Cold-Forged Flame

by Marie Brennan

  Aadet is staring at them both, gaze snapping back and forth, his lips parting as understanding dawns. He whispers that phrase again, the one that must be an oath to his gods. “I should have guessed,” he says, staring at the person he has traveled so far with. “You’re like her. Not human. You’re an archon.”

  The word hits like a hammer, slamming open the doors she’s been trying so hard to keep closed. She can’t blame him for speaking it, though. The word was there anyway, hovering at the edge of her thoughts, ever since she saw the Lhian. Archon.

  Other memories come flooding in. Of course Aadet is right; of course she isn’t human, though she has the shape of one. She is an entity born out of story and dream, summoned from the realm of the apeiron by a ritual the Cruais performed, given flesh so that she may be bound to this task, the challenge that killed so many of his own people. When she dies, it is to the apeiron she will return, until another mortal calls her forth.

  “Did I even exist before that moment?”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  The desert, the sea, the knowledge of pistols and the familiar sensation of her stride settling into a comfortable rhythm. Languages and echoes of revolution. All from previous lives, earlier rounds of existence, before she died and lost it all again.

  None of that tells her why remembering is dangerous . . . but the answer must have to do with the Lhian. This island—it isn’t a normal place, part of the ordinary world in which humans live. It’s the Lhian’s domain. Which means the Lhian is free, not bound to any human’s will. Was she freed by her summoner, the way the Cruais pretended he would free his own summoned slave? Or did she break the binding on her own?

  It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is, the Lhian is free, and vastly more powerful. Everything in her domain operates by her rules, according to her own archetypal nature . . . and the few shreds of information Aadet shared on the way here are not enough to make that nature clear.

  Knowledge is strength. Memory is strength. The more she recalls, the stronger she will be—but no, they told her not to, they swore she would be safer in ignorance. Were they lying? Her gut screams that they were. But a tiny point of fire burns into her side, the ember from the fire, and she grips it as she wrenches herself back from the brink. Mentally, and physically: she stumbles a few steps, even though she was standing still on a smooth floor.

  “By my name,” the Lhian says, a delighted smile curving her perfect lips. “You didn’t know, did you?” Her laughter rings out again, bright and insincere. “How clever of the Cruais! To send an archon, so newly summoned that she is ignorant even of her own nature. And yet you made it across the island, blind, deaf, and dumb as you are. Owing to the good efforts of this one, perhaps?”

  Aadet tenses when the Lhian’s gaze falls upon him. His hands rise slightly, as if to seek the comfort of his knives.

  “No,” the Lhian says thoughtfully. “I do not think he can rightfully claim all of the credit. The Cruais did well, then, when he summoned you. They often don’t, you know. The art of summoning an archon is so imprecise.” Her smile is predatory. She is a cat with a mouse between her paws, secure enough in her power to enjoy herself. “But of course you don’t know. How thoughtless of me to say such things.”

  She wants to snatch out her blade and take the Lhian’s head off in the same movement, then grab blood from the cauldron and run. It would be pure suicide, of course: she doesn’t stand a chance in hell of defeating a more powerful archon in the heart of that archon’s own domain. But she isn’t sure whether it’s self-preservation instinct or the Cruais’s binding that stops her from trying anyway.

  The sabre. The sash. The ember. There’s no point hiding those things from Aadet any longer; they’ve made it to the cave, and if he’s going to stop trusting her, it won’t be because she picked up a few unnatural trinkets along the way. “Do I have you to thank for these?” she asks, pulling the ember from her sash, gesturing at her other acquisitions.

  The Lhian’s mouth hardens. “No—and you should be glad of it. Those, I fear, are merely the consequence of my island responding to the presence of another archon, which it has not felt in many long years.”

