Stain

by A. G. Howard

  Within the hour, he and his entourage would begin the journey to the day realm. Since there was only night here, his people took to their beds after that hazy glimpse of dawn in the sky, much like the Eldorians’ cessation courses began at the blink of twilight. However, the prince had commanded everyone in his entourage to retire early, so they would be rested enough to leave once the sky flashed pink.

  Too unsettled to take his own advice, Vesper stopped at the castle’s infirmary. Wet coughs and labored breaths preempted the smells of sickness, panacea tea, and incense as he stepped into what was once the great obsidian ballroom. Cots lined the black walls and littered the open floor. Small pathways opened between them, allowing a mazelike passage. This place housed only the castle’s affected occupants. Other temporary infirmaries had been assembled inside cottages throughout the province, for both nobles and commoners. Illness harbored no prejudice; it affected the young and old and rich and poor alike. Mortality and its frailties were the most humbling equalizers.

  Humbling even for royalty, for here in this room, Vesper wasn’t the king-in-waiting, or even the dark prince. Here he was the carrier of hope. A hope that was waning. Only one thing would save his sick people: pure daylight. Not only eating plants grown with it, but to stand beneath sunrays and absorb them, even if in small doses through windows or open doorways. With his sunlit blood, he could give them some of what they needed, but not enough.

  Hardly even a head raised as he passed through the walkways, as most of the occupants were so ill, they struggled for breath and coughed without waking.

  A small hand reached out from under a blanket and gripped Vesper’s thumb, stalling him. Though the moonlit complexion was stark against the prince’s deep coloring, like a layer of ice upon a hemlock, the child’s touch was as hot as fire.

  Vesper’s heart pricked as he knelt beside the cot. “Good diurnal, Nyx.” He affectionately mussed the silvery bush of hair upon the seven-year-old’s head, noting the smear of gold peeking out from the boy’s nightshirt upon his chest. “How do you fare today?”

  “I’d be better, were Elsa to shut her teeth about the princess.”

  On the cot across from Nyx came his younger sister’s voice, hoarse from coughing yet lilting with innocence. “I haven’t been opening my teeth ’bout it. You’re more chatty than me!”

  “Liar! I only care about the witch.” Nyx’s eyes, dull and purple, blinked up in the dimness. “You’re to lop off her head as a gift for your bride, aren’t you, Majesty?”

  Vesper bit back a grin, seeing his younger self in the lad’s bloodthirst and boldness. “Not the head, no. I don’t have the proper wrapping for horns. And a princess’s gift must be immaculately presented. Don’t you think it so, Elsa?”

  A giggle erupted from the tiny girl’s bluish lips. “Yes, Majesty! Especially for a princess of moonlight and music!”

  “So, you’re not to kill the witch at all?” Disappointment peppered Nyx’s response. “Isn’t that why you’re going into the haunted forest. Isn’t it?”

  Their mother, the head cook, who had been busy preparing menus for the upcoming feasts, had apparently heard the rumors of Vesper traversing the Ashen Ravine and passed it on to her children. She was a firm believer that gossip provided better sustenance than food itself.

  “I intend to capture the witch, yes,” Vesper answered. “It will be for the princess to decide her fate. But I’m also going that way to check on the royal gatekeepers. Now, shouldn’t you two be resting, so you can be well enough to attend the wedding?”

  “I don’t wish to rest! I want to help. I’m aged enough to be a page, you know!” Nyx turned his head into his pillow to muffle a hacking cough.

  Wincing, Vesper patted the boy’s rattling chest. “Of course you are, and when you’re better, we’ll see what we can do about that. First, you have to be hale and hearty enough to train. Even a knight needs to sleep.”

  “Tell us the tale of the brumal stags and the little prince, please . . .” Elsa’s tiny lips scrunched into a pout impossible to resist. “We’ll fall asleep then, Majesty. Promise.”

  “Fair enough,” Vesper conceded. “But you must both lay down upon your pillows and close your eyes. It’s far better to envision their beauty on a blank slate.”

  Elsa grinned. Both children shut their stubby white lashes, and took rattling breaths as Vesper sat upon the cold floor between their cots. He propped his elbows on his knees.

