The Midnight Court

by Jane Kindred

  As I came through the ravine, the gates of the city loomed at the crest of the pass, the road from Elysium ending here in the last habitable enclave before the Empyrean began. I thundered over the snow-covered cobblestones of the bridge and through the arched gate of the walled city as the riders of the Queen’s Guard at last surrounded me. Slowing my horse, I clung exhausted to her mane, and one of the soldiers grabbed the reins from me and drew her toward him.

  Before us on the snow-swept road, another horse and rider approached from the north. Tall and statuesque in the saddle, with hair like the snow itself streaming behind him beneath his fur cap, the white fur of the great cloak that enveloped him fluttering in the wind, the rider advanced on us rapidly. The Virtue pulled up his horse before us, prancing sideways to block the way, and studied me intently. Like Aeval’s, his eyes seemed to sparkle like the silver surface of a lake.

  “Do I address Her Supernal Highness the Grand Duchess Anazakia Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk?”

  I couldn’t imagine how he knew me in my glamour, but there seemed no better answer than the truth. “You do.”

  The soldiers beside me exchanged looks of disbelief.

  “I am Sar Sarael of the Virtuous Court of the Elohim.” The Virtue lowered his head. “It is an honor.” He turned to the soldier who held my horse’s reins. “Release Her Supernal Highness at once. You tread on Aravothan soil.”

  The officer protested. “This girl, duchess or not, is riding on the stolen property of Her Supernal Majesty the Queen of the Firmament of Shehaqim. Furthermore, if she is the fugitive Bloody Anazakia, she is wanted for crimes of high treason against the crown.”

  “And I repeat, you are not within the Firmament, but on Aravothan soil.”

  The officer released my reins as a troop of Aravothan cavalry arrived behind Sar Sarael. “Perhaps you are not aware, Your Serenity, that Aravoth is subject to the Queen of All the Heavens.”

  “We are well aware of the queen’s authority.” Sarael nodded his head toward the horses drawing up behind me. “And are these Her Supernal Highness’s companions whom you have in your custody?”

  “They were with her.” The officer glanced from Lively to me, obviously still doubtful of my identity. “But they’re also under arrest for crimes against the crown.”

  Sarael was unmoved. “You will leave them here at our Court. You may take the queen’s horses back with you, but the prisoners stay here.”

  “You realize this is in direct defiance of the will of Her Supernal Majesty.” The officer lowered his voice in warning. “This will be taken as a declaration of war.”

  “I suppose the queen shall make of it what she will. But we are a sovereign nation and you are on our soil, and the Queen’s Army has shown no respect for it.” He gestured to his men. “Take custody of the prisoners.”

  I dismounted while they led Lively and Nebo forward, and as the queen’s soldiers turned about with our horses, I caught a flash of red in the rear of the formation outside the gate. Among the pack animals carrying their supplies, Vasily sat, hands bound before him, upon the back of a mule. His head was covered with a cloth sack, but the locks hanging down beneath it were unmistakable.

  “Please, Your Serenity,” I appealed to Sar Sarael. “That demon with them—he’s my companion also.”

  “Demon?” Sarael followed my gaze. He frowned, and for a horrible moment I was certain he would disregard my request, but he nodded to his men. “Bring that one to me as well.”

  Vasily stood blinking in surprise once the soldier had removed the sack from his head and unbound him to bring him forward. “Nazkia?” He looked from Lively to me, and I held out my hand. In the presence of the Sar’s entourage, a silent squeeze was all I could give him to convey my relief.

  The commanding officer threw one last warning to Sarael as they moved out. “Her Supernal Majesty will not be pleased.”

  Sarael shrugged. “I’ve no doubt.”

  We were escorted through the walled mountain city to the Hekhaloth of the princedom, the great hall of the Virtuous Court. Like the austere and awe-inspiring terrain upon which the city was built, the architecture of Aravoth seemed stark and oversized, as though built for giants. Great edifices of grey stone and marble lined the winding street, soaring several stories overhead in competition with the jagged peaks of the surrounding mountain range.

