“It was real?” Mother asked.
“It was real, ayetha. I have seen it many years ago. This was the same. Powerful, for his age. For any age. The sickness will come worse.”
“You’ve seen them before?” I asked. “The side effects?”
Taa nodded. “Without doing it myself, I cannot speak for it. But I have seen it take hold of the body and the mind. Take from the nether, and it takes back.”
Mother turned to Iris. “It is called feratu blood magic.” She made another warding gesture. More stiffly this time, pressing pinky against thumb until their ends turned white. Her eyes flickered to Yephi. “Don’t get any ideas. You can’t practice it without… without both alchemical and daemon blood. It is alchemy, but it has the old magic in it.”
“Then the boy really is half-daemon?” Yephi asked. She reached up and grazed her teeth.
“What does it do?” I asked. “Besides what we saw. The rippling in the dark.”
Taa sighed. “To be quite honest, I really don’t know myself. I’m not sure anyone understands what feratu blood magic does, not even the few who are capable of it. We only know what we see. The nether. The bending of the worlds. And we see the intensity of it, but not much else. Not in ways to make rules and guidelines and measurements like we do for other forms of alchemy.” Taa relaxed in her seat, setting her coconut bowl down to the floor. “I will try to guide the boy where I can. I might be able to learn more about it by watching him.” She smiled. “What I learn, I will use to satisfy your curiosity, ayetha.”
“Daemon alchemy,” Mother murmured, pulling her knees in. “Right under our roof. Maybe it would be better to give him to someone else, ahjur. I don’t think it wise to train the boy yourself.”
“He’ll be gone,” Taa said with a wave of her hand. “He will not be here often. And this is necessary. Very necessary. The Sisterhood demands it.”
“The Sisterhood?” Mother asked, more in surprise than as a question.
“I think, Mother, you should be kinder about the boy,” I interjected. “He has just lost all his family. We were the ones responsible for protecting them, you know.” I walked over to my bed and sat down. Iris lifted her legs and rested them on top of my knees.
Mother didn’t reply.
“Taa, I want to learn Voz’ruhdal and horseback riding,” I said.
“That’s a bit random,” Mother muttered.
“I’ve just been thinking—” I began.
“I know,” Taa said. “You want to learn as many things as possible. Use your abilities to the fullest to make up for what you don’t have.”
“Exactly.” I gave Taa a sideways glance.
“Good, Dina. Good.” Taa looked out the window, raised a hand, then drew a shape against the glass. A letter. Something like an S, but sharp at the top. “You’ll need that hunger. It will get you further than any magical talent.”
“Horseback riding?” Mother asked. “How is that relevant, except to help you discover new ways to hurt yourself?”
This was one of Mother’s half rhetorical questions. If the incident in the forest hadn’t happened, she would have been more supportive. It would take another three or four days before it was entirely out of her mind. If I could get Yephi or Iris to do something foolish in between, it might take some of the heat off me. Iris had been getting more difficult to guide toward mischief, but Yephi went after it with the gall of a gladiator.
Luckily, Taa interrupted on my behalf. “If she cannot help her own physical strengths, she must learn to use the strength of those around her. Other people. Other creatures. Other tools. Everything. Everything and anything. She must learn to use it all, to leverage it all.”
“Exactly.” This time, I gave the sideways glance to Mother.
“And at the very least, it’ll give her some exercise,” Taa added indignantly. “Yuweh knows how frail the girl’s been getting. She needs some muscle in her legs. Some strength in her arms.”
“Hmm… yes I guess that too,” I said less eagerly. I was suddenly seized by an interest in the ceiling.
“Why Voz’ruhdal?” Taa asked. “Besides this obsession of yours with words.”
“Dina is obsessed with everything.” Yephi snickered.
“Because Dh’hpur spoke it,” Mother said dryly. “If Dh’hpur spoke it, then Dina must speak it.”
Taa pressed on. “Dh’hpur spoke other languages she does not know yet. Ylhetin, Ulnakish. Why Voz’ruhdal now?” Her eyes said more than her words. The curiosity of her smile did not reach the rest of her expression. Whatever she was trying to discern, she had already figured it out with my reaction to her question. Half a second. That was all she needed. What I actually said out loud now, that was irrelevant. Just a formality. You could feel the descent of Taa’s reasoning the instant it was pointed at you. It was a physical sensation. Something like being watched from afar. Your thoughts left behind trails, just like wounded animals did when they were running through a forest. Taa pieced together the crumbs on these trails to paint a picture of what your mind was racing toward.
“Yes, because Dh’hpur spoke it, and also… I don’t know, it just came up.” I tried to keep my answer vague. Taa would know I was doing that consciously, but there was a point in that too. These were the layers that formed in our conversations. “They were speaking it in the forest. The daemons. I wanted to understand.” That was only half the truth. I could push it a step further. “What if a daemon came to me in a dream? I’d want to understand it if it said anything in Voz’ruhdal.”
Mother’s eyes darkened to a penetrating color. “Dina, have you had a nightmare where Voz’ruhdal was spoken?”
“No, no,” I quickly replied. “I’m just saying. Taa, today in the forest, I did not feel prepared. Voz’ruhdal would have helped. Maybe other things as well. I saw my mistakes. How much my thinking was debilitated in the moment. The stress. All the things you warned me about in my training. They came more intensely than I expected. At times I wasn’t sure if my thinking was too slow or narrow, or if there really was no solution to the problem I was facing.”
