somebody else I know is more like Annis.” His eyes twinkled as he smiled at Tiana. Two of the eidolons rushed past, and the King batted at them.

  Tiana looked down. She didn’t know what to think about that anymore. She wished she hadn’t said anything.

  After a moment, the King said, “So you’ve been talking to a fiend, I’ve heard.”

  “Yes. But he’s in check, truly. What happened to Cathay was a mistake.” When he looked around again, she directed his attention to the sheathed blade that she’d laid on a low table near her bedroom. “I know he doesn’t look like one.” One of the eidolon twins wandered into her bedroom.

  The King chuckled. “Fiends aren’t always terrible monsters or scoundrel spirits. I’ve spoken to a few myself. One in particular, I remember very well. A beautiful creature, like a woman, but winged and feathered. That was in my first Blight. Caervyddin’s Blight. She was an earth fiend, Caervyddin a sky fiend. Eyes like rubies.” He stared off into space and then shook his head.

  “What did she talk to you about? Why did she talk to you?” Tiana had never heard her father tell war stories before.

  “We found ourselves with an opportunity to interrogate her about Caervyddin’s forces. She was… chatty. She called herself the dream of the world and said the world offered safe harbor to the sky fiends. She chastised us for destroying them.” He chuckled. “Said it was unkind. She also said there would never be an end to earth fiends and when we killed her body, she would move on. She scolded us for treating fiends in one way and Secondborn in another. Well, she scolded the Regency commander who was with me.

  “But she said I was the only one there with any right to challenge her or Caervyddin. She said we—the Blood, I mean—we have part of our soul lodged beyond the scope of the world.” Two eidolons rushed past the King again and turned to pass right through him. It was so odd to see images of her father gamboling like children.

  But the King didn’t even seem to notice. “But she said a right to challenge is not the same as the right to win and, until that day, the earth fiends would rise to champion a sky fiend. She hummed a little tune whenever she wasn’t speaking.” The King hummed a sad little phrase that Tiana realized he often played on his violin.

  “She kept telling us it was a terrible tragedy each time we destroyed a sky fiend, that they didn’t have the possibility of reincarnation like everything else in the world and one day they would run out.” He sighed. “She made it a hard, emotional Blight. Almost as hard as Benjen’s. He had earth fiends, too. But I was wondering, has your fiend said any of that? Or was she deceiving us?”

  Tiana paused to see if Jinriki had an answer, but he said nothing. He was paying attention, surely. He was always paying attention. She wondered if she could demand an answer and loosened the seal that kept him out of her most intimate thoughts.

  **No,** he said. **You can’t.** Then he added, **I am watching the eidolons. They are curious about your pendant.**

  She dismissed his information about the eidolons; her father’s creations were as distractible as he was. Jinriki’s refusal was just the sort of thing that made her belligerent, but her father was looking at her with such a sad, hopeful expression. So instead, she invented wildly. “Oh, he’s a very tragic figure. He doesn’t want to die, that’s why he’s behaving so well. If he dies, pffft, that’s it, and he… he likes the world. Wants to see more of it.” She nodded, and then wondered if perhaps her father had wanted reassurance from the opposite direction.

  **Princess of pretty lies.**

  But her father’s sad expression b
loomed into a smile. “I’m glad. Not that we destroyed Caervyddin, no, not that, but that the earth fiend told me something true. And that she’s moved on. Perhaps your sky fiend will find her someday and she’ll remember me, eh? She called herself Liathan the Griever.” He was so happy that two of his eidolons returned to merge with him again. “And now you’re warned about that connection, eh? It’s always important to know what you’re getting into. That first Blight would have been so much easier for me if I’d known then….” He trailed off, his gaze sharpening as the energy expended on the eidolons returned to him.

  Tiana stared at him, thinking about the Blight they currently faced. “I wish we knew more about this one. It’s so close, so strange, and right behind all this other strangeness, and Jerya won’t let us go investigate directly or anything.”

  “That’s a shame,” agreed the King amiably. “She does have quite a forceful personality. Someday she’ll be the monarch my brother Math never had a chance to be.”