  The Hekhaloth itself, built into the solid rock, was immense. Two dozen columns at its front supported a pediment with a broad tympanum carved with scenes of Cherubim and Seraphim extending their many wings in a display of power and grace. Beside these figures were carvings of robed Virtues in poses of study and contemplation.

  Between the columns that supported this, heavy doors that seemed to be inlaid with platinum opened onto a soaring atrium that held an improbable summer garden in the midst of winter. The tiled floor appeared to be heated from below, and as the doors closed, it was like entering another world. We peeled out of our heavy outer garments, and a servant came to take them from us.

  A fountain splashed and sparkled at the garden’s center in the marble pool that served as a collector for rainwater in the warmer seasons. Reminded of the silver fountains that had been commissioned to decorate the Winter Palace for the last Equinox Gala of the House of Arkhangel’sk, I looked away with a pang of nostalgia.

  “We’ve met before.” Sarael spoke quietly to me as he led us past it.

  I glanced up at him, puzzled, and then remembered: He’d been a guest at that very gala. Maia had teased me, playing her favorite game, and declared I would marry the next gentleman we saw whose name began with S. She had merrily pointed out Sarael, whose Virtuous beauty had made me blush at the age of seventeen. I frowned as I remembered something else. He’d been seated next to none other than Aeval herself, though I hadn’t known her identity. She had held the rapt attention of my cousin Kae even then.

  “Yes.” I gave him a guarded look. “I remember you. But how did you know me?”

  Sarael smiled. “News within the cause travels faster than angels. We were told to expect you—and that you might not look like yourself.”

  We were received in the tablinum, a secluded den on the other side of the atrium, where a dozen Virtues sat around a long stone table. Like Sarael, they all had shining hair like snow, and eyes like lakes of silver, and their skin seemed to reflect and refract wavelengths of light not normally visible to the naked eye.

  One of the seated Virtues glanced from me to Lively. “Which one is Her Supernal Highness?”

  “I am.” I stepped forward. “I took a potion to disguise myself.”

  He rose and bowed to me, with a glance toward Vasily. “And who is the Seraph’s son?”

  Vasily’s face was red with annoyance that this story had apparently spread. “Whom do you mean?”

  “You, sir, of course.”

  “You’re mistaken.” Fire deep in his eyes blazed up to make his protest seem mere modesty. “My name is Vasily of Raqia. My father was a demon and my mother was the Grand Duchess Ysael of the House of Arcadia, or so I’m told. But I can assure you neither was a Seraph.”

  The Virtues whispered together for a moment before the one who’d addressed Vasily bowed to him as well. Vasily, in a manner I have seen neither before nor since, blanched completely white.

  “I am Sar Tzadkiel.” The angel spread out his arms to encompass the assembly, the sleeves of his robe giving the impression of terrestrial wings. “The Virtuous Court of the Elohim welcomes the son of the House of Arcadia, His Supernal Highness the Grand Duke Vasily.”

  “Grand—Grand Duke?” sputtered Vasily. “No, you misunderstand me. I’m…I’m a polovina-d’yavol.”

  “If by that you mean you are the son of an angel and a demon, it is assuredly not so. We see no demon blood in you. We do, however, see seraphic blood.”

  “Excuse me.” Lively’s informal address seemed to startle the Virtues. “What is demon blood? Are we not all of the same four elements
? Are not the Fallen simply those whom Heaven chooses to marginalize and oppress?”

  Tzadkiel inclined his head. “It is the contention of the Socialist Host that there should be no distinction between the Host and the Fallen. We are one race. Nevertheless, there are genetic traits that identify one’s heritage, and it is in our nature to see them. When we say that the grand duke has no demon blood, we are merely affirming what is clear in his physical makeup: his mother and father are both of pure, unmixed elements, and one of these is the fire of a Seraph.” Tzadkiel motioned to us to sit down at the table. “Just as it is clear that your other companion is a son of the Fallen Powers and of Men.”

  Nebo looked uncomfortable as he took his seat between Lively and Sarael.

  “Yes, we are aware that you are an Exile. There is some debate among the Party as to whether this restriction should be removed from your people and our former Watchers. But what is foremost now is removing the current threat to Heaven. Sarael?”

