by Niki Florica
Darkness pooled in the hollows of the barren landscape as Elillian stood upon the edge of the cliffs, gazing down upon Dunbrielle, the North Wood, the starlit path of the Nelduith weaving into the distance. A night wind scarcely more than a whisper upon the ground was strong upon the high crags, buffeting her pale blue gown and tossing her hair in wild strands about her face. She never wearied of the great heights, of gazing down upon her kingdom as one detached from it, a foreigner looking into a world not her own. Until dawn staunched the stars she could have stood upon the edge, inhaling the cold night wind, were it not for the silent beckoning of the glass lake.
Li Virduil—the Pool of Glass—was the birthplace of the Nelduith. From the shore at which the hidden stair came to an end, to the far starlit distance it stretched, still as ice, unruffled by the wind and untouched by the Naiads. Stars shone upon the dark, glassy surface, like diamonds embedded in a floor of ebony, their hues brighter, their songs clearer, when reflected in the unshattered waters.
It was pure, unstained beauty. Perhaps the last in Ariad.
A knife was tucked into the sash of her gown as she sat upon a stone beside the lake, chin resting upon her knuckles, the blade cold against her spine. There was silence upon the clifftop, save for the moan of the wind, and she was a lonely sentinel upon the shore, glassy-still as the pool. The dark opening of the stair was behind her back, but Elillian no longer feared the shadows of the wastes, for only she and the starlight dared touch the waters of the Virduil . . . and she was not unarmed. Slowly she allowed her guard to fall, fingers restless without a Skyad’s hand to clutch in her own as stars gleamed, the wind sang, and Elillian prayed for the Heir.
It was then that she heard the soft scattering of stones behind her back.
In a single fluid motion she stood and swept the knife from her sash as starlight gleamed on steel and adrenaline lodged in her throat. She had never seen an ogre and could scarcely imagine killing one, but she was the Naiad who had drawn shepaard’s blood and she would not die a damsel’s death. Wind whipped her hair and tore at her gown, and she pivoted, teeth gritted firmly, to swipe her knife blindly toward the shadow and await the strike of the beast.
Instead, her blade was met with laughter.
He was standing at the point of her knife when Elillian opened her eyes, hands held good-naturedly above his head, dark eyes creased into crescents that shone like Virduil’s diamonds.
Laughing at her, despite her blade held to his chest, with stars in his eyes and shadows in his hair, and a smile that rivalled the moons themselves. “It is a dangerous weapon you carry,” he said softly, eyes sparkling, “but in my experience, the blade would serve you better if you did not close your eyes.”
She stared at him, numb and disbelieving, knife trembling in her hand.
Kyrian of the Rain Realm laughed. “Elillian?”
Her name shattered the trance. Elillian collapsed to the stony shore, struggling to remember how to breathe as adrenaline drained from her veins, replaced by relieved euphoria. “Kyrian,” she gasped, swiping loose strands of hair from her eyes. “Kyrian, I feared you were dead.”
He stepped forward and extended a hand to lift her to her feet, smiling still, face bright and empty of illness. “Dead?” he scoffed. “Impossible. I have the greatest healer in Dunbrielle to care for me.”
She frowned at him, although even standing her gaze reached scarcely to his collar—a frustratingly unintimidating height. “Do not mock me, Kyrian. I have spent three days watching you slip beyond my reach, watching poison lace your blood, believing that Ariad had lost you upon my account.”
She felt his eyes upon her and avoided them as he echoed, “Your account?”
“Yes,” she answered hotly, voice rising in pitch. “Yes, mine. I did not heal you when I had the opportunity. I am a healer, and I allowed my feelings, my—my pride—”
“Elillian.”
She looked up, cheeks burning with indignation, with conviction, with the fear of the last days spilling from her heart in waves of guilt, anger, and self-loathing that she could no longer hold in her chest. “Kyrian,” she breathed, clenching her fists, “Kyrian, it was my fault.”
