Torin grinned. "Depends. Will your head ever shrink back to its previous size?" He grabbed his friend's shoulder and squeezed it. "It's good to see you, old friend. When's the last time we met? It's been... Merciful Idar, a year now. Not since last summer when Madori and I visited the capital. What are you doing here in Mageria?"
Cam glanced around the tavern, but it seemed like all the other patrons were busy speaking among themselves, bragging of their children's prowess and making wagers on who'd gain admission to Teel. The diminutive king turned back toward Torin.
"Tam's here—trying out for the university."
Torin's eyes widened. "Your son? The Prince of Ard—"
"Shush!" Cam glanced around, eyes dark. "He's here in disguise too. I begged the boy to stay in Arden. We have fine schools there as well, but the lad wanted to study magic. In fact, I blame you." He gave Torin a stern look and jabbed his chest. "It's your daughter who put that nonsense into his head. Turns out last summer, when Madori and Tam were taking all those walks in the garden, they weren't having a secret romance as we feared. Oh no. It was much worse than that. Madori was telling my boy all about how she wants to be a mage someday, and well . . . Tam hasn't stopped talking about magic since." He gulped down ale and sighed. "It can't have been easy for Tam, growing up in the palace, only several moments younger than his twin. Imagine it, Torin! Robbed of a birthright by a moment in time. The twins are identical—Idar, I can barely tell them apart!—yet one is heir, the other not. I suppose I can't blame Tam for wanting to find his own way, to find his own power. But I'll miss him. This isn't his home. Honestly, I don't know if I wish him to succeed or fail and return to Arden."
Torin nodded glumly. "I feel the same way. Children. They ruin your life, don't they?"
Cam groaned. "You're getting rid of yours soon! I still have one at home." He drained his ale and ordered another drink. When the serving girl had left, he spoke in a lower voice. "Torin, there's another reason I came here. I knew you'd accompany Madori here, and I wanted to speak with you."
Torin raised an eyebrow. "How did you know it wouldn't be Koyee taking Madori here?"
The king snorted. "I saw Madori and Koyee interact enough times; the two would kill each other on the road. No. I knew it would be you here. Torin, there's trouble. Trouble back home. Trouble here. Trouble all over the sunlit half of Moth."
Torin blew out his breath. "Tell me about it. We ran into some trouble on the road here. Radians." He grimaced; the word tasted foul in his mouth. "I crossed paths with Lord Serin, my cousin. He's one of them."
Cam barked a mirthless laugh. "One of them? Torin, my boy, he's their leader. His fort rises right on the border with Arden, and his disciples are spreading through my kingdom, spewing their bile. They opened a chapter right in Kingswall—in the capital, Torin!—just a short walk from the palace." Cam placed down his mug as if the ale had turned into mud. "The words they speak . . . by Idar, they remind me of you-know-who."
Torin nodded. "I was thinking the same thing. I thought we got rid of that rubbish in the war."
Cam sighed. "Pluck one weed, another rises. If I've learned anything from sitting on the throne, it's this: Fighting ignorance is like fighting weeds—an eternal battle." He clasped Torin's arm. "My friend, I came here to warn you. Koyee is in danger. Madori is in danger, maybe even within the walls of Teel. You're in danger; the Radians see you too as an enemy. By the Abyss, we're all in danger from these fanatics."
A chill ran down Torin's spine. "Idar's Beard, how serious are these Radians? Will they turn to violence?"
"They already have." Cam winced. "Last month in Kingswall. A convoy of Elorian merchants entered the city, selling silk and silverware. The local Radian chapter hung them dead from trees and burned their wares, accusing them of stealing work from honest Timandrians. I found the Radians who did it; those bastards rot in my dungeon now. But more keep crawling across the kingdom. Torin, this is serious. And I need you to listen carefully." Cam leaned closer, staring at Torin. "Send Koyee into the night for now. Madori too, if you can talk sense into her. But you, Torin—I need you with me in the capital."
Torin laughed mirthlessly. "The capital? Cam, you know I don't belong in Kingswall."
"I know. But neither do these Radians. Many in Kingswall respect you, the hero of the war, Sir Torin Greenmoat. I need you to stand at my side, not a gardener but a great lord. I need you to preach peace and acceptance and counter Serin's rhetoric."