  Sarael turned to me. “Your Supernal Highness, the Elohim have brought you here to determine whether you are culpable in the deaths of the House of Arkhangel’sk and of the demon workers, as the queen claims.”

  “She is not.” Vasily made a move to jump to his feet in my defense, but I pulled him back.

  “It’s all right, Vasily. No, Sar Sarael, I have murdered no one. In the first instance, in fact, I was murdered myself.”

  The Virtues exchanged looks with one another that said they thought I might be mad after all, and even Lively and Nebo looked dubious.

  “I was breaking the law. I had conjured a shade simulacrum so I could sneak out of the palace to play cards with demons.” This confession was met with disapproving frowns. “My simulacrum was murdered along with the rest of my family.”

  Tzadkiel regarded me doubtfully. “We are no experts in peasant magic, but would that not have killed you also as soon as your shade was reunited with you?”

  “It would have, except—”

  “Except then I broke the law.” Vasily pushed up his spectacles as if in challenge. “I used my element to repair the damage.”

  Tzadkiel observed him for a moment. “You can use fire to heal a mortal wound?”

  “In the terrestrial plane.”

  “Still, that is an unusual skill.” The Virtue studied him with interest. “Seraphic fire is usually a destructive force, not a constructive one.”

  Vasily shrugged. “Perhaps they’ve just never tried.”

  “And so who was it that killed your shade?” asked Sarael. “Do you recall?”

  I nodded to him. “Oh, yes, I recall it very well. It was my brother-in-law, the Grand Duke Kae Lebesovich of the House of Arkhangel’sk.” I raised my voice over their exclamations of surprise. “Aeval had bewitched him and driven him mad.” They were still buzzing over Kae, but I noticed no one expressed shock at that part of my story.

  Sarael interrupted the murmuring among them. “That is a most serious accusation. How do you know it was Aeval, and what makes you certain the Grand Duke was mad?”

  “Anyone could see he was mad. I spoke to him myself a number of times when I was a prisoner in Aeval’s palace, and he was—” My breath caught in my throat as I remembered Kae begging me to help him in a brief moment of lucidity. “He was completely without memory or understanding of what he’d done, and his mood was subject to wild swings. While he was raving, he told me Aeval had called his blood. She used the same words when she bragged of it to me. She said he was her slave.”

  This shocked the Virtues, and one even jumped to her feet with her hand to her chest. “Called his blood?”

  “I have seen her call the elements in others. She said she could call them all, and she spoke as if blood were one of them.”

  “Be seated, Sar Sophia.” Tzadkiel turned to me with a solemn expression. “Blood is the alembic of all elements. In it, the four exist in their purest forms. One element predominates in all celestial beings, and thus, a firespirit can manipulate fire, a waterspirit can manipulate water. For someone to be able to manipulate them all—well, it is nothing any of our Choir has ever mastered.” He lifted his shoulders. “Perhaps the First.”

  “She is certainly not of the First.” Sophia sniffed as she took her seat. “And if they do possess such knowledge, they would not have shared it with a lesser angel.”

  “She’s not an angel at all.” Once again, I’d shocked them.

  “How can that be?” Tzadkiel looked at Sarael. “You knew her, did you not, Sar Sarael? Was she not a Virtue of the House of Merkabah?”

  Sarael looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I did vouch for her, Sar Tzadkiel, as you rightly recall, but I’m afraid I…cannot quite remember how I met Her Supernal Majesty.” A profusion of pale coral pigment bloomed in the shining complexion as the others stared at him. “She was for many years on the Council of Ethics, which I oversaw, and the last Sar of Merkabah, whom she claimed to be her father, was known to my predecessor, but when and how I made her particular acquaintance is…fuzzy.” It seemed my cousin wasn’t the only angel who’d fallen prey to Aeval’s glamour.

  Tzadkiel frowned. “Fuzzy?”

  “I believe she can manipulate the elements of her physical appearance,” I said. “For the present, she’s adopted the appearance of a Virtue, but she was once the queen of the realm of the Unseen in the world of Man.”