His features were soft and earnest. “By the Skies, Elillian of Dunbrielle, you cannot believe that.”
“I do.”
“Then you should not.” He seized her hand, and she wondered vaguely if he knew how long she had sat at his side, clinging to his cold fingers and willing him to feel it. “Elillian, I lied to you. You had every right to leave me to my own disgrace—Skies know I was deserving of worse. Ariad has not lost me. I owe it to you. Please, do not torture yourself a moment longer . . . not for me.”
She held his eyes for a moment, feeling his pulse. Strong, for the first time in days.
Deflated and abashed, she pulled her hand free, swept it beneath her nose, and drew a shaky breath. “Forgive me,” she said, forcing a warbling laugh, glancing self-consciously away, “but I have spent the last days with only the Robin for company.”
His nose wrinkled beneath sparkling eyes as he released her hand, to a slight thrill of disappointment. “Well, then, you have my consent to weep as you like. With my pity.”
She laughed, swept the tears from her eyes and, upon a sudden inspiration, reached beneath her collar to pull a leather cord and pouch over her head. “I must return this to you.”
Sobering, he accepted the leaf of Angdeline with equal parts surprise and anxiety. “Tell me you did not use it,” he said.
“No,” she replied. “The Robin found it in your uniform.”
The Robin, whose eyes had glowed like a dragon’s when he had opened the pouch and recognized the golden leaf within. The Robin, who had seized her hand until his nails had bitten her flesh, and begged her not to use it—not to waste it—upon the Heir. Elillian tasted bile and almost spat at the memory.
The Robin, who had refused to release her until she had promised to leave it untouched.
Relief pooled in the shadows of Kyrian’s eyes as his fingers closed about the pouch. “I had very nearly forgotten it. Thank you for honouring its importance. It is the last of its kind, and its power must be used for a purpose greater than mine.”
“I was tempted,” she admitted timidly. “I might have turned to using it had you not awoken. Surely there is no purpose greater, Kyrian. You of all creatures must be worthy of the last leaf of Angdeline.”
He shook his head. “No. It was given to me for the hour of greatest need, and I cannot believe such an hour has already come and passed so soon. Angdeline’s place in Ariad’s fate shall be greater than the healing of the Heir.” He smiled, brightening again. “But you know this. You would have chosen rightly in the end.”
She regarded him wryly. “How can you be certain?”
“Because I trust you.”
She buried a smile, refusing to be flattered. “You ought to eat,” she chided.
“I have,” he replied, releasing her gaze and kneeling to choose a stone from the rocky shore. “There was food in the pavilion when I awoke.”
“That was for the Robin,” she informed him, smiling.
He arched a brow and cast her a guiltless glance. “Oh.”
He hefted a grey stone in his palm and studied it in the starlight, allowing Elillian a moment to examine him unhindered. He was pale in the light of the stars, but it was the paleness of Skyads, not of illness, and his cheeks were no longer grey nor hollow as they had been in the pavilion’s light. He moved with an anxious, restless energy, his dark eyes were bright and clear, and as he stood in the wash of the moons he was a stark reflection of the warrior who had laughed in the face of a shepaard’s attack and fought like one born to battle.
He tossed the stone into the air and followed its course with his eyes as the wind tore at the worn sleeves that had once been cuffed at the elbows of another, slighter creature. “And what of this?” he asked suddenly, gaze falling darkly to the garment. “Did you tear it from his shou
lders or take it while he slept?”
Elillian answered honestly, “He gave it willingly.”
His bright gaze flickered to her. “Truly?”
“Yes. But it better suits you.”
Kyrian laughed. “Thank you, Elillian of Dunbrielle. You flatter me.” He sobered. “But I feel an imposter in it . . . knowing it belongs to him. Tell me, has he returned to his people?”
“No.” She returned to her stone and cupped her face in her hands. “He is here . . . in Dunbrielle. He has not left your side since you collapsed. I believe he thinks it a payment of his debt to you. I know he has been cruel, Kyrian, but it is not without guilt. If it were, he would have abandoned you long ago.”
