Reverse sunforging was a very delicate process that few sunsmiths had ever attempted, as failure meant breaking the sunucle and possibly killing the one linked to it. But Daylen was more than a master sunsmith; he had forged Imperious.
With the right lenses affixed, including the most precarious darkstone lenses, Daylen placed a sunstone behind them, the opposite of regular forging. Light began to drain from the first tag and its translucency faded until it looked as black as obsidian. This stage alone required tremendous precision and would have shattered the sunucle if the luminosity was off by a fraction of a degree. Daylen carefully felt for the hidden lid which held Sain’s blood and, with tweezers, opened it. Dried blood was within and Daylen carefully dribbled a bit of spit onto it. He then broke up the dried blood with the tweezers and mixed the spittle through. By tainting the blood while the sunucle was lightless, the link would end and the reverse sunforging process would be done.
Tossing the tag aside where it shattered, Daylen repeated the process with the others.
Once finished, Daylen walked to the small chests and filled one of his belt pouches with crowns, which was more money than he would need for a very long time.
He then grabbed every ledger and journal he could find, including anything else that might contain information on Blackheart’s operation.
Daylen returned to the main room and sat at the desk.
He opened the hidden compartments in the desk just to see what was inside, and the most valuable thing he found was snuff: finely ground, processed, and aged tobacco, to be sniffed through the nose for a buzz and hit of flavor. It wasn’t cheap.
Snuff never really did anything for Daylen, and besides, it was very addictive.
Daylen shut the drawers and began to look through the books. Daylen scanned several and found nothing. He hoped that the information he sought wouldn’t be there—but then, to his dismay, he found it.
Footsteps sounded from the passageway. By their pace and weight, it was Ahrek approaching.
Daylen didn’t look up as he heard Ahrek enter, not to be rude, but rather because of the heartache he felt from what he had read.
“Light,” Ahrek said, “the man certainly had gaudy taste.”
Daylen couldn’t reply.
“What’s wrong?” Ahrek asked with concern and approached the desk.
Daylen held up Blackheart’s journal. “Blackheart was the Conqueror’s son. He mentioned his mother’s name, Bethenen, who was a girl the Conqueror had for a time.”
Ahrek seemed to have trouble replying. “You could only know that if your father told you of the girls he raped.”
“He never saw it like that!” Daylen snapped, but then closed his eyes to calm himself, breathing deeply. “Her name came up when my father was talking about people he missed. Apparently there were a few girls he liked more than the others. Bethenen just so happened to be one of them.”
Ahrek nodded, looking barely satisfied, but he didn’t push the subject.
Daylen felt revolted at himself. Though he’d had his favorites like Bethenen, they had really meant nothing to him. He had been too blinded by the loss of his wife and children to care about anything, at least not emotionally. It was as if he had lost his soul and humanity after they died, especially after taking his revenge.
But that was no excuse for his actions, he reminded himself harshly, and he deserved to burn in an endless hell because of them.
There was no other way Blackheart could have known of Bethenen, and if there was one, there would be more. Many, many more.
The darkness of misery and guilt that Daylen kept locked away, the very darkness that had crippled him for two falls, began to surface again. He had children—potentially hundreds of them.
He shook himself. It wasn’t the time to sink into misery, but it was hard to avoid, and he sat in silence for a time waging an internal battle. He almost lost that battle more than once in those dark moments, but eventually he opened his eyes and looked to Ahrek, who had been standing there patiently.
“Did you find the captives?”
“Yes,” Ahrek said.
“By your mood I’d say we were lucky and found them both alive.”
“Five of them, actually. They’re all children of important people.”
“The one that was linked to the shield is lucky to be alive. How is she doing?”
“Fine, now that I’ve healed her, though she was in tremendous pain.”
Daylen looked aside. “I’m sorry for delaying things. She wouldn’t have suffered for as long had I not been so focused on my own misery.”
“You needed the time, and now the girl is safe. They’re all very grateful.”
“I don’t want their gratitude,” Daylen said. “Please don’t let them know I had anything to do with it.”
“As you wish, though I expect they’ll figure it out.”
“Did you find who Blackheart’s sword is linked to?”
“No, that had slipped my mind, though I suspect it’s one of the captives. Thank you for reminding me.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter. There’s a full sunforge in the hidden room, so I’ll just reverse the sword and undo the link.”
Ahrek’s reply came after several seconds. “You can do that?”
Daylen was too miserable to care about the unlikelihood of an eighteen-year-old snot being a master sunsmith, or to care what Ahrek thought about it. Besides, Daylen wasn’t going to let a poor innocent girl live her life in fear thanks to the risk of being linked against her will. “Yes, I’m a sunsmith.”
“You might think you are, but only master sunsmiths can reverse forge.”
“Then I suppose I have luck to thank for the twelve sunucles I just reversed,” Daylen said, pointing to the secret room.
