Stain

by A. G. Howard

  “Time is not a luxury for you, my son.” She stalled his attempt to reveal the items inside the woolen wrapping—her hands glaring bright against his own. The crickets’ chirping escalated to a bothersome pitch. “Taking the ravine’s passage . . . it could add weeks to your trip.”

  “Quite the opposite. By taking the Rigamort into the Ashen Ravine, we’ll save at least three days. The ravine’s magical effect on distances will result in a two-day journey from there to Eldoria, as opposed to five were we to go north and take the iron stairway.” Though the stairs were shallow and wide enough for horses to maneuver with ease, they had to be dismounted and led. It was a long climb, and the journey around Mt. Astra to reach Eldoria’s palace was equally long.

  “What if you’re caught in a night tide in the badlands?”

  “Madame Dyadia’s spiritual wards have predicted clear, starry skies,” Vesper interrupted. “The horses have been shod with steel spikes, so managing the ice and tundra will prove no issue. We should arrive at the Rigamort within eight hours after we leave the castle.”

  “And the dangers?”

  He huffed. “I’ve battled snow leopards, cadaver brambles, and bone spiders since I was seven. Thirteen years is enough to consider myself well-seasoned.”

  She shook her head. “You know I speak of the ravine. There are things in that haunted forest you’ve no experience facing. Quagmires that move, flesh-eating shrouds . . . the murderers, degenerates and thieves.”

  “Thieves.” He quirked a brow. “Precisely the reason it’s the perfect route. And I’m taking two of our best sun-smugglers, who know the ravine’s secrets within and without. Now, may I please have a look?” He gave her a tender smile, then nudged her hands aside to reveal the royal gifts. His thumb tracked the elegant lines of a glossy, pearlized hairbrush. His breath caught in appreciation of the craftsmanship.

  “The bristles are constructed of the princess’s very own braid,” his queenly mother explained. “Madame Dyadia’s artisans used the sample that King Kiran brought those five years ago, and strengthened the strands with enchantments and fire and wax.”

  “Beautiful,” Vesper murmured as he ran his palm across the brittle, silvery fibers. He remembered that braid, how soft it was to the touch. Many a time, he’d imagined how it would feel to caress his bride’s true hair on their wedding night, to follow the long, sleek strands down her naked body where they flared at her waist and framed her spectral flesh.

  “And this.” The queen held up a crescent-moon hairpin with three starry, purple jewels in the middle. “We fashioned it in honor of our sigil. These gems are forged of the princess’s own tears, spellbound to stay crystalized until she releases them herself.”

  Vesper took the metal pin and turned it in his hand. So delicate and perfect. Just as he imagined her to be.

  He grew somber, thinking upon the princess’s latest note. He almost dreaded reading it. Her exchanges about the happenings in her kingdom had always been filled with an underlying sadness. Regret, even. Though her words came across as rehearsed and guarded, she didn’t feel worthy of the crown; that was obvious even without her saying it. He’d battled the same insecurities. According to the prophecy, these differences would make them strong when united. Just as Eldoria would embrace him for his likenesses to them, here in his homeland, Lady Lyra would be revered for those things her people once marked as odd and disquieting.

  He was eager to experience that alongside her—for neither of them to ever feel inadequate again.

  “What do you think?” His mother broke through his musings.

  He laid the pin next to the hairbrush atop the wool. “They’re resplendent. I’ll give them to her when I give her the panacea ring.” Vesper had never forgotten how King Kiran had kept one alive, and how Eldoria’s princess had sacrificed it for his people. After that rose had birthed a bountiful harvest, he took a deep lavender blossom and requested Madame Dyadia use her craft to shrink and preserve it, thus retaining its unique scent. The bloom now sat secured atop a band woven of tarnished copper—a wedding ring to resemble the barren beauty of his world in contrast to the lushness of her own.

  “So, now that you have these gifts,” the queen pressed, “will you abandon the witch hunt?”

  “These gifts won’t give Lady Lyra what she’s been missing all these years. The harrower witch must be captured for sending her family into captivity in the dungeon, for killing her father and cousin. There is penance to be made, and a spell of madness to be lifted off the castle.”

  “Penance. Feels more like vengeance.” Queen Nova folded up the items once more, her silvery eyebrows furrowed.