Kyrian studied the shore. “I know. He is a tortured creature, Elillian, and in truth, I pity him. Perhaps it is the Adamun in me—I do not know. But as much as I have longed to despise him I feel somehow that he is bound to me . . . that he is part of my task, as if I am responsible for him.” A sigh. “And I am, in a way. I deceived him, I withheld his inheritance, I bore him the news of his grandfather’s death with a cruelty no grieving creature should be forced to suffer. I am to blame for his torment as much as the Usurper . . . but I had hoped that by returning the chain I could end it.” With a soft groan, he dragged a hand over his face, shoulders sinking. “Skies, I wish he had taken his chance to return to Robinsdwel before I could fail him again.”
Elillian toyed absently with a lock of pale hair. “He may yet. I do not know the extent of his guilt, only that it is enough to bind him to you these last days. He may consider his debt paid already. You alone know his wrongs.”
Mirthlessly, he laughed. “His wrongs? He could guide me to the skyladder and back again without paying the debt of his wrongs. He tried to kill me on the night of the shepaard, Elillian—no, sacrifice me, with his own wretched blood, too cowardly to drive the blow himself.” He kicked an angry scattering of stones into the air. “The night that I met him, he held me at the point of his knife, demanded my business, and when I told him that I sought Rydel of Robinsdwel he did not reveal his name until he had drawn blood. He attacked me like a worthless interloper in the streets of Robinsdwel, and you yourself witnessed his testimony against me in your trial. The creature is the most maddening I have ever known, and I have been raised among Skyads.”
Elillian webbed her fingers over her lips. “And yet,” she said softly, “you pity him?”
He turned to her with such a fire in his black eyes that for a moment, Elillian wondered if he had forgotten her. But as he held her gaze the anger seemed to drain from his body, leaving simply a bright-eyed Skyad in a Robin’s garb, shoulders sagging with regret. “Yes,” he replied reluctantly. “I do. Of course I do. Forgive me, Elillian. I have an ogre’s temper.”
She raised a brow. “Believe it or not, I have noticed.”
A self-deprecating snort. He raked his scalp and knelt to sit upon the stones at her side. “Melkian always said I was too swift to wrath—that my mind was worthless to me if I could not control my temper.” Darkly, he laughed. “It is another of his teachings I ignored.”
Elillian perked at the name. “Melkian?”
“My guardian. A friend of my family. He adopted my sister and I as his own after my father’s disappearance and my mother’s death.”
She flushed, unbalanced. “Oh . . . I am sorry.”
He slid her a warm glance. “It was many years ago. I scarcely knew her.”
Suddenly awkward, Elillian shifted and turned her eyes to the lake. “And he has raised you?”
“Yes, since my sister and I were quite young. My father had vanished already when my mother fell ill, and it was her wish for Melkian to care for us. He told us often that he had never been able to refuse her, and she knew it. She trusted him to care for us and . . .” He faltered, something near to pain flickering over his face. A wisp of a memory, a thread of a dream. “And he did. He always did. Always has.”
His voice had grown soft, almost wistful, and though Elillian’s heart ached for him she was starving for tales of the Skies and Rosghel, of the life once led by the alluring creature before her eyes, and she could not resist pressing for more. “Is your Melkian a warrior as well?”
Kyrian’s expression was glazed with memory, but at her question he straightened, returning again to the lakeshore in the cold starlight with an apologetic smile. “Yes,” he replied lightly. “Captain of the Silver Guard, the highest rank in Rosghel, second only to the king himself. He has held the place for many years, nearly as long as I have been alive.” He chuckled, knees jouncing as he spoke. “I remember the days he would bring us to warrior training, having no other place to leave us. Salienne and I watched him lead battle training until sunset stained Rosghel scarlet and gold, and it never occurred to us that the battlements were an unusual place for children to spend their days.” He grinned. “We were young.”