  “The prince was but a child when he first saw them.” He began the tale he’d told the castle’s children many times before . . . the tale that hinged upon his personal memory. “He took the journey to the Rigamort with his kingly father for the ritual of binding that every young prince before him had experienced. He was nervous about the interaction, for most Nerezethites never see the creatures. Only those who use the Rigamort, who keep secrets locked tight within themselves.”

  “Was he scairt to smoke the pipe?” mumbled Nyx, halfway to sleeping already.

  “Perhaps a little. But more, he was afraid the stags wouldn’t recognize his royal station . . . wouldn’t accept him, as this prince was different than all those before him.”

  “He couldn’t see in the dark,” Elsa interrupted. “And his hair was black as soot and his skin shimmered like a copper bell.” Her own skin blushed, showcasing the blue veins beneath, and she squeezed her eyes tight to keep them closed.

  Nyx’s own sleepy eyes snapped open. “Elsa, stop hornin’ in! And plus, swooning is for milksops.”

  She harrumphed at that.

  Vesper smiled, waiting for Nyx’s eyelids to flutter down. “The prince and his father descended deep within the cavern, past the frozen blue waterfalls and beyond the sparkling stalactites—and there in the depths were the gatekeepers. At first glance they looked frail: white, sleek, and deer-sized with moonlit-fringed fetlocks and long tufted tails resembling a lion’s. But the silver-glowing scales that curved from their spines to their chests were as impenetrable as iron shields. And their claws rivaled any panther’s, just as their razor-pronged antlers could shred a man to pieces—”

  “With one duck of the head,” Elsa added, beating her brother to his favorite detail.

  Nyx’s answering grumble evolved to a yawn.

  Vesper paused reverently for the end of the telling. “Without any fear, the king took the prince’s hand and stepped forward. He knelt beside his strange son, showing the stags his acceptance so they would accept him, too. And they did, nuzzling his little head with muzzles as soft as eiderdown. The king lit up the ceremonial pipe, and both he and the prince inhaled the incense—filled with enchantments, smoke, and starlight—and breathed a shared breath into each of the stag’s nostrils.”

  Elsa yawned, as if triggered by her brother. “It bound them to you. In their minds.” She rolled to her side and drew her blankets over her ears, her breaths growing even and slow.

  “Yes. Exactly that.” Vesper was glad the children slumbered, for he would never share the rest. It made him feel powerless, that from the moment he drank the sunlight, he’d lost his mental ties with the stags, just as he’d lost it with his people. Ever since, he had visited the gatekeepers in person, but an abundance of night tides had prevented the journey over the last several months. When the royal sorceress, Madame Dyadia, reached out to them with her spiritual portents, she reported the creatures had grown less responsive. The sorceress assumed it a natural evolution—since sun-smuggling and assassinating had become a thing of the past and those under royal employ no longer sought usage of the tunnel, the enchanted beings had little to report. But Vesper was concerned enough to take the backward route into Eldoria, so he might confirm the brumal stags’ welfare with his own eyes.

  Pulling the covers up to Nyx’s chin, the prince reached across to squeeze Elsa’s blanketed ankle and stood.

  A physician spotted him and motioned him to a small table filled with medicinal herbs and waxy cones that could be melted down to ease breathing.

/>   “Do you need a supply?” Vesper asked, eyeing the two remaining vials of golden liquid they’d drained from an incision a week earlier. “I’ll be gone for several days.”

  The physician shook his pale head. “We want you strong and able-bodied for the journey, Majesty. We’ll make do until your return.”

  Only recently they had discovered that Vesper’s sunlit blood had healing qualities. It could be painted directly onto the ribs and chest of the sick. Though it initially caused a burning sensation, it helped clear the lungs.

