Naliah knew what he’d seen in the crystal had been real. He could still smell the brine of the wind-whipped sea and taste the copper of blood on his tongue, as though he’d been in the Realm of Black Waters only seconds ago.
I have to go there, he thought. I don’t care if the Council isn’t around to sign off on it. I don’t care if they want us to stay out of harm’s way. People are dying. People are dead. They need our help.
From his crouch, he checked over his shoulder. Behind him were hills of sharp, glowing quartz, but nothing more than that. He tuned his ears into his surroundings, searching for breathing or beating hearts, but there was nothing to find there, either. He was still alone, it seemed, left to his own devices by the castle guards that had dragged Artysaedra away as soon as she and Naliah had stepped foot down here.
Knowing he was safe for now, Naliah pulled out the scroll Councilwoman Illianthe had forced on him earlier and unrolled it. It was still the same: indecipherable to him. The paper was filled with a dozen tiny, cramped lines he didn’t know how to read, squiggles written in perfectly looped ink.
Councilwoman Illianthe had told him not to read it in the company of anyone else, but what was Naliah supposed to do? He couldn’t read at all. He’d planned to ask Artysaedra for help, but now that she knew the Council had been hiding the Guardians’ murders from her, he didn’t know if that was the best idea. She would be more likely to rush off and do something stupid, which was already a frequent problem, and that was the last thing this situation needed.
He was crawling out of his skin in his desperation. There was only one word of any importance on the scroll that Naliah had been able to pick out himself, even after years of lessons with Janie. It was from the last line, and it had had his stomach in knots ever since he’d read it: avoid.
Avoid who? Avoid what? Since he’d recognized the word, he’d been glancing over his shoulders nonstop. Every shadow he’d seen walking down the dusty streets of Anderton and down the snow-banked roads of Lutana had been a potential threat. All he could see behind his eyes was the terror on Councilwoman Illianthe’s face right before she’d disappeared in the Council’s palace.
What was she afraid of?
Or, maybe, who was she afraid of?
Naliah looked at the crystal again. It went grey for a full minute before it flicked back to life with light, but as quickly as the light had come, it disappeared again like a kindling’s first ember extinguished by a stray night breeze.
Which was the more urgent matter? The scroll or the crystal?
“You look deep in thought,” came a soft, alto voice.
Naliah jumped out of his skin. He pivoted up and out his crouch, raising his fists, all five of his senses shooting to full strength. He could smell damp earth, taste lightning and bow rosin, hear a singing hum. In his fist, he could feel down to the fibers of Councilwoman Illianthe’s scroll, and in the air, he could see every hue of rainbow light refracting from the crystals. It was only by looking through those colours that Naliah made out the newcomer in the cavern, a guilty blush dancing across the man’s high cheekbones. It was Artysaedra’s eldest brother, Kinrae Veiyel, heir to the multiverse.
The last person Naliah had expected to find there.
Throughout the last half-century, Naliah had only talked to the crown prince during a handful of brief occasions. The prince had always had to rush off to attend to something. In fact, the only time the prince ever seemed to sit still was when he read tax law in the gardens below Draven’s laboratory, and even then, it seemed there was never a single minute to spare for idle conversation. At least not with Naliah, as much as he might have liked that. The first time Naliah had met the crown prince, he’d tripped over his own feet into a side table; Kinrae was a svelte man—captivating—with wide shoulders and a tapered waist, a man who never seemed quite real the way he glided down the halls, like he’d dissipate into mist if touched. His smiles were as gentle as his eyes. He was nothing like the bloodshed Naliah had been raised in. No, Kinrae was the product of luxury and affluence—the type of man that would have been crushed beneath the weight of the corpses Naliah carried on his back, and something about that innocence was enthralling.
With his silver eyes and his long white hair, tucked behind his ears today, Kinrae seemed perfectly at home amongst the quartz in the cavern. Naliah could hear the susurrus of air molecules brushing against one another every time the prince exhaled. He could even see the finest particles of the rosin that dusted the tips of Kinrae’s fingers. Overwhelmed by it, Naliah dialed his senses back.
