“You want to follow them?” Elsa asked. Taa was nowhere close, but she still whispered. Her eyes followed mine.
I nodded.
“We can go around the trees,” she said. “But…” She craned her neck forward to look into the woods. Taa was saying something to Avisynth. Her staff pointed at Jahlil, and she made a catching motion with her free hand, like she was grabbing something out of the air.
“Yes, Taa would know,” I said. “It’s okay. I don’t think she’ll mind.”
“But—”
“She doesn’t want everyone to watch or listen, but I don’t think she’ll mind if we go. So long as we’re quiet about it. She might even be expecting me to come and listen. She’s like that. Just trust me.”
“We’d have to get close to hear.”
“Not that close. There’s not much noise coming from the forest. We’ll be able to hear from a good distance away. And if we can’t get close enough to listen without interfering, then I can lip read from afar. I’ll tell you what they’re saying.” I placed a hand on her shoulder, then brought it up to her hair to tuck it inside of her shirt. “He’s going to be all right, Elsa. Don’t worry. Taa will know what to do. She always knows.”
“I want to come,” Yephi said, stepping forward as soon as we began to leave.
“It’s best if only us two go,” I said, addressing everyone. “I can tell all of you what Taa says later, if anything. But if she gets mad because we all tried to go, or if it distracts her, she’ll send us off and no one will know.”
Mawlik and Nikhil both gave earnest nods. Iris frowned, peering suspiciously at Yephi.
“I’m sure you knew that,” Iris said, narrowing her eyes. She folded her arms, taking a small step toward Yephi. Her single earing glittered in the moonlight as brightly as her blue hairs. She twined her hand around her braid, tugging it below her folded arms. They couldn’t get as dense as Cecily’s, so she had Mother use more than three handfuls of oil on her hair to make her braid look thicker and brighter.
“Yes, but now Dina will feel guilty for saying no and leaving us after we were in danger,” Yephi replied. “She’ll be kinder to me later. Maybe give me something I want.” Her eyes danced with pride and joy. She grinned with only her front teeth, watching me with the kind of spirited enthusiasm you’d find in bookies that had just cast their die. Then she lowered her head, and gave me a look so endearing, it was sinister.
I shook my head, half-smiling, half-aghast. My sisters were like me. They weren’t just clever; they knew they were clever, and they wanted to show it. It made for the most dangerous kind of cleverness.
“We’ll be right there,” I whispered to Nikhil. I pointed to the forest beside us, a good twenty feet away from Taa.
We strode quietly into the trees. Taa would know we were there anyway, but Avisynth wouldn’t. We walked through patches of grass and beds of flowers, careful to step on as few buds as possible. It was the trees of the Dwah Forest that always caught your eyes, but it was the flowers that were more varied, wilder, and more deserving of your attention. There were lima flowers that puffed up into mists of yellow smoke when you stepped on them. To pick them properly to make tea, you had to grab them by the bottom of their petals, and then pull as gently as you’d pick up a snowflake. There were rohi flowers, whose petals detached in summer storms and stuck to the branches of the trees above, and then fell back onto their flowers in autumn. A single petal took almost a decade to grow, and without their renewable cycles, the flowers would be extinct.
“Have you found him yet?” Taa asked. Her voice was kind and patient. She was sitting on the floor next to Jahlil. She held her staff with both hands and laid it slanted across her knees. The knot of old wood and arcane stones at the top of her staff hung just above Jahlil’s head.
Avisynth shook his head. He was holding his left hand out. There was a spot of blood on it—new blood, that hadn’t dried yet. He was using daemon alchemy again, and kneeling over Jahlil. His right hand absentmindedly grazed the boy’s face. There were subtle differences in the area around them. You wouldn’t notice them unless you looked hard and carefully, and even then, you were likely to attribute the differences to a trick of the light, or to something in your eyes.