  When he’d first devoured the arboretum’s daylit concoction, he had been unbearable for any of his people to touch. However, within a week they discovered that once the sunlight’s poison entered his veins, it became less potent—to anyone but him. By pressing droplets of the drained golden mixture to vellum, others could handle it in small increments and lose sensitivity to his fiery skin. It was a matter of desensitizing with exposure. This anomaly had prompted Vesper to send letters written in his golden blood to Princess Lyra. He hoped to acclimate her to the sunlight so she wouldn’t suffer when he touched her, so she wouldn’t have to fear him when the time came for them to be together as husband and wife. By now, Lady Lyra should have absorbed enough that they would be able to share a dance in Eldoria’s ballroom before leaving for Nerezeth, hand in hand.

  Vesper left the infirmary and strode along corridors of obsidian stone, the ceilings and corners strung with glowing white spiders that lit the darkness like stars. The squeaks of fuzzy mice, so black they blended with the stones, followed behind as he arrived at the winding stairs leading down to the dungeon’s cells.

  Only a few were occupied with prisoners, none more dangerous than thieves or drunken vagabonds. Following the glass-encased torches along the walls—each lit strictly for him and fueled by tinder-bat dung—he entered an empty chamber at the end where he could no longer hear guards talking or prisoners snoring.

  He dragged out the princess’s latest note from his pocket, then laid down upon a bed of nails to read it. Every cell in the dungeon had beds like this one. Each had hinged lids, also lined with iron spikes. An indention was made for the face, the pointed tips filed down to protect the eyes. Thus, the lid could be pulled into place atop a supine body—to torment the flesh on both sides.

  Lying there, with the points pressed against his nape, spine, shoulders, torso and limbs, he considered closing the lid. In Eldoria, the nailbed would be a torture device. Yet, in his kingdom it provided training for young men and women alike who wished to serve in the royal infantry, not for self-flagellation, but to toughen their skin. Wearing metal armor outside the castle walls proved more detrimental than helpful, due to sleet storms that immediately froze to ice. Within minutes, the weight of a suit of chain mail could double or triple and harden beyond all movement, rendering its wearer as good as paralyzed. Instead, they crafted their armor out of rainbow-scaled fish skins insulated with leather, naturally water-resistant, lightweight and flexible—attributes that unfortunately also made them permeable by the creatures of their terrain. Thus, their skin had to serve as a third layer of protection.

  After years of training, Vesper understood the pressure points and how to position one’s body to reap the least damage. The iron stabs kept him grounded . . . reminded him of his youth when his kingly father accompanied him to the wilds, where he learned to battle both cadaver brambles and rime scorpions. Day after day, Vesper endured searing stings and punctures—for longer stretches each time—until at last he could withstand the pain and had built up an immunity to both kinds of venom, much like his blood desensitizing people to the sunlight’s burn.

  The prince now had scars enough that it no longer hurt to be pricked by thorns or nails. In fact, he had more scars than most, after uncountable incisions to drain the resurgence of toxic sun in his veins—each sewn shut with magical thread that left him healed, but flawed. Surprisingly, he could hardly feel the fiery infestation internally; there was minimal pain other than his dismal dance with the blade.

  His hand clenched the knife sheathed at his waist. Even his face had suffered a cleansing gash, leaving a scar along his left cheek that could be partially masked beneath a beard. But pain and vanity were the least of his worries. Of late, the golden tinge in his blood grew thicker, more difficult to leech away. One day, it would stop flowing, and his heart would cease beating.

  Other than the welfare of his people, this was his greatest concern. And that was why the princess was his only hope. His kingdom’s only hope.

  “You should be sleeping.” The statement was followed by a wave of pearly crickets swishing across the floor.

  Vesper tilted his head. His queenly mother’s silhouette stood in the doorway, draped in shadows cast by the torch. Her pets settled into the corners to chirp merrily. The queen held a small bundle in her arms. In the dimness, her eyes glinted amber—a contrast to the icy silver of her crown and hair.

  “As our cricket subjects are zealously proclaiming, Lady Mother, this is a time for celebrating, not sleeping.” He rolled to his side and winced as a nail pierced his skin, just beneath his lowest rib. So, there were still a few tender places left on him. He rather liked the proof of humanity, knowing he wasn’t yet a man of metal and stone.

  His grimace gentled as he refolded Lyra’s unread letter and pressed his boots on the floor to stand. “What do you have there? Is it the midnight shadows and spiders? I thought Cyprian was to gather those.” Vesper and his troop were taking an abundance of both, to intimidate the bees and shrink the thistles so they could break through Eldoria’s honeysuckle-imprisoned stronghold and claim his bride.