“How long have you been here?” Naliah asked, finding his calm. He slipped the Councilwoman’s scroll back into his pocket. “I didn’t hear you come in. At all.” Which was odd. He could still hear Maenasgoroth, slithering around several caverns away, but even now, as Kinrae took a step forward, Naliah heard nothing. It took him aback.
“You have my apologies, Guardian Staatvelter. My brother often says I’m a bit too much like a ghost. More than once, he’s threatened to knot bells into my hair.”
“That definitely sounds like something Draven would do,” Naliah said, and Kinrae smiled.
“Everything sounds like something my brother would do, does it not?”
“You aren’t wrong there.”
The prince crossed the cavern soundlessly to offer his hand to Naliah, who shook it and craned his head back to keep eye contact with the prince. But it wasn’t long before Kinrae’s gaze snapped down to the flickering crystal near their feet. “My parents called me away to reassure the dignitaries we were hosting,” he said. “I was neither permitted the chance to look into the crystal nor to speak with Maenasgoroth. Is she well?”
“She wandered off when we got here,” Naliah said. “That’s your biggest concern?”
“She’s family.” He gestured down toward the crystal. “May I?”
Stepping out of the way, Naliah gave Kinrae plenty of room to bend down and lay his fingers on the crystal. Then the crown prince closed his eyes. The cavern was hushed for a long time, and Naliah shifted from foot to foot, a pebble scraping against the smooth rock floor beneath his silk slipper. Twenty minutes must have passed in near silence before Kinrae opened his eyes. When he did, it was with a jolt and a gasp, his hand jerking back from the quartz point. “Amuin ankh lelie betae yen na,” he stammered, fingers trembling. His face was stricken, as though he were on the wrong end of a sword. “My brother said that they had all— But I did not believe— I did not think— Are you going to visit this Realm?”
“I won’t leave from here until Sae gets back. I should tell her where I’m headed at least. First, though, I need to figure out what I’m going to do about—” Naliah came to a complete halt as an idea took root in his mind.
“What you’re going to do about what?” Kinrae asked, and Naliah looked him up and down in a brand new light.
For years, Naliah had wondered what it would be like to be in Kinrae’s position: trained from birth to love every single living being in the Infinity, but then subsequently told to sit in a throne and let others tend to them. He’d never understood how a heart could be so large and so composed at the same time, but here Kinrae was—worried over the dead strangers in this crystal, yet still waiting for Naliah to make the judgment call. Artysaedra would have already stormed the battlefield, with or without him.
Even though he was hesitant, Naliah wagered his best bet at finding out what was on Councilwoman Illianthe’s scroll now lay with the prince. If he wanted to keep this situation contained as much as he could, this was his chance, and he had to take it.
“Your Highness?”
“Yes?”
“How good are you at keeping secrets?”
At that, Kinrae went quiet. It made Naliah scrutinize him. Kinrae stared at the crystal, pinching the webbing of one hand between the thumb and forefinger of his opposite hand. He didn’t look up when he said, “I am better at it than I wish to be. Why?”
“I need to ask y
ou for a favour,” Naliah said. “Say I’d never learned to read and I’d been given an important scroll—is there a chance you could read it for me? And keep it strictly between the two of us? Only the two of us? At least until I know what to do with it.” Kinrae looked unsure, and Naliah waffled until he finally decided to chance it. “Especially if I told you the scroll had been given to me in secret by your grandmother?”
“My grandmother gave you a message?”
Naliah swiped a hand over his beard and nodded. “I don’t know what to do about it, Your Highness. She told me not to let anyone read it, not even the Council, but—”
“Of course I will assist you,” Kinrae said. “Of course. Anything you need, Guardian Staatvelter.”
Naliah was still hesitant. Reaching into his pocket to reveal the crumpled scroll, Naliah held out his reluctant hand to offer it to Kinrae. Kinrae took it and flattened it out against his trousers. When he was done, he brought it to his face. His eyes roved over each line, and with each second, the skin between his brows creased further.
