“Ding ding ding! They called me the Stargazer. It was my job to map out where we were in the universe.”
“I have so many questions,” Maddox said, “about everything.”
“Better make it fast. I don’t think this vision will persist much longer.” She looked down at the arena below. A fanfare of trumpets and horns erupted as the crowd let loose an ecstatic howl. The score changed: nineteen to twenty-two.
“What am I? What is an Architect?” Maddox asked.
“It’s whatever you want it to be,” she said. “Architects make the rules. In this whole wonky paradigm the Guides created for us, the Architects have the most direct line through dreaming. They help decide what is and isn’t possible. Not just for people or nations but reality itself.”
“The laws of fucking magic?”
“Those laws preserve some sense of normalcy in this crazy, broken universe—the guarantee that one moment follows another. The persistence of things you observe still being there when you look away. The certainty that all matter and substance won’t blow away in a puff of smoke. It can get seriously crazy.”
“The story of my life,” Maddox moaned. “Every time I find out I can do something cool, it turns out to suck or be fucking useless.”
“Not many people can say they save the world every day in their sleep,” she offered.
“It’s not really that great a place.” He sighed. “I’m kind of over it to be honest.”
“Sorry you feel that way.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Not really a convenient thing to realize a few months into immortality.”
“Can a seal be unbound?”
“Yes,” she said. “Some of my people know how. The Harbinger, the Storyteller, and the Keeper—they all have the ability to erase what was written. But it won’t matter.”
“Why?” Maddox asked.
The Stargazer looked up at the sky. “The stars are going dim. The little ones have been winking out of existence the whole time we’ve been talking. A few at first, but the rate is increasing exponentially. Whoever’s in your mind is following you here, erasing them.”
“The telepath at the tower. I need to fight him. What can I do?” Maddox asked.
“You’re powerful but not experienced. Maybe this is for the best. You won’t miss your gift when it’s gone. You’ll just exist. The quelling is quite peaceful actually. You’ll have your mind, but you’ll have no motivation to use it. You won’t be bored or angry or restless.”
“No!” Maddox shouted at the heavens. He saw the stars winking out of existence. “Please tell me how to fight this!”
“You just said you’re over it!” the Stargazer exclaimed. “Make up your fucking mind! You didn’t have to let Tertius shove you off the tower. You didn’t have to surrender to the Inquisition. Do you even know why you want to live, what you want, or who you want to be? The only way to stop a quelling is to know the answers to those questions.”
“I…” He stared up into the vacant black sky. “…don’t know.”
“Think harder.”
He looked at her with sad green eyes. “I don’t want to be me anymore.”
“The first lesson of being an Architect”—she laughed a little—“is to be very careful what you wish for in dreams.”
And darkness swallowed him.
Maddox blinked awake. He was restrained in a chair. Daphne and an older, fatter version of Luther were seated across from him. Luther’s clothes were rags, he noted.
“It’s done, Abbess,” Luther said, his voice sounding grave and exhausted.
Daphne rose from her seat and brushed her hand through Maddox’s chestnut hair. He didn’t move, although it felt nice. He stared ahead as she removed a small dagger and thrust it through the top of his hand. His body reacted with a shudder at the new sensation, but that was the extent of it. The pain was just a different flavor of experience, a mechanism to force his body to preserve itself.
There was nothing more inherent in pain to the flesh than seeing a displeasing color through the eye. In fact it was only memory that connected the word to the feeling of a knife digging into the flesh of his hand. Pain and hurt were something deeper than mere physical sensation.
“How are you feeling?” Daphne asked him.
Maddox understood her words. His mind offered a memory of something he’d likely tell her. How the fuck do you think I feel, you crazy bitch? But it wasn’t his thought, and there was no reason to offer a response.
“He is quelled,” Luther said. “He understands who he was, but he doesn’t have the emotion to drive him toward any action. He may speak again, but it’s unlikely.”
“Good.” Daphne smiled. “You’ve done very well, Luther.”