  This time no one stood or gasped. The room simply went silent, as if they didn’t know whether to react with shock, outrage, or utter disbelief.

  “I take it you refer to Mankind’s fae.” Tzadkiel’s tone was somewhat condescending. “What makes you think Her Supernal Majesty once ruled a place no one can see?”

  “Because they told me. I’ve been there.”

  It was clear I’d suddenly lost whatever credibility I had gained during this interview.

  “It’s true.” Vasily came to my defense. “I’ve seen them myself. They speak to Nazkia—to Her Supernal Highness. We spent some time in the Unseen World before we returned to Heaven.”

  I threw him a grateful look, and he smiled reassuringly from behind his spectacles. The Elohim rose as if they were dismissing us and Vasily took my hand apologetically, stroking his thumb idly against my wrist. A pale glimmer of radiance followed the path of his touch, and every eye turned to us. Vasily snatched his hand away, embarrassed, but the Virtue next to me grabbed my wrist and turned it about, staring at it.

  “What was that?” he demanded.

  “Sar Vretil.” Though he seemed just as curious, Sarael gave him a stern look. “You are accosting a grand duchess of the House of Arkhangel’sk.”

  Vretil let go. “My apologies, Your Supernal Highness. But…what was that light we saw?”

  All the Virtues seemed to be holding their breath for an answer.

  I blushed, uncertain how to respond, and uncomfortable with their probing eyes on me. “I—my radiance. Our radiance.”

  Tzadkiel approached me from the head of the table. “Do you mean to tell us that Your Supernal Highnesses produce this ’radiance’ together?”

  I nodded silently, thoroughly embarrassed, and didn’t dare look at Vasily.

  “I beg Your Supernal Highness’s forgiveness for such an impertinent request, but—may we see it again?”

  I was mortified by all of this attention to something so linked to our intimacy, but Vasily reached for me and boldly clasped his fingers about my wrist as if in defiance of any Virtuous sensitivities. The lavender glow played between our skin, a pale echo of what appeared in the world of Man, but nonetheless an unmistakable display.

  The Elohim sat slowly back in their chairs, unable to take their eyes from it. I pulled my arm away.

  “Sarim.” Tzadkiel quietly addressed his colleagues. “Do you realize what we’ve witnessed?”

  The other Virtues nodded. I looked at Vasily, and he shrugged, as in the dark as I was.

  Sarael turned to us. “Your Supernal Highnesses’ elements of water and fire apparentl
y react together in a rather unusual way, whether because of His Supernal Highness’s seraphic blood, or something in Her Supernal Highness’s blood of which we are unaware, or both. Whatever the reason, your combined radiance seems to have formed the quintessence.”

  “Quintessence?” Vasily looked baffled, but this was a part of every angel’s education, and I knew it well. It was theoretical, mythical—mystical, even—as arcane and improbable as the earthly concept of God.

  “Aether,” I said to Vasily, shocked to hear myself utter the word aloud, as if what the Virtues were saying could possibly be true. “The fifth element.”

  Chetirnadtsatoe: The Fires of Gehenna

  The fire demon had slipped through her grasp. Aeval had been anticipating meeting the father of Anazakia’s child. When her scouts had informed her that Vasily had been seen in the Firmament, she’d ordered him brought to her. She wanted to see this Fallen firespirit who was lover to both the grand duchess and to her own reluctant pet. Obtaining the child had thus far proven elusive; the father was the next best thing. And now her reporting officer informed her that though they’d apprehended the demon, they had lost him to a disloyal Virtue when pursuing the demon’s fellow horse thieves into Aravoth.

  It was troubling enough that a prince of Aravoth would defy her authority, but the report had come with altogether more disturbing news: Anazakia Helisonovna was among the thieves. Her reappearance in the celestial plane could only mean one thing. The pockets of rebellion Aeval’s field marshal had quashed, and to which Aeval had given little credence, were more serious than she’d believed. These ignorant revolutionaries meant to usurp her and return the throne of the Firmament of Shehaqim to the misbegotten House of Arkhangel’sk.