“What?” Naliah asked. “What does it say?”
But before he could get an answer, a voice rang out in the cavern, and Naliah’s heart stopped. With a rush of panic, he realized he’d forgotten to erect a ward and he’d been so distracted that he hadn’t heard anyone approach.
“Well, well, well,” the voice said, “aren’t you going to share with everyone?”
PERMISSION TO BURN
_______________________________
All we will ever know is that we will never know all.
creed of the Scarlet Brothers of Yoc Regleich in the Guardian Realm of Lakes
THE GRAND REALM OF THE INFINITE
THE EAST WING OF THE CASTLE OF THE INFINITE ROYAL FAMILY,
MOUNT DRAKIS, LUTANA, CAPITAL CITY-STATE OF THE ONE COUNTRY
“I’m five hundred and fifty-seven years old, Father, and the Guardian of Darkness. Stop lecturing me.” Artysaedra tossed up her hands from where she was sitting on the stuffy sitting room’s floor. The wainscoting was hard against her spine, the carpet digging into her ass.
Across the room, her father raised a perfectly sculpted brow. “And why shouldn’t I lecture you, Saedra? Yesterday, you ran off to Borello de Sajate when you had orders not to leave the castle without permission, much less the country. Today, you abandoned your lessons, you deliberately escaped the Guard, and I—like most everyone in town, I am certain—can smell the alcohol on you from here. What image of yourself are you projecting?”
“Well, in my defense, Father,” she mocked him, “you’re a demon. You can probably smell my bowel movements from there, too.”
“Artysaedra Alayana Veiyel,” her father said, stern. “I am trying to help you.”
“Leave off for once,” Artysaedra spat at him.
She reached behind her and used the wall to get to her feet, but when she eased up, her heavy asa, which was already drowning her, caught around her knees and feet and tripped her up. She stumbled backward into the wall. She kicked at her gown, tripping again, this time forward, and in a rage, she ripped at her belt drape until it came free with hundreds of popping threads. The silk splitting was loud in the near silence of the sitting room. The sound made Artysaedra stop, jaw clenched.
Holding the remains of her belt drape in her hand, she rolled her thumb over its tiny silver beads—beads that formed the symbol of the Order, almost like a ship wheel—beads that fools fell to their knees at the sight of, thinking their salvation had come. Artysaedra wasn’t salvation. She was devastation. No one who knew her would think any differently. The beads indented her thumb as she pressed down on them, hard. Eventually, her father’s footsteps came closer and his warm hand covered hers.
“M’ide’lupen,” her father said. His grey eyes were glassed over by the light of the oil lamp affixed to the wall, its flame dancing around in his dark pupils. He cupped the back of Artysaedra’s head and pressed a dry kiss between her brows. “I am on your side. I promise.”
She gave a soldier’s nod, looking away. “I understand. Today’s just been—”
“You’ve felt suffocated lately,” he said. She nodded again. “Your mother and I have made too many of your decisions for you. That isn’t fair. I understand that. But it must be done.” Artysaedra bit the inside of her lip, and her father’s face fell. “I felt the way you did once. On a rainy day, I still do. I promise I’m not some stodgy old man you can’t talk to.”
“You’re a little stodgy,” Artysaedra whispered, and her father smiled, teeth peeking through the bristles of his white beard. “I just— I want to be out there, Father. Where I’m good. Fighting. I don’t want to be the little princess you’ve all suddenly decided I am. You built me for battle. Stop dressing me for balls.”
“You’re a Veiyel,” her father said sadly. “And that means you’re whatever the Infinity needs you to be, whenever it needs you to be it. And right now, it’s a princess.”
Artysaedra ducked her head. She didn’t want to contest it. “I needed to get out of the castle for a while. That’s all.”