He looked up at her hopefully. “Does this mean you’ll let me see my family?”
She slashed his throat with her blade, spattering thick gouts of blood over her pristine white robes. The man who had torn Maddox’s mind apart grasped feebly at his throat as he bled out through his neck and fell to the floor. Maddox stared at his bulging brown eyes as he choked and gasped for life.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
Those weren’t his thoughts. He felt no sorrow or satisfaction, even though he understood the situation clearly. Daphne obviously had some immunity to Luther’s power. She never would have been in the same room with him otherwise. And if the knowledge in Maddox’s mind were that dangerous, she would have been a fool to let Luther live.
Daphne wiped her blade on her robe and tossed it to the floor next to Luther’s body. “I know you can’t appreciate this, but I went to great expense to help you. Now you won’t hurt anyone, and you won’t ever have to hurt again.”
Her face was a mask of sympathy. A furrowed brow, sad intent gaze, downturn at the corners of her lips. Maddox knew what it meant but no longer saw it as anything other than a contraction of facial muscles in a performance of some social ritual. Lines to be read—a woman who seemed so in control, acting out a play with herself as the audience and not even aware why she was doing it.
“Just one more thing remains,” Daphne said. “Your body will heal itself of any damage, but I need to be certain that your mind will remain as is.”
And then she slit his throat.
THIRTY-ONE
The Black Potion
JESSA
THE SPIRIT FOLK of Maenmarth are a reclusive, mysterious people, and it’s widely debated that they may comprise several distinct races. Witches are, as far as we can determine, the ruling faction among the Spirit folk, but their biomantic relation to the more common changelings has thus far been elusive. The second-most-recent witch to claim governance of the forests was Illyara the Witch Queen, who was deposed by Briala the Silver shortly after Josur’s rebellion in Amhaven.
While we have studied no specimens of witch blood, I recently procured a sample from one of the Witch Queen’s putative descendants, a Stormlord princess named Jessa. Her humor is quite remarkable in many respects; though the Stormlord essence is overwhelmingly dominant, there are unusual aspects not shared by her mother, who is pure-blooded. (Another interesting anomaly.)
Her humor shares a similarity with the humors of changelings, having the occasional characteristics of animals. The humans of the Maenmarth call people with such stock but no outward manifestations “quicklings”; they’re abundantly common in Amhaven and the border nations. (The term apparently is used among Spirit folk to describe children born with “quicker” human life-spans.)
Rarely the trait will become active in a particular individual, even after multiple generations. While we have recorded no demonstrations of the witches’ power (e.g., glamour, precognition) in such cases, they do possess the ability to assume the forms of certain animals, typically mammals.
Jessa’s blood provides the first well-documented link between the mysterious witches and changelings, as her pedigree is well documented, and her ancestors, aside from Illyara, were all born outside Amhaven, where quicklings’ blood is
uncommon. This case provides enlightening insight into the workings of another form of possibly hereditary theurgy.
—MAGUS QUIRRUS’S FIRST DRAFT OF “OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHYLOGENY OF THE ELEMENTAL SUBSPECIES”
“WHAT?” JESSA SWIRLED the brandy in her glass as she met the gaze of her advisors. She felt good and drunk from the brandy and slightly buzzed from the dragonfire. Her council sat around the long table in the Silverbrooks’ formal dining room, which had been converted to a war room. The entire room was twice the size of the Amhaven embassy.
“Perhaps Cameron should be present for this,” Lord Fincher offered. He was a timid slug of diplomat from Amhaven.
Warmaster Sarnia or Genata—Jessa couldn’t tell the Fodders apart at this point—offered, “If Nasara is bringing her army into Amhaven, then what’s the purpose of surrendering to Rothburn?”
“This is a betrayal of your supporters,” Duke Clayborne insisted.
Jessa felt a stab of sadness for the old man. The Claybornes had suffered the worst assaults from Rothburn’s forces. The frail white-bearded man, who’d been her father’s mentor, was practically a refugee himself.