“You what?” Ahrek said, walking through the false safe into the hidden room.
“Blackheart linked his entire crew to sunforged tags as extra leverage over them,” Daylen called out. “I found Sain’s name among them and reversed every one that was left.”
“You are a master sunsmith!” Ahrek said as he returned, clearly having seen the black, shattered shards of the reversed sunucles.
“If it’s any consolation, I can’t cook worth a damn or sing a solid note to save my life.”
“Actually, it is rather nice to hear that you aren’t good at everything.”
“Then add making friends, being patient, gardening, and poetry to the list.”
“Done.”
“Anyway, I’m not as good as my father was at it,” Daylen said, the lie coming to him easier now, “but he still taught me a thing or two. He did make Imperious, after all.”
“I… I just didn’t think you spent that much time with him.”
“I told you that he visited my orphanage whenever he could. When I was old enough to leave it, I basically lived with him. My father tried to pass on every skill he knew, so if there was something he was good at, I’m probably good at it too.”
Ahrek pressed his lips thin and held a concerned gaze on Daylen, saying nothing.
“You know looking at me like that is just as bad as saying it.”
Ahrek sighed. “I know, and in truth your heroic actions have proven you different to the Conqueror, even with your unnatural similarities. You’re a better man than he by far.”
Daylen huffed. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“Are you living your life like this to atone for what your father did?”
“No. He could never be forgiven by the Light or those he oppressed…or even myself. But he brought so much darkness to the world I might as well try to remove some of it.”
“His sins are not on your head.”
Daylen’s frown deepened. Oh, but they are. Every last blackened one. But nothing could come to his lips as he stared at the Lightbringer, because denying that statement was a lie too perverse, even for him.
Ahrek looked back, his face seeming to weigh Daylen and the concern in his eyes slowly grew.
His eyes glanced to his right, and something seeming to dawn on him.
Did he just figure it out?
Ahrek was silent for another second before looking back to Daylen, asking, “Did you discover anything about Blackheart’s operation?”
“Yes,” Daylen said cautiously, choosing to not pursue whatever the Bringer had just been thinking about. “The group he’s been dealing with are the blackened Dawnists,” Daylen said with a sneer.
“The Dawnists! What would they want with illegally obtained skyships?”
“They want to bring back the Dawn Empire, but I don’t see any logical way they could do that with twenty or so civilian ships.”
“They don’t seem particularly violent, so refitting the ships for battle in the hopes of some future revolution doesn’t make sense.”
“And even then,” Daylen said as he slowly rocked back and forth in Blackheart’s fine desk chair, “refitted civilian skyships wouldn’t stand a chance against proper military vessels. So they must want those ships for something else. According to these figures they’ve been paying full price, so it’s no wonder Blackheart had been snatching up every skyship he could find. That also means the ships aren’t being resold. There’s no profit in it, and considering the money they’ve been throwing around, they don’t need it.”
“I didn’t think they were so well funded.”
“Neither did I. They might have a very wealthy backer, and with their money they could have easily purchased brand new ships legally; the difference is that they would be registered and their every flight logged. So whatever the ships are being used for, it must be illegal.” Daylen sighed. “I guess I’ll have to pay the Dawnists a visit after we get to the capital.”
“How do you know that it’s the Dawnists from the capital that have been purchasing the ships?”
Daylen took out a crown from his belt pouch and held it up. “Apart from how clean this coin is and the lack of scratches, the date that it was minted is stamped near the edge. It’s not even a season old, and most of the others are exactly like it.”
“And that means?”
“While you can find newly minted coins in circulation in the outer cities of Hamahra, so many from the same batch being together means it’s very likely that someone withdrew them directly from one of the larger banks in the capital, with the national reserve being so close and all.”
“I see,” Ahrek mused. “So the money that purchased these ships came from the capital. What exactly are you planning on doing to the Dawnists once there?”
“You know me, Ahrek. I won’t do anything to them that they don’t deserve.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
It was during this time that I set out to conquer the Floating Isles, and we all know how that ended. Blackened pirates.
There was another reason to all my warring, aside from protecting my people and unifying the world. The Shade. I had seen their butchery firsthand. Vile and merciless. It was foolish to simply wait around for those monsters to grow in strength and cast night on the land when we could strike at them preemptively. But to eradicate the Shade once and for all, I would need the collective strength of every nation on Tellos. That would never happen through diplomacy. Could you imagine the Lourian Empire ever being willing to work with Lee’on’ta?
So yes, some might say I conquered for power and revenge, but those goals were merely a means to an end—that of eradicating the Shade.
But the ends never justify the means.
* * *
The Maraven flew over the farms and fields that blanketed the land around them like a patchwork quilt. It was the middle of High Fall and Daylen had been flying the ship for eight hours straight, having risen early.