  That reply answers more than one question. The Lhian, she thinks, would have taken credit for those gifts if she could. Credit, and payment. The fact that she didn’t suggests that she can’t—that even here, in her place of power, she is bound by her own nature. As every archon is, she thinks, remembering what Aadet said, matching it with the knowledge she’s regained. Trying not to step any further into her own mind than she has to. We can’t be what we aren’t. The Lhian extracts a price for everything she gives, but it is not in her nature to cheat.

  Which isn’t the same thing as playing fair.

  But it makes her feel better about the weight on her hip. They mean something to her, these things she won during her journey: they’re symbols of her own nature, just like the cauldron is a symbol of the Lhian’s. Even if she doesn’t understand their significance, their presence comforts her. She isn’t quite as empty inside as she used to be.

  No doubt that will end up biting her on the ass before long.

  Aadet has been silent throughout this, ever since he named his companion for what she is. He drifted a step or two away while the two archai spoke, watching them with a wary eye; now he steps forward, shoulders back and tense with determination. Facing the Lhian, he demands, “Have I fulfilled your conditions? Or are you going to say I cheated, because an archon helped me?”

  Don’t give her that opening, you fool. But the Lhian merely smiles again. She looks genuinely amused—but not at Aadet. It doesn’t bode well. “Those who come to my island may use any tool at their disposal to win through. You stand before me; you may make your request.”

  Aadet glances back over his shoulder. It’s almost touching, that he looks to her for confirmation, even though he knows she’s been lying to him this entire time. Never mind that she didn’t know she was an archon: she knew plenty of other things she didn’t say, any one of which would probably have let him figure it out far sooner. But she also told him what he needed to hear, and apparently he’s still grateful for that.

  It is the Lhian he must speak to, not her. He faces forward again and says, “I’ve heard tales where you misinterpret the things people say, because they didn’t speak carefully enough. So I’m going to be very clear.”

  The Lhian’s face is impassive, but her eyes gleam, as if Aadet has spotted a trap. No, she doesn’t play fair.

  With a few simple strokes, he draws the outline of the situation he described before, when the two of them sat on opposite sides of that tiny fire. The history of his country, and the tyranny of the man who rules over them now. “I want to show my people that a revolution is possible,” Aadet says. “I’m not going to lie to them; I don’t want to make them see hope where it doesn’t exist. And I don’t want to force them to do anything they don’t choose freely. But I want to open their eyes, so they see the possibility that’s in front of them. They’ve let fear and despair blind them for too long.”

  He kneels, hands clasped over his raised knee, and says, “I beg you for the inspiration necessary to do this.”

  There are loopholes, if the Lhian wants to exploit them. If Aadet is wrong—if the revolution he dreams of is no more than wishful thinking, doomed to failure in the real world, and the only hope that exists is imaginary—then he might get nothing from this. He might show them what is possible, but the cost will be so high that even thinking of it will destroy all hope of change for a generation to come. And beyond that, a great deal will depend on what price the Lhian asks in return.

  But it’s still a damned sight better than what he originally came here to do. Even if the Cruais’s mission ends in failure, she accomplished that much.

  The Lhian inclines her head in a gracious nod, a queen showing charity to a beggar. “Very well. Pay, and what you ask for will be yours.”

  No negoti
ation. Her gut tenses as Aadet stands. He seems to know what to do; he strides without hesitation to the cauldron, which stands at the precise center of the cave. The light illuminates him from below as he looks into its depths.

  Then he holds out his left arm, draws a knife with his other hand, and slices his skin open.

  Blood pours into the cauldron below: not enough to kill him, but enough to hurt. And she, watching, understands at last the trap the Cruais sent her into.

  Aadet has asked the Lhian for the inspiration necessary to rally his people. The price for that, it seems, is the price she extracts from all who ask beg for inspiration: blood.

  The Cruais sent his chained archon to obtain blood.

  The price will be inspiration.

  Horror renders her mute and inert. She is an archon. Her very soul is a story, told over and over again through one lifetime after another, each rendition a variation on the same, fundamental theme: a particular kind of inspiration, given flesh. To pay the Lhian’s price is to surrender a piece of herself.