“Even under the inept leadership of Rothburn, our people will be better off,” Jessa slurred, “but as the fates would have it…it makes no difference. Rothburn works for Nasara, and this whole stupid, fucking war has nothing to do with Amhaven. So whatever it takes to stop people from killing each other should be our top priority.”
Lord Fincher interjected, “Your Grace, perhaps we could pick this up tomorrow when you’re more…”
“Lucid,” one of the Patrean warmasters said.
Jessa took a swig from her glass. “Look…Rothburn, Nasara—it doesn’t matter. The Dominance will annex Amhaven, and I will be appointed queen. In the interim no one else needs to die to dispute a claim that nobody fucking wants.”
The council grew silent.
“I realize you’re under pressure, Your Grace,” Duke Clayborne said, “but it’s imperative that Josur’s heirs sit on the throne in Weatherly castle. I swore an oath to your grandfather—”
Jessa rubbed her temples, “Who is dead. Along with your son and your grandson…whom I could have wed, had he not died.”
“That is…uncalled for, Your Grace.”
“Uncalled for?” Jessa hurled her glass against the wall. “This entire campaign is uncalled for! This war is bullshit. I’ve done everything you’ve advised me to do, and it’s only caused more suffering while lining the pockets of the Patrean warmasters.”
Sarnia protested, “We’ve held Weatherly with minimal resources.”
Jessa scowled. “I could hold Weatherly myself. I could walk into Rothburn’s camps and rain lightning and thunder upon them until your Fodder brethren are nothing more than ash. Arrows and steel are nothing before the power of the elements.”
Genata countered, “Patreans have defeated Stormlord magic on multiple occasions.”
Lord Fincher offered, “Perhaps we could pick this discussion up tomorrow.”
Jessa walked over to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a fresh glass of brandy. “No. I’ve signed the declaration of surrender. If you wish to carry out this war behind my back, I no longer have the will to stop you. But my decision is made. Now please leave me.”
She didn’t turn as she heard the scoot of chairs and the hasty shuffle of boots toward the doors.
When the dining hall was silent, Jessa drew a small vial of black liquid from a fold in her dress. Grinning, she poured it into her glass of brandy and swirled it. The taste was foul, but she knew that once her unborn child was dead, she would have nothing more left to lose.
JESSA WRITHED IN agony. Her body was slick with sweat although she shivered intensely. It was one of the few times she could remember wanting to be dry. The black potion had worked its way through her veins, wracking her with nausea. A sheet half covered her lower body. She had abandoned trying to make herself comfortable, and in her tossing, the bedding had wound itself between her legs.
She wondered whether the potion was supposed to feel this awful or whether her mother spitefully had schemed to poison her. Delirious with fever, she chuckled at the idea. The memories that flashed through her mind were happy ones. Satryn had been an erratic parental figure at best, but there had been times when her father was still alive when she and her mother had been close. It hadn’t always been awful. That didn’t start until she grew older and became something her mother couldn’t control.
In the winters Satryn would disguise Jessa in a heavy cloak that hid her silver eyes and take her into the village on adventures. They’d go to the cider house and buy a copper’s worth of hot apple cider and sit at their usual table in the back, where sawdust covered the floor and the air was heavy with smoke. They’d giggle and listen to the local gossip and maybe meet with a snitch or two.
They’d spend the hot summer days swimming at their remote lakeside chalet in Maenmarth, even though her mother complained about the taste of freshwater. They chased each other under the cool water and devoured raw trout with their teeth. Would I have done the same things with my own child? Jessa wondered.
Satryn’s callow disregard for Weatherly’s traditions and her disdain for her exile became a wedge between them. Over time the outings were replaced with distant glances, the laughter with disapproving sighs.
She couldn’t kill her mother, no matter how terrible things were between them. She could get her out of Rivern, before her plan could come to fruition. She could sign the document of concession, yielding the throne of Amhaven to Rothburn or Nasara; it didn’t matter as long as there was peace. But she wasn’t the one to bring it.