Her father squeezed her neck before dropping his hand and leading her over to two high-backed velvet chairs by the hearth. Artysaedra flopped down into one and laid her arms on the fire-warmed arms of the chair, her silk belt still clutched in her left hand. She dropped it on the floor and shifted to free her tail from where she’d trapped it underneath her, wrapping it loosely around her waist. It wasn’t long before the fire made the skin of her face feel tight.
“The castle can be a bit much at times,” her father said when he came back with two lowball glasses and a decanter full of Lutanan whiskey that was sharp to Artysaedra’s nose even through the decanter’s thick crystal. She gave her father a look as he poured them each two fingers and handed a tumbler over to her. “As I said,”—he grinned against the rim of his glass, voice muffed by it as he sat—“it’s a bit much.”
Artysaedra smiled faintly and tipped her own glass back. The whiskey must have been sitting near a window because it was ice-cold when it hit her mouth. She let the smooth, bitter taste roll over her tongue and relished the burn as it travelled down her throat and settled warm in her stomach.
Something about it—the drink, sitting next to her father, maybe even both—it brought her back to the very first time her father had ever shared a drink with her, when he’d sat her down at the oak desk in his study for her fiftieth birthday. Back then, she’d still had the body of a child, her feet barely dangling over the edge of her father’s studded leather chair. She’d hated how young she’d looked back then, but as grown as she’d insisted on being, she’d still had the taste buds of a child in the end.
She remembered how she’d gagged and spit the whiskey across the desk, splattering her father’s work papers—how her father had doubled over with teary-eyed, wheezing laughter until he’d tripped over the rug and caught himself on hands and knees. Oh, stars, he’d giggled, oh, stars, don’t tell your mother about this.
The same words echoed between them now amidst the crackle of the fire and the delicate smacks of snowflakes against the far windows. Over the mantle, a painting of their family stared down at them in muted oil strokes like a ghost from another time. The portrait was outdated—not unlike the ghastly ones in the castle foyer that Artysaedra hated—and ultimately devoid of Artysaedra’s little sister Athirae. Her brothers were fully-grown men in it, smothered up to their jaws in cinched velvet and ruffles, stern expressions on each of their young faces, but their hair was cut short in a way it hadn’t been in centuries. Artysaedra herself was pudgy in the painting, standing between them, her head barely coming up to their knees. Her onyx hair was long and decorated with ribbons, and her wolfish ears were too large for her head. In her hands was a stuffed rabbit she didn’t have the faintest memories of. Behind all three of them stood their parents, who looked the same way they always had. Their backs were straight, and their pressed clothing was embroidered with wolves surrounded by fla
me. They were regal, untouchable fortresses, just like the castle.
Glancing over at her father now, who was slouched in his chair, a few strands of his white hair free from its pomade and flopped over his forehead, Artysaedra took another drink. The version of her parents in the portrait wasn’t the version of her parents she knew. Her father was a short-tempered man, someone who had a reoccurring dream about a singing weasel and who had a sweet tooth he couldn’t hide, someone with hopes and fears safeguarded behind walls he put up to seem infallible. He was flesh and blood, someone she could talk to if she desperately needed the advice, even—she supposed—about the things crawling around her mind that Naliah had put there earlier.
“Father,” she said, “I know you’ve been trying to protect me by keeping me here—I’m pissed about it, trust me, but it’s fine. I just— I need to know exactly what the Council told you when they asked you to keep me locked up.”
Did you know they were keeping things from me about the missing Guardians? she wondered. Have they been keeping the truth from you, too? Or, and this thought scared her the most, have you known about the murders and been lying to me? Her stomach clenched at possibility. She knew she wasn’t her father’s favourite child—he’d told her as much in the past—but she liked to think that while he sent her into war, he wouldn’t do her the disservice of lying to her face.
Her father glanced over at her, glass paused against his mouth before he set it down on the small table between their chairs with a dull thud. His brow furrowed. “Why do you ask?”
“Just—answer me? Please? What did they tell you? I know it was Arnetti and Grandfather who came first.”
A Shard of Sea and Bone (Death of the Multiverse Book 1) Page 16