  “Noble vengeance.” Vesper mirrored her expression, a more imposing gesture with his thick, dark brows.

  “I’ve seen the snares you’re taking. Incendiary and body-gripping devices do not imply nobility.”

  “This harrower witch is immortal. Madame Dyadia assured me she can’t be wounded or killed.” Vesper frowned. “You must know I would never consider using fireballs or pit snares on a typical old woman. But it takes harsher means to entrap someone who’s invincible.”

  “It is this invincibility that concerns me. You . . . are the furthest thing from it.”

  “She’s one, against me and nine of my most trusted confidantes. She must be contained. How else will my betrothed and her regent aunt feel safe enough to leave their kingdom in her council’s care and ride with us back to Nerezeth for our joint coronation and marriage, unless their persecutor be captured and dealt with? I am honor bound to give the princess back her power. She’s been too long without it.”

  “You are honor bound to be her helpmate. Take the iron gate’s safe passage to Eldoria. You may be a few days later, but you’re guaranteed to arrive in one piece. Send your troop to capture the witch—after you’re cured, after you’re wed.”

  Vesper’s chin clenched. He could sense his mother’s frustration at not being able to connect to him mentally. He shared it.

  Queen Nova shook her head. “I saw the cloak you’re taking for the princess. Your sister is attending the journey to serve as chaperone, yet you’ve given her no such exaggerated wardrobe.”

  Vesper had commissioned a hooded lacewing cloak sewn of silk and nightsky, lined with fish scales, and embellished with molted nightingale feathers, fur, and spider’s lace to wrap his princess within on their journey back. Though the moon would be a comfort to her, she hadn’t had a lifetime of puncture wounds in preparation for the harsh terrain. He knew from letters how fearful she was of thorns and nettles and bees. He only hoped her trepidation wouldn’t hinder her acceptance of the royal pets in his castle.

  “Selena is accustomed to this land,” Vesper countered. “But Lady Lyra . . . you’ve heard the stories. She can’t even wave an arm out a window without her flesh searing in the light. I can only imagine what brambles will do.”

  “The prophecy says that as your shadow-bride, she will be capable of embracing this world and you as you are. I believe those words. Perhaps she simply needs a chance to show her resilience. No better place than Nerezeth to test her mettle. ‘Ours is a land for the daring, and only the brutal of heart can survive.’ Those were your words. You wished to wrap her in brambles yourself before you lost—” She bit her explanation short.

  “Before I lost what, Lady Mother?” He growled when she averted her gaze. “For five years you have tiptoed around the subject of that night, of how I’ve felt incomplete since the moment I awoke in my chamber after swallowing the sunlight. You and Dyadia were standing over my bed, here in this castle, yet I felt as if I’d been floating elsewhere for hours. Then there was the sense that some piece of me was missing. Something monumental. It was true, for I could no longer connect to you, my sister, or any of our people mentally . . . no longer have silent conversations between us. You assured me that what I was missing was the princess—that she can put me back to rights. There must be more. I tumble every night into sweat-drenched dreams, with the t
aste of steam on my tongue and the scent of kindling in my nose; I awaken out of sorts, out of breath, as if I’ve been running and running, somewhere both dark and light. Yet when my eyes open, here I am, tangled within my bedsheets. What don’t I remember? What are you keeping from me?”

  The queen rubbed her temple until her knuckles bulged pale under the moonlit flesh that bound them. “Nothing. Once your princess quells the sun’s blaze within you, your nightmares will end.” Her long gown swished as she turned back to the table. “Lady Lyra is as capable as you. Have faith in it. She is your equal already—today. She needs you standing on the steps of her castle, not the witch.”

  “It would be ill thought, to leave the witch at large.” Madame Dyadia’s voice rippled like a purr in the stony cell, silencing the crickets. “The wedding itself is in harm’s way, as long as she’s free.”

  Vesper scanned their surroundings. The sorceress had slipped in without notice. Squinting, he at last saw her form, leaned against the wall beside the spiked bed, her flesh blending into the gray stone. Madame Dyadia had the ability to move without walking, to float like a night mist, and being descended from primordial chimeras—chameleon-catlike creatures—could match her surroundings at will. Her signature ivory robes trimmed in ebony lace were also ensorcelled to reflect her environs.