But if you carefully watched the moonlight, you would have noticed it was a shade different around where they sat. The light wasn’t any less bright as it came down, but it illuminated less than it should have. It touched something like the bark of a tree, but you’d see nothing of the tree. It touched something like Taa’s shawl, but you’d see nothing of the shawl. Instead, the light would curve around an object, bending like a liquid to fill its shape with the blue hue of the moon. If you carefully watched the air around where they sat, you would have noticed the dust had turned to ash, and it floated with the heaviness of soot and cinder.
Taa looked around the forest, regarding some of the trees with long and thoughtful glances. From where they were sitting, I imagined the world looked entirely different. Dim and foggy, like it had been when the dark began rippling.
It could have been my imagination, but I thought I heard a fluttering in the distance, somewhere far and deep into the woods. Elsa squeezed my hand. She was praying. Her eyes were closed
“Search thoroughly,” Taa said. “Feel for his blood. Take your time and do it slow. He can’t have gone far.”
“He looked at them for a long while,” Avisynth said. “I told him not to. I told all of them. I haven’t brought anyone back who’s gone as far as him.”
“You can do it, boy,” Taa insisted. “Just focus. Sense the spirit. He’s in there. Behind the fluttering and the rippling.”
“You’ve seen blood magic before?” Avisynth asked.
Taa’s head turned less than an inch toward us. It was barely a turn, barely even a tilt of the head—but I knew it meant she’d spotted us.
“I’ve seen much more than blood magic in my time,” Taa replied. “Still, this is a rarer talent than most. You’ve got more control than what I’ve seen in others, and you’ve made a far deeper rip than what I was expecting. It’s not a small thing, for someone your age.”
Avisynth opened his mouth to respond, but then he took in a sharp breath. His lips slightly parted. He looked off into the distance with a concentrated and decisive expression.
“You’ve found him,” Taa said. “Bring him back. Reel him in slow. Show him who you are and don’t scare him. Bring him to the light.” She leaned in an inch. Her staff nudged Avisynth lightly by his waist. Then, she spoke with a much more deliberate tone. “And don’t bring back anything else with you.”
Nothing happened for several minutes, then Taa raised her head and looked toward the valley. She touched her shawl, pulling it back an inch.
“They’re here,” she said. “My son is here with what sounds like half of Chaya.”
I didn’t hear it until a full two minutes later. Hooves in the distance. Dogs barking and people shouting.
Jahlil groaned. Not in the choking, faltering way he was speaking before, but in a clear and tired way, like he had just woken. He stirred on the ground, then fell silent again. Taa grabbed his head and looked at his eyes.
“He’ll be fine,” she said, tilting Jahlil’s head to the left and right. “That was well done,” she added, turning to Avisynth.
Next to me, Elsa let out the breath she had been holding for more than a minute. Her grip on my hand softened.
Avisynth stood. He clasped his hands behind his back and kept his eyes on Jahlil.
“I told your mother I would watch after you,” Taa said. “You’ll have to come back to the palace with me when all this is done.”
“Those girls will be okay?”
Taa nodded. “My grandchildren. Dina’s sisters.”
“The girl?” Avisynth asked. “With the blue hair?”
“They all have blue hair. But yes, the one you’re talking about, her name is Dina.” She stood slowly, using her staff to pull herself up.
Avisynth took a few steps back, then leaned against the tree behind him.
“You don’t speak much, do you?” Taa asked. “I know you don’t want to speak much right now, but you don’t speak much ever, eh?” She waited for a response, then continued. “That’s not a bad thing at all,” she said, shaking her head considerately.
Taa took a deep breath, then kneeled in front of Avisynth.
“There is something you should learn now, ayetha,” Taa said. It was strange hearing her use that word. She didn’t even call all of her own grandchildren ayetha. Granted, she had fourteen now, but I still wasn’t used to her calling other children by that name. She usually referred to them as child or brat, depending on her mood.
Taa continued, “What you did there was brave. Incredibly so, ayetha. You did not have to climb down from the top of the hills to save the other children. I would have saved Dina of course, but if it hadn’t been for you, the other ones would have died.” She placed her hands on his shoulders. “But there is something you should know. What you did there, when you used blood magic, that was wrong. That is not the proper way to use blood magic.”