  “It’s not fair, though, her forbidding me!” complained Tiana. “It’s not like she’s ever experienced a Blight herself. Not directly. She’s never fought in one. She has no idea.”

  “That’s true,” the King admitted. “It’s certainly a dilemma.”

  Tiana paused, suddenly thinking over the conversation she’d just had. “You’re right. She may make a good Queen someday, but she’s not the Queen yet. You’re the monarch. She’s just my sister.”

  The King’s absent smile became a little bit fixed, as if he wasn’t entirely following her line of thought. “Yes, yes I am. And yes, she is. And will be. It’s not the burden you expect, you know. I was prepared for all the rituals and the war, but not… not other things. Dying for the land is just duty, but other things….”

  “Don’t think about them, Daddy,” commanded Tiana. “Think about the current Blight. You think we should know what we’re getting into?”

  He sighed. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “And you’re the King,” said Tiana happily. “That’s the word of a King, right there.”

  **Yes. Do we go do something relevant now?**

  “Word of a King,” Tiana repeated and kissed her father on the cheek.

  Chapter 21

  A Hill With A View

  Kiar went to Court the next morning solely to fill out the Royal Box. Jerya wanted as many bodies as possible. “We have to look strong,” she said. “They could try anything, and they might even try to stop Trace from speaking. They’ve got a lot of old rules in those books.”

  But the messenger Trace was the first petitioner into the Hall. He looked determined, but Kiar was still dubious that he’d ended up there on his own. He strode to the white line and in a strong voice said, “I call a Blight! The county of Tranninwyl has been swallowed by a vast darkness—”

  Lord Aubin said, “Yes, yes, I’m sure we all know about it by now. My granddaughter rode off two days ago to sightsee.”

  Trace stopped, taken aback, and looked at the Royal Box. Lord Aubin followed his gaze and added, “I see His Majesty is decked out in ceremonial armor today. Did it take two days to put on?”

  Jerya said, “So you do not dispute this call of Blight, Your Excellency?” Her voice only trembled a little.

  Lord Warrane said, “There’s a vast bloody hole where Tranning used to be. Nobody can dispute that.”

  Lord Aubin shot him a warning look and said to the Royal Box, “It’s the Blood’s role to stand against the supernatural enemies we call Blights, aye? Just as it’s the Justiciar’s Council’s role to regulate the day-to-day affairs of Ceria. Do you think if you get your Blight, we can see eye-to-eye on that?”

  Jerya looked thoroughly off-balance now. “I—no formalities, no strange old customs?”

  “I’ve heard it’s growing,” said Lord Aubin simply.

  Jerya said, “Ah.” She studied the Justiciars. Then, almost helplessly, she said, “I agree with your allocation of responsibilities.”

  “Very good. Is there any on this Council who disagree that the destruction of Tranning constitutes a Blight?” Nobody moved. “Excellent. The Justiciar’s Council agrees with the claim of this plaintiff: there is a Blight! The armies and moneys of the Court, and the lords of the six duchies are at your disposal.” He called to the servant standing next in line, “Fetch your master while we sign the document.” He gestured a clerk forward with a document to sign, and Kiar wondered why his little smile seemed so victorious.

  But Tiana didn’t. The whole hall heard her say, “Thank heavens that’s over!” She climbed out of the Royal Box and Kiar joined her.

  Jerya said, “Where are you two going? And you’re taking Lisette? I’m not sure that’s—”

  Tiana smiled sweetly at Jerya and said, “We’re going for a ride. Father said I needed to know what I was getting into.” The King was staring vacantly at the doors. Jerya’s gaze flicked over Kiar, and she felt a little rush of guilt that she was adding legitimacy to Tiana’s little plan. Then Tiana was fleeing the Hall, and Kiar hurried after her, feeling a more than a little guilt. Not only was she adding legitimacy to the adventure, but she was hiding behind Tiana’s brashness.

  But the guilt only lasted until she was out in the sunshine on Spooky’s back again. She patted his neck fondly. It wasn’t that Spooky had been throwing Kiar when she was sick with the plague. It was that she’d kept falling off. And when at last she’d given up and walked, Spooky had followed her all the way home, his reins dangling. He would have followed her into the Palace proper, if the guards trailing her hadn’t stopped him. The stable boys told the story every chance they had.