  “What do you mean?” Queen Nova faced the sorceress after knotting the woolen binds around the princess’s gifts.

  “Thana has Cronatia in her sights, as you commanded, Majesty.” The sorceress bowed to Vesper, acknowledging his rule. Synchronized with the movement, her flesh resumed its natural coloring: a mix of black and white stripes that along with her feline features and two-toned upswept hair had always reminded Vesper of a white tiger. “I spied through the bird’s eye, a box lined with drasilisk flesh within the witch’s keep. Written upon the lid were the words: ‘princess - revolution.’”

  Vesper cursed, pounding the table with his left hand. His golden forearm scraped the edge and loosened a chunk of stone, sending it to the floor. He glared at it, jaw twitching. “She’s raising a rebellion against my bride. As if she hasn’t already done enough.”

  “It would seem the witch has havoc yet to wreak. So very like Cronatia, to interfere no matter the consequences.” Madame Dyadia’s brow furrowed. In the midst of her striped forehead sat a pink, empty socket that usually housed a third eye unless she plucked and conjured it alongside a handful of white feathers into a scrying crow. The sorceress could even place her mind within the gruesome creature and use it as her mouthpiece.

  “I understand it’s a difficult and painful process, but couldn’t you converse with the witch yourself, through the bird?” The queen offered up the suggestion in synch with Vesper’s thoughts. “It would give us a better idea of how to broach her.”

  “I haven’t will enough to attempt a dialogue, knowing she wouldn’t answer truthfully. She’s a consummate liar.” Dyadia frowned and the raw, meaty divot on her forehead puckered and swelled, as if breathing. “Cronatia’s explanations are owed to Eldoria’s royalty, not me; those are the wrongs she must answer for now. Thus, she must be taken to the palace.”

  Vesper crushed the broken rock beneath his boot’s heel with a gritty pop and wondered again at Dyadia’s strained familiarity with the witch. He’d questioned her about it more than once, but the sorceress skirted answers, insisting things that happened centuries ago belonged in the past, for they couldn’t change the future. He disagreed. Learning from yesterday’s mistakes is what made for a better tomorrow.

  “I spied also a note,” Dyadia continued. “Wrinkled within the witch’s grasp. Too difficult to cipher. The contents might prove telling. Thana’s sightings suggest Eldoria’s princess is yet in danger. The bird’s precognitions have never proven false.”

  Queen Nova shifted her feet and the sorceress turned to her, pressing her thin black lips to a line as their gazes locked.

  Sensing a silent conversation taking place, Vesper stepped between them, breaking the connection. “You will address me directly and not speak behind my mind while in my presence. Both of you.”

  His lady mother bowed her head humbly and Dyadia knelt before him, gaze turned to the floor. “Majesty, I was telling our queen that you must take the ravine despite her reservations. If for no other reason than the brumal stags.”

  “Why? What have you learned?” Vesper asked.

  The sorceress looked up then, torchlight gilding her complexion and slitted pupils to disturbing proportions—a wildcat set afire. “During Thana’s flight in the Rigamort, I spied through the bird’s eye: antlers piled upon the ground in bloody silver-blue stacks. Some within the herd appearing sick and weak. We must determine what has happened, on the chance it could infect our world with ills no princess can cure.”

  12

  Of Monsters and Men

  Nerezeth, set deep beneath the earth, had a claustrophobic terrain. The magical, moonlit sky arched upward from massive, icy dunes, leaving an extensive valley that ran as long and wide as the Ashen Ravine—located thousands of leagues above. Having only two tunnels leading up to the day realm, it gave one the sense of being trapped within a snow globe. Though, unlike a child’s toy, there was nothing safe or frivolous in this harsh land.

  The obsidian castle’s back wall rested flush against an embankment of earth and ice. The north, south, and east sides of the palace, along with Nerezeth’s colonized territory, were surrounded by the Grim—a thorny woodland that formed an imposing fortress around the obsidian castle, stony cottages, and Neverdark’s iron arboretum.

  Before venturing through, Prince Vesper and his troop trussed the horses in barding made of the same toughened fish skin as the royal armor to protect their tender horseflesh from static and barbed obtrusions.