Avisynth peered up, watching Taa with eyes the color of sand.
“You told the larger creature that you didn’t want to hurt anyone. That is not the proper way to use blood magic. I promised your mother I would teach you Andhakar.” Taa used all her breath to say the word. It came out deep and powerful, like a bellow, but put into a single word. “Do you know what that is?”
Avisynth nodded.
“An old style of fighting. Not even your mother knows it. I might be one of the only two people left in all of Mirradalia who knows it now. It is the way the first feratu fought. Andhakar is the Voz’ruhdal word for the color of night. Night is not just darkness, you see. People say the dark is one color, and then the moons are another color.” She held a finger up, then shook it firmly. “But night is not two separate colors. It is one.” Taa grabbed Avisynth’s hands. “And there is a saying that comes with Andhakar. Shidan anu bhoiy. Shide anu maurth.” She raised Avisynth’s left hand. “The weak hand teaches fear.” She raised Avisynth’s right arm. “And the dominant hand teaches death.” She let his hands go. “It is the only proper way to fight with blood magic. There is no mercy, and no running involved, you understand?”
Avisynth lightly gripped his trousers.
“You must learn to fight like that if you want to use blood magic properly. If you want to be able to use your talents to their fullest.” She placed her hands on her stomach, tightening them into fists. “You could have saved them, ayetha, if you were willing to use blood magic.” She leaned closer to Avisynth, and then hit him in the stomach. He doubled over with a hand on his knees, but took the hit well.
Taa continued, “When you are fighting for your life, for the lives of those you love, for something you truly desire in life—you must be an animal.” She dropped her staff on the floor, and then took her right hand and wrapped it around the feratu boy’s jaws. “Do not run from the bloodlust. Go toward it. That is how you will find the place of madness.” She pointed a finger upward, and then dipped her head low so he could see the green of her eyes. “You will find much more than fluttering and rippling there. In the place of madness, you will find the true horrors that lay in the nether, and you will be able to call on them. That kind of blood magic, we have not seen for thousands of years.”
Avisynth brought his hands up and clutched his shirt right under the collar. His head bobbed a bit—not like he was nodding, but uncontrollably. For a moment, I thought he was going to faint. But instead, he dropped to his knees and began to cry.
I looked at Elsa. She looked down and watched the floor uncomfortably.
It was a rare, and frightening, and inordinate thing to hear a child cry from true grief. I’d never cried like that. Most children never do. They cry from a sudden lack of attention, from resentment and envy, from anger and frustration. Crying is always unpleasant and irritable to behold; its very nature is transient, and the sense of rage or antagonism that it comes with feels fleeting. Any lapse of attention will make it go away.
But listening to a child cry from true grief is different. It is wholly unnatural, and dreadful, and entirely engrossing. It is the sound a thousand-year-old instrument makes. Its strings and its keys and its pipes all still work, but they are plucked or rusted or cracked. Every note is nostalgic and haunting, but utterly broken. It is the sound the ocean makes when the moon is gone. There is nothing to pull its tides, and if you listened for an entire day and an entire night, you would only begin to notice the disquiet in the stillness of its currents and the agony in the calm of its shores. It is the sound the rain makes when there is no storm or thunder or wind to accompany it. When it falls plainly on a tundra with no person or animal or tree there to listen to its sorrow, its despair, its desolation.
“I know,” Taa said. She pulled him close, embracing him in her shawl. “I’m sorry, child. I’m sorry.”
He cried, and cried, and cried. I could not count how many minutes had passed. It could have been three. It could have been ten. It could have been twenty. Tears and sobs poured from an expression so purely made of sadness and agony I had to pull my eyes away then force them to look back every few seconds.
Taa stroked his hair and held him by the shoulder. “Ayetha, there is a tapiscord in the palace. Perhaps you’d like to play it? I heard you were fond of the instrument. You are good with music, your mother said.” Her voice was as tender and gentle as the lip of a hearth. “I wish there was more I could do, ayetha. Truly, I do. It is a cruel and terrible thing, what they did. A cruel and terrible thing. Yours is a great and ancient house, as much as the Anasahara. We have betrayed you by letting this happen to your family.”