  But even so, Kiar remembered the feelings of betrayal. She hadn’t ridden since that day, even though she knew it was silly and childish, and when Tiana had bounced into the parlor late the night before, crowing, “Order a picnic, ladies—tomorrow, we’re going to Mousame!” she’d agreed before she could come up with any reason not to.

  Mousame. It was already a Court vacation spot, and someone in the Regency Court good with maps had discovered the little town and its great big hill offered an amazing view of the Glooming. It was said even the Stronghold of Glooming itself was visible. And it could be reached in only half a day by horses with inscribed horseshoes, which of course all their personal mounts had.

  Lisette had said, “But we’re not supposed to go near—”

  Blithely, Tiana had interrupted, “Daddy said it’s important to know what we’re getting into.”

  When Lisette had realized Kiar wanted to travel as well, she gave up arguing. All she said was, “You can’t sneak away. And the eidolons will dissolve.” Eidolons could only go so far from their maker before fading away and the will that powered them returning home.

  Tiana shrugged. “Hey, Kiar, have you seen the phantasmagory tonight? It’s different. The plague taint is gone. So is everything else. It’s totally empty. Something Jant did, maybe?” And then she bit her lip, like she knew something she wasn’t saying. Or, Kiar conceded to herself, like her damnable sword was whispering to her. Then Tiana added, “It’s weird, but I think you might like it more now.”

  Kiar was forced into the phantasmagory to see what Tiana was talking about. And she was right. It was clean. All the residue of generations past was gone, like someone had scrubbed it out. It was like a blank sheet of paper. She thought that some of the Blood would be upset by that, but she couldn’t help feeling more relaxed there. Maybe this time around they could implement a cataloguing system.

  And when she confirmed that it was clean, Tiana said, “I don’t know why. But if it’s not dangerous, Kiar and I are better protection than those eidolons.” And that was that.

  A maid had told Kiar there were gangs of monsters roving the highway, so Kiar had conscientiously brought the list of possible names from the Catalog. It was important for things to have names. But all they saw on their journey south were other travelers.

  A throng of people moved north, most of them with their lives in carts
and on their backs. Twice, they passed noble parties returning from Mousame. The first party was subdued, and only nodded greetings as they passed. The second party was far more sociable. Taime Westerhoft laughed and encouraged Tiana to enjoy herself. The view, he said, was spectacular. ‘Chilling,’ voiced one of his female companions, and giggled.

  “Oh, and don’t miss the Mystery Spot,” said Taime, as they parted ways. “East side of the town, near the edge. It’s just… nothing. Absolutely fascinating and, of course, might be meaningful to the Blood.” He saluted as he rode away.

  As they approached the town, Tiana insisted they pick up the pace, and Lisette insisted they take their time. “What’s the hurry? Are you hoping for a fight?” She looked at the sword strapped to Tiana’s saddle.

  “Oh, please. You too?” Tiana spread her arms. “I’m still me. The fiend is not dominating me. Yes, it talks. Yes, it likes fighting. It’s a sword. And I’m the Blood. Fighting supernatural threats is what I was born to do. You know that!”

  Lisette said, “I just wish I knew what was going on. You used to tell me everything.”

  Tiana said, “Well, you spend all your time around Jerya now. Maybe you should have just stayed behind. You saw how she wanted your help.”

  Before the argument could get worse, Kiar said, “We’re here.” It wasn’t quite true, but it was close enough distract them.

  The town buzzed with fevered activity. A few people were in the process of moving out. More were capitalizing on the town’s sudden surge in popularity as a tourist attraction. As they rode through the town towards the great slope on the other side, it was clear that the town had many more inhabitants than usual. The inn was overflowing with the noble and wealthy, every vacation house was full, and there were many people camped out along the edge of the road. There was a holiday atmosphere.

  “They’re selling things!” Tiana said, shocked. She slid off her mare and crouched down to inspect the merchandise on an old woman’s blanket.