  Once past the Grim, they removed the barding to journey southwest through the glacial badlands and reach the Rigamort. Tonight the scent of snow prickled the air; the skies extended clear and star-filled above the barbed, leafless trees lining the path, and the wind held a bitter bite that kept even the snow leopards in their lairs. When at last the rime-rimmed branches thinned to reveal a wide span of untouched snow dunes where the cavern’s entrance rose like a spire of dark ice, a concerted sigh of relief washed over the troop.

  Prince Vesper cinched his fur-hooded cape around the white skull and black sockets painted across his face. He narrowed his lashes against gusts of air so brutally cold they burned the eye. Including himself, his cavalcade consisted of ten: Lieutenant Cyprian Nocturn; Princess Selena; two sun-smugglers, Alger and Dolyn; a husband-and-wife tracker team, Leo and Luna; and three of his best foot soldiers—Tybalt, Uric, and Thea—who also manned the three jackdaw cages they’d brought on the chance sending missives became necessary.

  Vesper would have preferred to head the procession, and in the day realm he would; but since he didn’t have the night vision, he had given his first knight that privilege here.

  Selena rode behind Cyprian with Nysa, her rye-colored tracker spaniel, snuggled belly-down between her mount’s withers and the saddle horn. Third in line, Vesper kept a close watch on the shadows cast by fir thickets and deciduous thistly trees. Glistening powder stirred by spiked hooves hindered visibility, but he utilized snatches of moonlight through the branches, searching for unusual movements beneath the drifts.

  His world’s terrain, spawned of the same broken magic that supplied the day realm’s Ashen Ravine with flesh-eating shrouds, had given Nerezeth its own inherent monsters made of the bones of any humanoid who died out in the open alone. Skeletons would shed their flesh and blood and limbs—like a snake changing skins—and take root in frozen soil, rocky topography, or ice. They sprouted forth as white carnivorous predators that resembled human spines, varying from viper-sized to the length of giant moray eels.

  Cadaver brambles hid deep within the drifts, attuned to vibrations like a spider relying on the tingling signal of a web. If there was more than one in the same vicinity, they h
unted in packs. They were patient, lying in the darkness, ready for any man, woman, or beast to cross their territory so they could feed upon the marrow that once gave them life. Having no scent for the horses to detect, a bramble could propel upward and topple them, claiming both mount and rider with little warning.

  Vesper’s glove stroked his stallion’s neck—a shimmer of sleek periwinkle beneath the moon’s creamy haze. He leaned forward to whisper: “It’s all right, Lanthe. We’ve nothing to fear of the cadavers this night. Pass the word up to Dusklight, would you?” Vesper gestured toward his sister’s silvery-purple mare. Lanthe nickered and jerked his head, playing coy. “Come on now, everyone knows you’re sweet on her.” Lanthe’s ear pivoted backward to capture his master’s fogged breath.

  In preparation for this journey, Vesper had updated the census and found that none of their populace had died or gone missing in the tundra. As an extra precaution, he’d commanded their route be cleansed by utilizing special tools with five long, curved blades like scythes attached to broom-length handles. Digging deep through the snow, the movements lured the hungry creatures to attack so they could be sawed down and the roots destroyed. None had been found.

  Still, Vesper allowed his shoulders to relax only after Cyprian led the procession into the clearing that sat like a white valley between snowy banks, where the moonlight was bright and plentiful. Cyprian stalled his horse and signaled to the prince in sign language: Safe to dismount?

  Vesper nodded. Since the horses were laden with gear and baggage, the rest of the journey would be taken afoot, leading them to the entrance and through the steep cavern until they reached the tunnel. Vesper pointed two fingers to his eyes then turned his hand outward to encompass the surroundings: Keep a lookout.

  Five years earlier, when Vesper lost the ability to connect mentally, he’d determined to find another way to communicate in silence, so he might still traverse the snowy drifts and powdery banks without causing avalanches. In one of his and Lady Lyra’s exchanges, she mentioned her prime minister was teaching her sign language shared between their kingdoms centuries earlier. Vesper appointed his royal litterateur to find records, so he might master it himself. Although the princess admitted since then that she hadn’t much patience for the learning, Vesper continued to study the scrolls of the ancient language and assured everyone in Nerezeth’s high court and military forces knew it as well.