  “Your first knight has no part in this. These are personal gifts for the princess from myself and her late father . . .” Her explanation fell short as her eyes narrowed. She laid the bundle atop a small stone table. “You’re bleeding.”

  Her familiar scent of snow and crisp cranberry wine drifted around him as she raked a fingertip across a swirl of glittery gold mixed with bright red seeping into his white tunic along his rib cage. She gasped when she grazed his abdomen—as ungiving as a plate of armor—where the ripples of his muscles had been captured in a metallic sheet of gold that was slowly petrifying toward his chest.

  It wasn’t the first of such a patch. He had a golden left forearm, and a golden right shin. He couldn’t bend his wrist, but considered himself fortunate it hadn’t affected his sword arm . . . and though he walked with a slight limp, he could still sit a horse better than any man or woman in his kingdom. This newest golden infestation, causing no obvious mobility issues, had been easier to hide.

  He tried to delay the horror creeping across his lady mother’s face. “We should take any open wounds as a good omen, yes? The day I stop bleeding—”

  “Dare not say it.” Queen Nova’s voice trembled. “This one . . . it’s so close to your heart.” Her silver hair hung free, the long strands serving as a curtain to the orange, flickering light. Within that slant of purple shade, her expression resembled a bruise.

  Vesper lifted her chin. “I wonder, what are you to do with your time, once you no longer have to fuss over me? When my blood runs pure red, and I’m strong and whole once more? Have you a hobby in mind? Perhaps calligraphy. As crowned king, I’ll have leverage to arrange a spot for you on the chancery.” He winked and wiped the gold-tinged blood from her hand onto the back of Lyra’s letter. It left a smear of pinkish, flaxen glitter against the cream-colored parchment.

  Queen Nova managed a reluctant smile. “I’d rather be a chronicler. Recording history would be more stimulating than scripting charters and writs upon sheepskin hour after hour. Though I hope never again to see another vial of golden ink.” She pressed the princess’s letter to his chest and patted his cheek. “You need a shave, if you and your first knight are still masquerading as Ravagers on this journey.” Having said that, she withdrew to the table where she began to open the bundle.

  Vesper tucked the note into his pocket an
d absently rubbed a knuckle over the dark whiskers hiding his scarred cheek. Cyprian would have an easier time preparing. The only places hair grew on other Nerezethites were their heads, eyebrows, and lashes, leaving Vesper as the singular man in his kingdom who could grow a beard.

  It was Cyprian who had proposed they wear disguises for their trek through the ravine. The two of them, swathed in fitted black eel-skin uniforms and skintight hoods that covered their hair, would present an imposing sight. An assassin’s party would inspire fear in the hearts of the depraved populace there, instead of tempting thievery or hostility. The others in the group, including Vesper’s sister, Selena, would be dressed as foot soldiers.

  Vesper crossed to the queen while assuring his stiff leg didn’t crush any crickets. “How did you know where to find me?

  “I asked Cyprian of your whereabouts. He told me you were to meet here with Madame Dyadia.” She glanced about the room for the sorceress.

  The prince took over where his mother had left off, working free the purple wool knotted around the gifts. “Our sorceress sent Thana on an errand. I’m awaiting the bird’s report before we leave.”

  “A report about the witch?” His queenly mother’s lip curled on the final word.

  Vesper pushed aside some hair that had slipped from the rest of the shoulder-length strands bound with a tie at his nape. He looked down to meet her gaze—a soft heather in the torchlight.

  “Yes. I still plan to find her.” He resisted the urge to use the imperialistic tone reserved for political and militaristic councils, loathe to pull rank with her.

  For three years, he’d been serving as king. Although he would not officially wear the crown or title—or even sit the throne—until his coronation, what he said was law, and everyone respected that. Even those who still thought him unusual, who looked upon him as foredoomed. Yet this dear lady who’d birthed him couldn’t see past the toddler she once held in her lap when he’d scuffed a knee or couldn’t sleep.