Torin had thought his spirits couldn't sink any lower. He stared glumly into his drink. "We've had peace for seventeen years, Cam. But now . . . this feels like the old days."
Suddenly he missed Bailey so much it stabbed his chest. If his old friend were here, she'd know what to do. She'd shout, pound the bar, and probably rush out to find and kill Serin right away. She had led their little group in the last war. If violence flared again, how would Torin fight it—older, his dearest friend gone, his own daughter in peril?
"Will you come with me, Torin?" Cam said, not breaking his stare. "I need you—not in your gardens by the dusk but in the heart of our kingdom. I can't face this alone."
Torin closed his eyes. He hadn't seen Koyee in almost a month, and he missed her so badly he hurt. How could he send her into the darkness while he stayed in the light? Again Serin's words echoed in his mind: The creatures of darkness will cower before us.
Torin opened his eyes and nodded. "Of course, Cam. Of course."
CHAPTER THREE:
SON OF SHADOW
They rode through the sunlit forest, three people of darkness upon three black panthers.
Jitomi tugged the hood lower over his head, his eyes darting. Mottles of light fell between the trees, stinging whenever they hit his skin. His cloak was heavy, his hood was wide, and the forest canopy was thick, but still the light hurt. It baked his back and stung his eyes—large Elorian eyes the size of chicken eggs, eyes made for the shadows of endless night.
Not for this place, he thought. Not the eternal daylight of Timandra.
He grimaced, stroked the panther he rode on, and looked at his companions. His sister, Nitomi, wore tight-fitting black silk—the outfit of the dojai, assassins and spies trained in the night. Over them she wore a cotton cloak and hood, a garment purchased in the daylight. Two straps crisscrossed her chest, and many tantō daggers hung upon them. More blades hung from her hips, and throwing stars were clasped to her legs. A diminutive woman—halfway into her thirties but still small as a child—she looked at him, her large blue eyes gleaming, and grinned.
"Are you excited, little brother? I bet you are. I bet you're so excited you can't even talk so much, because the excitement is squishing all your words in your throat, but I don't have that problem! I'm so excited for you too, so much I can hop!" She hopped upon her panther. "Soon you'll be a real mage with real magic! Unless you want to turn back. We can turn back if you like, go back into darkness, and you can become a dojai like me, an assassin of shadows. We don't have magic, it's true, but—"
"We keep going," Jitomi said, interrupting her. He had been living with Nitomi for all his sixteen years; the only way to converse with her, he knew, was to interrupt a lot. His sister was twice his age—she had even fought in the great War of Day and Night alongside the heroes Koyee and Torin—but still had the heart of a child. "We don't turn back."
And yet a part of him did want to turn back. A part of him feared this land of daylight. He had been only a babe when the Timandrians had invaded his homeland of Eloria. The sunlit demons had marched into the shadows with blades, with torches, and with dark magic. Jitomi had grown up seeing the scars of that magic upon the warriors of Ilar, his island homeland in the darkness.
His nine sisters—Nitomi the eldest among them—were either dojai assassins or steel-clad warriors in Ilar's army. Yet what use were blades against magic? In the war, so many Ilari soldiers—brave, strong men all in steel—had fallen to the sunlit mages. His father had hoped that Jitomi—the family's you
ngest child and only boy—would become a great warrior, an heir to their fortress. But Jitomi had disappointed his father, had spat upon the family tradition, had left their castle in the darkness and journeyed here into the light . . . to find Teel University. To find the secrets of power.
"Qato blind," said the third rider, voice plaintive.
Jitomi turned to look at the man—if a man he was. His cousin, Qato, seemed more like one of the mythical giants of ancient days. While Nitomi was small—shorter than five feet—Qato stood seven feet tall, wide and stony as a cliff face. His panther, the largest of the beasts found in Ilar's wilderness, grunted under the weight. Normally bare-chested, even in the cold of night, here in daylight Qato wore a thick robe and hood, hiding himself from the sun. A massive katana, large as a pike, hung across his back. His eyes were narrowed to slits in the daylight, even this mottled daylight of the forest.