And lastly she could spare her unborn child the torture of her legacy. Let the Shyford line and all its misery die with her. If the black potion killed her as well, then she didn’t begrudge the ending. If the poison didn’t kill her, the imperial family’s retribution surely would seal her fate. She did all she could. Save Rivern, stop the war in Amhaven, end the family line before another child found himself a pawn in the twisted struggles between the empires.
Jessa leaned over the bed and wretched into one of the bedpans. The parquet floor was spattered with puke, but nothing could be done about it until the cleaning automaton made its rounds, which was usually on the hour. The machines were designed to maintain a full household. With just Jessa their routines bordered on obsessive.
She shuddered miserably and dragged the sheet over her body. Vomiting had made her feel better, and sleep started to feel possible. Jessa shut her eyes and prayed to Ohan and Kultea for a measure of oblivion to see her through the nausea.
She barely had drifted off before the sound of voices jerked her from a sweet second of slumber. Loud crashing came from the floor below. Jessa bolted up in bed and reached for her night-robe. She was wracked with illness and unsteady on her feet as she made her way to the hall.
Steadying herself against the doorframe, she flung the door open and stumbled into the hall. She froze. Standing there were a pair of black wolves with yellow eyes. Behind them were two men and a woman who looked to be in even worse shape than she was. Their eyes were empty sockets, their flesh pale. They carried sacks over their shoulders.
She brushed her hair back. “I’m afraid you’ve caught me at a bad time.”
The wolves snarled as they stalked closer, their eyes hungry.
“I don’t know if you’re really here or whether this is another product of delirium, but in either event, I know you can understand me…changelings.”
The wolves stopped, confused for a moment. Wolves were rare in Amhaven and practically unheard of in the Free Cities. But they clearly weren’t ordinary wolves, though how Jessa recognized them she couldn’t entirely place. She just knew.
“State your business.” She curled her fingers to summon her lightning. Anemic crackles of electricity danced over her hand. The poison in her body had weakened her abilities to almost nothing, but she was relying on repu
tation.
“They don’t talk much,” a young feminine voice came from behind, causing her to spin and nearly fall over.
A girl a few years younger than her, with wild multicolored hair, stood in the hall behind her, a long stiletto in her hand, which she was using to peel an apple. “Hi. I’m Esme. I’ll be your burglar this evening, but I want you to think of me as your friend.”
“My friend?” Jessa scoffed.
She sighed and took another step toward Jessa. “I live with a bunch of dudes, which is fine, but…they all just want to talk about magic and pussy and make fart jokes. I miss having girlfriends, you know? You seem like one of those really nice, proper girls who has, like, a million best friends. Am I right?”
“I am a Stormlord, not a ladies’ maid.” The rush of adrenaline gathered in her like a thunderhead. “Get out. I won’t warn you again.”
Faster than she could react, Esme flicked her dagger into Jessa’s stomach. The pain exploded through her gut like fire as she collapsed to the floor. She let out a blast of lightning at her assailant, but the shot went wild, and the girl had stepped away from her spot. Jessa couldn’t see where she was.
She’d never been stabbed before; it put a lot of her other pain in perspective. Out of instinct her hands clutched the wound, but she was too hurt and shocked to move or touch the knife. All she could think about was her child, the one she’d chosen to abandon. She sobbed as she curled into herself.
“I have to admit”—Esme was crouching next to her, bent over so she could whisper in Jessa’s ear—“I was kind of expecting a fight. I was going to kill you regardless, but it’s not personal. You should have left with the rest of the Silverbrooks.”
Jessa was in too much pain to reply. Revenants shambled up the stairs; she lost count, but there were at least ten filing into the various rooms. The hallways were raucous as things were broken, moved, and riffled through.
“Have two of the ghouls toss her room,” Esme said to the wolves. “I’m going to make my new friend comfortable.”
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