Ahead in the distance, the fields were broken by a speckling of small towns which grew larger and closer together until finally forming the broad and mighty metropolis that was Highdawn. The city dominated the view ahead.
Highdawn was an edge city and thus the land before them simply ended, falling off into the endless sky.
As they were flying northward, the Plummet was falling slowly off to the left in the distance. The blindingly bright orb that was the sun sat to their right, high in the sky.
Floating above the countless buildings of the ground-level city was a flat disk, like an enormous dinner plate several kilometers in diameter, which was completely covered in buildings. Above this disk were three others, each one smaller than the one below, crammed atop with buildings too, the top disk bearing the two largest and most impressive structures of all: the Senate, once called the Dawn Palace, Daylen’s former residence, and behind it the Great Lumatorium.
The disks sat off center from each other, their sun-facing sides in line, and because each lower disk was bigger, their southern side extended farther out from the one above.
A great ramp-like road built of marble rose from the ground to each disk in a straight line, its design fashioned after the aqueduct structures of old. It was called the High Road.
Highdawn wasn’t the only city in the world built on islands that floated near the ground, but it was the only one with islands as flat as disks that were so perfectly arranged. The disks were created with the Lumatorium.
Most of the rescued girls stood along the sides of the ship, leaning out to look at the city ahead. They seemed very excited, and happier than Daylen had seen them in falls. Maybe they would be able to return to normal lives.
There was a sharp briskness to the air that fall, and the girls were all wearing warm coats which Ahrek had found in store on the ship. Ahrek was now talking to each girl in turn, writing down the names of their families and home addresses so that the information could be handed over to the authorities when they landed.
The soft, high-pitched hum of wind whistled in Daylen’s ears as he piloted the ship. Daylen loved that noise, for it meant that he was truly flying, not just gliding or floating, but flying. It made him feel free.
Daylen looked to his left. Clouds floated low that fall over an endless landscape under the blue sky, the faint outline of the continent high above. It seemed so calm, though Daylen knew the truth of it. That beautiful hum told of strong wind currents beyond the calm air pocket over the deck, created by the ship’s windshield.
They were flying at two hundred kilometers an hour, not the Maraven’s top speed due to her towing the Bloodrunner, but still far beyond anything that could be achieved on the ground.
Sain climbed the stairs to the helm and joined Daylen’s side. “Wow,” he said, looking at the city.
“Yep,” Daylen replied, “there’s no greater city in the world.” And one of the reasons for that was Daylen himself. Once named Sunview, he had made it his capital after the First Revolution. He was born in that city, he had fought and bled in that city. Once making it his capital, he had made it truly grand. Still, it was hard to look upon Highdawn without being overwhelmed by guilt, for it was in that city where he had committed, or ordered, his greatest crimes. He would love and despise it forever.
“What’s that dome over the city?” Sain asked.
“It’s a net of darkstone anchors fixed in position around the city to prevent unwanted skyships from entering the city’s airspace. Usually a shield net’s anchors are spaced two meters apart, but Highdawn’s are spaced one meter apart, and it has five layers. That’s essentially five shields in one that are each twice as strong as normal. It took years to put them all in place, and is why this shield is so visible at such a distance.”
“So how do we enter?”
“There’re openings in the shield, specifically at the registry stations.”
“Wow,” Sain said. “They’re the perfect defense against skyships.”
“Yep. Shield nets are remarkably effective…except against annihilators.”
“I’ve heard of those. They’re the biggest skyships ever made, aren’t they?”
“It took a genius to design them in a way th
at they could still be maneuverable. An annihilator can punch through a regular shield net, but not Highdawn’s.”
“You really know a lot about this stuff.”
“Oh, I know a lot of stuff,” Daylen said and pointed. “Do you see that large building on the Fourth Isle?”
“The Fourth Isle?”
“Highdawn is divided into five parts. The Ground City, the First Isle, the Second Isle, and so on. So do you see the large building on the Fourth Isle?”
Sain squinted. “Yeah, what is it?”
“The Lumatorium, the grandest building in existence. The thing defies physical laws. There are even doors on one end that open to rooms on the other side of the structure.”
“Wow,” Sain said in true awe.
The kid was far more amicable now than he had been a few falls before. Apparently teaching him how to pilot a skyship was enough to win the boy over—oh, and freeing both him and his mother from the sunforged tags Blackheart had linked to them.
Sain seemed truly grateful to Daylen for that and had opened up along the flight, and had told him of how he had ended up in Blackheart’s crew. The kid had tried to steal from Blackheart, but had been caught. His punishment was to be a lifelong sentence in Blackheart’s crew, his life in the bastard’s hands through the forced sunforged link. Sain said he would have run away and let the bastard kill him if not for the threat to his mother, who had also been forcibly linked and became Blackheart’s favorite whore when he dropped anchor in Raidaway, her face rarely free from bruises and cuts ever since.
Shadow of the Conqueror Page 33