Torches appeared in the distance beyond the hilltops. Nikhil and Mawlik shouted to the few people who were beginning to walk by the top of the valley.
Elsa tugged on my sleeve. “Come, Dina. Let’s go back home. I have had enough of these woods.” She leaned in and hugged my arm. Above us, the moon was a blue disc, and around us, the forest was eerily peaceful.
“Dina?” a voice called from afar.
“Princess Anasahara?” Another voice. Both were male.
Three soldiers climbed down the valley toward us. One had Yuweh’s triton stitched to the shoulders of his coat. Silver threads. An apprentice alchemist. His coat was blotched with dirt and rain. He gave a cursory glance in our direction.
“Princess Anasahara? Is that you?” the alchemist called out. He carried a sunlamp with a thick green metal case. His hand darted to the hilt of his sword when he noticed us. The coolness of the forest and the glint of the moon pressed against his sunlamp, dampening the alchemical light to a mellow gold.
When the three men reached the trees near us, I was about to wave them over but another figure appeared behind them. Colorless under the moon, it dwarfed the men in size. A wrenching sensation took hold of my stomach and I bit my lip so hard I tasted a wisp of blood. I was going to shout something, but the words died between a breath.
A white claw shot out from the dark, and slashed one of the soldier’s throats so cleanly the motion made no noise. Blood splattered against nearby leaves.
The alchemist reeled back, then reached a hand out to stop whatever creature had jumped toward them, but he was too slow. The white claw swiped out from the dark again and covered his mouth. Another claw went into his back and through his belly, then the claw covering his mouth ripped open the third man’s throat before he could say a word, leaving his eyes still blinking. The only sound came from the sunlamp dropping onto the soil with a soppy thud, and even that was drowned by the rain.
I put a hand over Elsa’s mouth before she could scream. I could see why, without getting a clear look, you might’ve thought this creature was a werewolf with no hair. It had an animal shape, and a werewolf’s size, with half-crazed and daring eyes.
The creature bent over and sn
iffed the air.
Red vapors began streaming into its nose from nearby. The light of the sunlamp sunk behind different shades of blood. For a moment, the air glowed like the inside of a furnace.
“Dina?” Taa called.
I turned around, trying to stop myself from shaking. Taa was walking over with her staff in hand, muttering silently to herself. She stroked the air in front of her head absently.
By the time I looked back at the creature, it was gone, and the leaves around it were wet only with rainwater. No hint of it remained besides the dry corpses.
CHAPTER 13
“You’ll be fortunate, Dina, if Elsa’s parents ever allow her into the palace again,” Mother said. “Running that close to the hairless werewolf. You are lucky your Taa was there to hide the bodies of those soldiers. We would have had a mess in our hands now otherwise. If I were Nikhil’s mother, I would forbid him from ever joining your Queen’s Guard. Would dare his father to try and stop me. With your leadership, they’ll die off during the written exams.”
Upon getting back to the palace, Mother had spent the first ten minutes embracing Yephi and Iris and asking if they were okay. Then, she’d yelled at me for an hour and a half. Now, I never questioned Mother’s parenting abilities. She had proven herself more than capable. In the past thirteen years, I’d almost died only six times. I’d had plenty of food and water, and I’d never wanted for anything but magic and the chance to travel a bit with Taa.
But, at times like these I had to question her priorities. I tried to pretend I was in a fragile state of mind so she would yell less. I tried to get Yephi to pretend she was feeling sick so Mother would let us all go to bed early. I even tried to pretend I hadn’t noticed the blue moon when I decided to go into the forest. None of it helped. When Mother began one of her rants about how Dina was an unexceptional role model for her sisters, how Dina was always endangering the future of all of Chaya with her antics, how Dina had an obsession with danger—almighty Yuweh himself would not be able to get her to stop. Her yelling had persisted for so long that even the jitters I had gotten after seeing the hairless werewolf had faded away.
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