Jitomi rode his panther closer to his cousin. He patted Qato's knee. "We're almost there. Then you and Nitomi can return home. Soon you'll be back in the darkness."
Of course, home lay a two moons' ride away, but Qato needed all the encouragement he could get.
As for me, Jitomi thought with a sigh, I won't be returning home for a while, not if I'm admitted to Teel. He looked up at the sky, wincing in a beam of light that fell between the branches. The university studies are four years long . . . four years in this strange light of endless day and heat and life everywhere.
As much as the light seemed strange, the life that filled Timandra was even stranger. Eloria was a land of rock, water, and starlight, but here—here the entire landscape was made of life. Blades of grass grew under the panthers' feet, tiny creatures that survived even when stepped upon. Trees grew from the soil, giant creatures with rustling green hair. Birds and small furry animals crawled upon the trees like parasites, scuttling, crying, squawking. Jitomi had been in Timandra for two moons now, and while he was starting to get used to the sunlight—he could tolerate it with his cloak and hood—seeing life everywhere still seemed so strange. He had learned that not all these creatures were animals; many of them were called "plants," and they had no thoughts, no feelings, no sense of pain—much like the mushrooms back in Eloria but far taller and grander. Eloria had no plants, and still Jitomi struggled to distinguish between them and the strange animals of this place. To him it was all a surreal dream, an endless menagerie—life beneath, around, and above him.
He passed his fingers along his neck, up his cheek, and over his brow. A dragon tattoo coiled there, rising from collarbone to forehead. Jitomi could not see the tattoo, but he could imagine that he felt the inked scales.
Protect me here, Tianlong, black dragon of Ilar, he thought. Lend me some of your strength.
"Qato homesick," moaned the giant dojai.
"Me too, cousin," said Jitomi with a sigh.
Little Nitomi bounced in her saddle. "Not me! Not at all. I was so bored back in Eloria. It's so boring in the darkness what with all those boring shadows and boring stars and boring . . . well, that's all there is in Eloria, isn't it? Shadows and stars. That's why it's so boring! I love the daylight. It's an adventure! I love adventures. I once went on an adventure with Koyee, have I told you? We went to a distant island of secrets, and we saw a monster—a real monster with four arms!—and there were giant weaveworms who boiled their babies, and—"
"Qato knows!" moaned the giant.
Jitomi nodded. "Yes, sister, you've told us that story ten times this turn already."
"I can't help it!" The little woman was still hopping. "It's the best story I have, and—"
"Sister, look." Jitomi pointed between the trees and down a hillside. "I think we're finally here."
They rode a little farther, and the last trees parted. Grassy hills rolled in full sunlight toward a valley and farmlands. Past flowery meadows lay a town of many houses, a columned temple, and a walled complex containing towers and domes.
"Teel University," Jitomi whispered.
The panthers bristled and growled; creatures of darkness, they still feared open daylight. Jitomi dismounted and stroked his beast.
"Qato, will you stay here with the panthers?" he asked his cousin. "They're strong and noble animals, but they still fear the daylight. Let them remain in the cover of the forest."
The giant nodded. "Qato stay."
Jitomi smiled thinly. In truth, he worried more about Qato than the panthers; he had never seen his cousin so miserable.
Nitomi bounced off her mount. "I'm not staying! I'm going right with you. I bet we'll find another adventure down there. Do you think they have weaveworms? Do they have weaveworms in the daylight? Did I tell you about the time I traveled to the island with Koyee, and we saw weaveworms, and we saw a real monster with many arms, and—"
Jitomi placed a finger against her lips. "I think we better not speak of weaveworms and monsters here. The locals might think we're strange."
She nodded knowingly and clamped her palms over her mouth. She spoke in a muffled voice. "Okay!"
Leaving Qato and the panthers, the siblings began to walk downhill, their hoods pulled over their heads, their cloaks shielding their skin from the light. Jitomi sighed. Even without his sister prattling on about giant worms, the siblings seemed strange enough in this land. Jitomi had seen many Timandrians over the past two moons of travel: they were a tall, wide people, their skin bronzed, their hair dark, their eyes small. Jitomi was an Elorian, born and bred in darkness; his skin was milky white, his hair silvery and smooth, his eyes large and gleaming, his ears wide, his body thin.