  “The more you remember . . . the more you might end up losing.”

  No doubt Therdiad was sincerely trying to help. But will ignorance really protect her? Maybe it doesn’t matter that she’s newly summoned, so lost to her own nature after the non-being of the apeiron that she didn’t even know she was an archon until Aadet told her. Does she have to know her own story before the Lhian can take it? Or can the Lhian carve out her payment regardless, claiming something she doesn’t even know is there, leaving a hole she’ll never be able to fill if she lives for a thousand years?

  She doesn’t know. And it doesn’t matter. She is bound, condemned to make this deal even at the cost of her own soul.

  If by some unlikely chance she succeeds, and returns to the Cruais with the blood he demanded . . . then she will destroy everything she can before he binds her to stop or unmakes her entirely. She never believed his promise to let her go free. It happens sometimes, that people free the archai they summoned—but not this time. Even if he means to follow through, he’ll change his mind when she claims her revenge, in blood a thousand times over.

  Aadet goes to the Lhian, kneels once more. Don’t do it! she wants to scream at him—but he has already paid his price. Now comes his reward. The Lhian sets her fingertips gently against his temples and closes her eyes. There is no more outward sign than that: no light flashes, no sound breaks the stillness of the air. Aadet doesn’t even shiver. The two of them might be a statue carved from a single stone. Then he inhales suddenly, as if the music had paralyzed him again, and a spike of pain has now broken its spell. The Lhian lowers her hands, and Aadet, wide-eyed, climbs to his feet.

  He grips his arm as he comes to stand at her side once more, pressing to stop the flow of blood. He was intelligent in how he made the cut, at least; it won’t bleed for much longer, and won’t leave his arm any worse for the wear.

  She herself will not be so lucky.

  “You never told me what you came here for,” he says, voice low. “Only that someone else sent you. But I wouldn’t have made it here without your aid, and I owe you for that. If I can help you in some way—without risking my own people—I will.”

  Wouldn’t that be a pretty irony: she takes from the cauldron the same blood he just gave, and in exchange the Lhian reclaims the inspiration she granted only seconds ago. But no, he won’t do that, and she wouldn’t ask it anyway. Not when he is exactly what he claimed to be: an ordinary human, facing an archon’s trials in order to help his people. Not when he kept faith with her, against all her expectations and what she deserves.

  What if she sold something else out of his mind, leaving him what he came here for?

  She looks past him, to the Lhian. “There’s no point in dancing around it. You know I’m here for blood.”

  “Of course,” the Lhian says. She does not smile. “Do you know why?”

  Because I don’t have a choice. But that isn’t what the Lhian is asking. She clamps her mouth shut, not willing to play her part. She doesn’t trust the Lhian not to extract blood in payment for the answer.

  Aadet tells her what she needs to know. “Prophecy,” he says, his voice quiet and rough. “One drop of blood gives the gift of speaking a single prophecy. Or so the stories say.”

  The vial hanging from the cord around her neck won’t hold much blood, but it will hold more than a single drop. She wonders why the Cruais didn’t send her with a jug. Under the circumstances, restraint seems pointless.

  If the Lhian is annoyed by Aadet’s interference, she doesn’t let it show. She merely says, “You know what the price will be.”

  Aadet is still at her side. She says, “If you want to help—”

  She never finds out what he would have said. The Lhian’s voice cracks the air of the cave, cold and enormous, driving them both to their knees. “Do not play games. You will pay the price—you and no other.”

  The reverberations of it echo down her bones, leaving her shaking. For an instant she feels the vast gulf between them, the archon who rules this place and the one who has barely survived to reach it. Cat and mouse doesn’t begin to describe it: she is a new leaf on a tree, and the Lhian is the hurricane that can strip the tree bare.

  But she refuses to cower. She climbs to her feet, unsteady; then she bends and helps Aadet up. “I had to try,” she whispers in his ear. He doesn’t answer.