“It must have been strange.”
“It was life,” came the disaffected reply. “Melkian cared for us, defended us, taught us to defend ourselves. He awoke each morning before dawn to reach the battlements before sunrise, and returned each night after firstmoon, always weary, but never too weary for us. We would await him long into the night, my sister and I, to tell him of our small victories.” Kyrian’s knuckles crackled in the stillness, and Elillian turned to find him staring over the glassy lake with memory in his eyes and tension in his jaw. “He always heard us, Elillian. No matter the hour, the cares of the day, the worries of the next, he always heard our tales . . . humoured us and our little triumphs.” He glanced away, fists tightening. “Always.”
Elillian gazed at him pensively, trying to read the message scrawled in his taut expression.
Kyrian sighed and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I was not a simple child, Elillian. Melkian saw more tears and blood before my tenth winter than most fathers must in a lifetime. Salienne was always the obedient one of us, the . . . controlled one. He was never forced to discipline her as he was me—the fiery child Rosghel had named a menace to its children.” He released a sharp laugh. “A menace, Elillian. How many children have you known with that title?”
She swallowed, brushed moist palms upon her gown. “None. But Kyrian . . .”
“Yes?”
“I cannot imagine that.”
He arched a brow, eyes sparkling. “Oh?”
“I mean . . .” His eyes were upon her. She felt their heat and the warmth of their laughter, but could not meet them for fear that she would fall beneath their spell, even if distantly, in the deepest chambers of her heart, she knew she was already falling. “I mean only that you do not seem capable of it.”
Kyrian of the Rain Realm flexed his shoulder and winced. “You might be surprised. You would learn to fight as well, were you the son of a traitor.”
“A traitor?”
“Brondro Tarmilis. You speak the Skyad tongue, do you not? Have you never considered the name?”
She stole a swift glance at him while his eyes were upon the lake, at the Robin’s bloodstained tunic, the open collar drifting in the wind. She attempted again to imagine him, a child, with bloody knuckles and bruised eyes and tears upon his cheeks. The fiery menace of Rosghel. The son of Tarmilis.
“Traitor,” she mused, surprised that she had never seen it. “But why? He is a hero.”
He propped his elbows on his knees. “In the Green Lands, perhaps. Here, my father has protected the Sword of Kings as its keeper. But in Rosghel, he stole it. The Skyads believe this, and those who do not are forced to fight to defend the truth.” He shrugged, but Elillian sensed that the subject was more painful to him than he wished her to see. “That is why I fought.”
She pressed her lips and warmed her hands between her knees. “It is a good reason.”
From his place upon the stony ground, Kyrian of the Rain Realm looked up at her and smiled—genuinely . . . and gratefully. “You are very, very kind, Elillian of Dunbrielle.”
&n
bsp; She returned his smile, and flushed. “You think far too little of yourself, Kyrian of the Rain Realm.”
His smile faded, and he looked away. “No one has ever looked at me as you do. As if I am something honourable, something to be . . . admired. I would share with you every moment of my life, were I not terrified that you would never again look at me that way if you knew the truth.”
A stab of interest pierced her heart. “Kyrian—”
“Wait.”
His eyes were upon the horizon, fixed above the summit of the nearest black mountain, and suddenly Elillian realized the stars had been blanketed by a shadow in the heavens. He rose to a crouch, disturbing the stony shore, and before Elillian could gasp he had pulled her down beside him and clasped one hand firmly over her mouth. Terror seized her heart with the fleeting thought that she had been naive, her people had been wise to fear the Skies, this dark-haired, dark-eyed warrior had blinded her with his charms and the Black Wastes were to become her tomb.
But then he was whispering in her ear, “I am sorry, Elillian. Do not fear, but a dark cloud is approaching from the north, and unless I am mistaken it holds many Skyads. Promise to be still?”
She nodded, he freed her mouth, and his hand came to rest upon her shoulder, holding her low to the stony shore. “Skyads?” she rasped.