I'm as strange to Timandrians as trees, grass, and sunlight are to me, he thought. He had to crush an instinct to turn back, to race home to Eloria. He had come this far, seeking the secrets of magic; those secrets lay in the valley below. He would be strong. He would not turn back. If he ever returned to Eloria, it would be as a mage.
They walked down the sunny hillside, found a pebbly path, and took it through the meadow. Many flowers—Jitomi wished he knew their names—swayed on either side, and small animals—furry creatures with long ears—raced away from his feet. When they finally reached the town and Jitomi stepped onto its cobbled streets, he lost his breath.
Towns in Ilar, his island of the night, were places of stone and fire, their black pagodas rising into the starry sky, their braziers crackling, their banners streaming in the moonlight like birds seeking flight. They were places of silence, of dark dignity, of a solemn beauty like crystal caves or underwater ruins. But here, in Teelshire, he found a town that spun his head—a place of endless color, sunlight, and life. Flowers bloomed in gardens. People wore not the dark silk of his homeland but colorful tunics and robes of cotton, wool, and fur. Stained-glass windows glittered upon the houses, and red tiles shone in the sunlight.
"It's beautiful," Nitomi whispered at his side, for once not launching into an endless stream of words.
He nodded. They stepped deeper into the town, heading toward the walls of the university.
As they walked, Jitomi's sense of wonder soured. At first it was a little boy who saw them, gasped, and fled. Past another street corner and a shop selling honeyed cakes, it was two women who pointed, muttered, and spun away on their heels. In a courtyard with a marble statue rising from a fountain, three men spat, and one shouted, "Nightcrawlers go home!" before storming off into a tavern.
"We're not very popular here," Jitomi said to his sister. He couldn't help but admire the ingenuity of the slur—nightcrawler, the name of a worm and, supposedly, the children of night.
The little woman was bouncing about, gaping at the many shops, taverns, statues, and gardens. "So what? Let them stare. Let them mumble. Jitomi, we are the children of a great lord! I'm a dojai and you're almost a mage already. They've just never seen an Elorian before. I bet they've never seen weaveworms either. Do you think we might still find weaveworms here? Maybe in the mountains up there, or—"
"Sister, hush. Let's go quickly. I want to reach the un
iversity and get off these streets."
A few men were glaring at them from a roadside ale-house. One held a knife. Another wore a strange brooch upon his lapel—it looked like a sun eclipsing a moon. The men spoke in low murmurs, and Jitomi caught something about how "Serin will send the creatures back into the night." He walked on, moving to another street.
The siblings hurried onward, and even Nitomi fell silent for once. Jitomi was too young to remember the great War of Day and Night, but his older siblings had told him many tales of those days. The fleets of daylight had sailed against Ilar, the great southern empire of the night. Those ships had smashed against the walls of Asharo, and many Timandrians—sailors and soldiers—ended up in chains, whipped, enslaved to their Ilari masters.
Yet now we're the foreigners, he thought. Now we're nothing but creatures in a strange land. He took a deep breath. The war is over but hatred remains.
They were near the walls of Teel University, walking across a courtyard, when they saw the demonstration.
A couple dozen Timandrians stood outside the university gates, raising banners with the same eclipse sigil. An effigy of an Elorian hung from a lamp post between them, formed of straw and wood—a twisted creature, its eyes cruel, its fingers clawed, its fangs red. The Timandrians chanted together in their tongue, which Jitomi had been studying for the past few years. He understood these words and they chilled him.
"Radian rises!" the people cried. "Radian rises! Elorians go home!"
One of the demonstrators, a young woman with long golden hair, rose to stand on a box. Cheeks flushed, she shouted, "Hear me! I am Lari Serin, a Radian warrior. Teel University is tarnished with the filth of nightcrawlers. Send all Elorian students home! Keep all magic in Mageria! Send the creatures back into the darkness."
Jitomi froze in his tracks, staring. So there were other Elorian students at Teel? That both comforted and worried him. He had hoped to fade into the shadows here; if other Elorians had come to study magic, and if tensions were rising, would he find himself caught in a racial war?
Daughter of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 4) Page 3