  So. Nothing has changed: she still has no choice, no path forward except the one laid down for her. Get the blood, pay the price—or fail. The man who survived, the one who came back empty-handed . . . was the inspiration of a human not enough to pay the Lhian’s price? Or did he lose something precious in the journey? Did he make it this far, get the blood—and then forfeit the memory of the reason he came here in the first place?

  She doesn’t have to remember. The binding will force her to follow through on her task, no matter what shell remains when the Lhian is done taking her cut. She is a puppet, and nothing more.

  Which means she loses nothing by pushing. The Lhian might kill her—but is that really worse than the alternative? “Aadet cut his own arm. He chose how much to bleed for you. Do I get to choose how much I pay?”

  She half-expects the Lhian’s voice to ring out again, worse than before. But the other archon merely says, “No. It is not often that I give blood from my cauldron to those who ask. That is not my purpose, nor my desire. You have done what you must, and so I will trade with you—but on my terms.” Her mouth lifts slightly in contempt. “You do not even understand yourself well enough to make an acceptable offer.”

  It’s unfortunately true. Maybe if she hadn’t held back before—if she’d chased the memories, clawed back every scrap of her self that she could—but even then, no. As the Lhian says, they are trading on her terms. Remembering would only have made her aware of what she’s about to lose.

  She wants to bargain. Wants to refuse. Wants to spit in the Lhian’s face and walk out of here.

  She can’t.

  “All right,” she says, though her jaw is clenched so tight it hurts.

  The Lhian extends one gracious hand, gesturing toward the cauldron. “Then there is what you seek. You may take what you came for.”

  There is a warning in the Lhian’s voice—but what the warning is, she doesn’t know. She walks under the stalactites toward the cauldron, pausing just underneath the inner ring. The space before her glows with cool, silver light. The cauldron is tall enough that she cannot see inside, but she knows without looking that it’s full of blood: far more blood than a vessel that size should hold, because it contains every deal the Lhian has ever made, every price paid by those desperate to buy inspiration at any cost.

  Minus whatever few drops the Lhian has traded away before. She wonders what inspiration those people sacrificed, in exchange for the blood they took.

  All of that is her stalling. The hook buried in her soul pulls at her, dragging her forward. The cauldron is seven steps away. Seven steps, an
d she will have what she needs.

  She draws in a deep breath, and takes the first step.

  Something flickers at the edge of her vision.

  It is ephemeral: a mere wisp, like warm breath in cold air. But it tantalizes her, distracting her from the cauldron ahead. She wants to reach out and take hold of it.

  So that’s the trick.

  The Lhian told her to take what she came for—which is blood, and blood alone. If she takes anything else . . .

  Then she will have broken the deal. What the penalty for that would be, she doesn’t know, but it won’t stop at mere inspiration. In all likelihood, she will forfeit herself entirely to the Lhian.

  She grits her teeth and takes a second step.

  The flicker is still there. Stronger. And there’s another on the opposite side of her vision, more tempting than the first. They feel familiar, those wisps of thought—familiar like the sabre, the red sash around her waist, the ember from the fire. Like they belong to her, if only she would claim them.

  You know better than that. Nothing she can offer you is worth that mistake.

  A third step—and now she knows what it is that taunts her, luring her to give in and break the bargain she made. The Lhian deals in two things: blood, and inspiration. This is the latter, of course . . . but the Lhian is diabolically clever. Mere random ideas would hold little temptation. No, this is far worse.

  What the flickering cloud of thoughts offers is no less than everything she has lost.

  Her memories. Her self. The countless lives she’s lived—all the times humans have summoned her from the apeiron, then banished her back to it. Or freed her. Or she won her way free on her own. There will be instances of each in those flickers, she is sure, because archai are eternal; in the countless years of her countless lives, she will have experienced all those things and more. But in every lifetime, the core of her self will have been the same. And that knowledge can be hers—if she just gives in.