“A solution must exist,” Taa said. “That is the nature of all things. If a problem does not have a solution, then the problem itself creates the solution.” She held up a fist as she spoke. There were always lines running across the sides of her knuckles. Shallow ones, like paper cuts on her bones. She would get these from feeding stray cats, catching their teeth wherever her flesh smelled a bit too much like the fish she was holding. Bring anything that resembled tuna or eilish to the narrow passages and roofless sheds of Lower Chaya, and it would take only a few minutes for the lurid glares to pile up. They came one after the other. Pairs and pairs of of wet, yellow eyes. Upper Chaya had its nobles and its courtiers, and the central kingdom had its silk merchants and devout priests—but the lords of Lower Chaya were an entirely different species of shrewd.
She had taken me down there once to feed the cats with her. They cooed before they went for your fingers, or an eye if they were feeling bold. Taa said it was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard.
I glanced outside.
The blue moon passed its peak.
The night sighed.
Taa continued, “You do not see the solution as often as you think you should because you are not cunning. You are just a clever girl. A very clever girl, yes, but not cunning. It is the difference between knowing death as an old friend and knowing death as a lover. You understand?”
For a moment, I just sat there thinking about how simply Taa’s words could affect me. They accomplished far more than a scolding from Mother or a glare from Father ever could. When Taa spoke seriously, she leaned in to your direction. No more than an inch or two—but it felt like her whole shawl was swaying inward.
“I want to learn, Taa. To be cunning.”
“Do you want to learn now?” Her tone was casual, like she was only asking the question out of curiosity, but her eyes had formed an invitation.
“Yes.”
Mother broke in. “Dina, it’s getting late—”
“Now, Taa,” I said, not looking at Mother.
“Come, Dina.” Taa stretched a hand out.
I couldn’t tell you why, but today, there was much more to that outstretched hand than her usual summons. I had a choice. I could take it, or go to sleep. If we resumed tomorrow, the training might be the same, but the path would be different.
I glanced outside again.
I looked to my right this time.
Chaya was sleeping.
Glacies was rising.
“The two of you should go back to your room,” Mother said to Yephi and Iris.
“Why!?” Yephi jumped up. “We can watch how Taa trains Dina. I’ve never seen it. Maybe we can learn something.”
Iris sat up from bed, her tiredness gone. “I don’t know what your plans are Mother, but I’ll not be leaving. I’ll be watching.”
Mother rolled her eyes, then laid on my bed, arms outstretched in defeat.
“I don’t think it will be anything the two of you will find interesting,” I said. “It’s not magic. You’ll be disappointed at how trivial it is.”
“The way is not trivial,” Taa interjected. Not irately, but her voice carried weight. “Dina, it is true. Your sisters may not be as adept as you when it comes to the way, perhaps no one that you’ve met is, but you underestimate what they find value in. More importantly, you underestimate the way itself. Come, sit here. I want to tell you something. It is for all of you, but it is especially important that Dina listens.”
I walked over and sat in front of Taa. This position, Taa on a chair, me sitting with my legs folded on the floor in front of her, it went back for as far as I could remember. One of my earliest memories was sitting like this while listening to words in other languages. Taa would recite poems for me. In Old Emelim, Emel, Emelin, Angpur. A myriad of different languages. The world slowed here, and Taa let me graze the limits of my thinking.
“Hah! Time flies,” Mother exclaimed. “I remember doing this myself all too well, ahjur. Sitting where Dina is sitting right now. You’d ask me questions like what were the colors of all the banners in the hall we were in? You’d always ask about the things you knew I wasn’t paying attention to. We did this once, right after a Royal Court meeting in the great hall, many years ago. It was just like today’s. I remember being so awed by the palace when I saw it for the first time.”
“And now it is your palace,” Taa said. Mother blushed.
Taa laughed. She shuffled through her shawl and took out her toeu. “Dina can go a bit further than naming the colors of banners, ayetha.” She rolled the cone of sour tobacco between her fingers, making certain not to look at it. She would try and keep the temptation from moving beyond her hands for as long as she could. She moved a finger on her other hand. A long, crooked nail, extending not from the top of her finger but from the center of it, was pointed at me. “Not many people know what I am about to tell you. Listen like I am sharing Dh’hpur’s last words.”
Mother snickered from the bed.
I didn’t reply or nod, only stared at Taa. Taa said the most gracious gift a student could give to their teacher was stillness.
“You are a piece on a very large board. A board that encompasses all of Mirradalia—both the old continent, and the new. This war was meant to be started later, but for reasons beyond the control of the Sisterhood, it has begun now. You were supposed to be given more time to be trained in the way. Your father was never expected to win this war, only to start it. You were expected to take his throne and win it. Not only have we started too early, but this new piece of information we’ve received from the Serpentine tribes… it complicates things.”
“Saythana?” I asked.
Taa nodded. “The reason why no one has ever been able to defeat Narkissa before, the reason why no kingdom has ever done more than lay eyes upon the Shaed from afar, is because no one truly understands Narkissa. They think she is like other daemons. A mindless vampire queen. Hungry for blood and violence. People refuse to see otherwise, even when the Sisterhood attempts to correct them. They are too afraid to acknowledge what she really is.”
“What she really is?”
“Ayetha… Narkissa knows the way. She doesn’t just understand it—she knows it better than anyone. Better than the nobles and courtiers who try to use it for their own small ends. Better than the queens and kings who rule our world. Better than the High Priestess of the Sisterhood and her acolytes.”
“She knows it better than you?”
Taa’s eyes flickered to Mother for a moment. “Yes, I’m afraid so. And not by a small margin. I do not even compare to her grasp of the way. No one does.”
I cocked my head to the side. “I find that a bit hard to believe.”
“Which is exactly what everyone thinks when they hear it. And even if some people acknowledge it, they do not acknowledge the true extent of it. This is why we have lost both wars before against Rhauk. Why the vampire queen has ruled for almost three centuries. You’ll trust me on this? No matter what your hesitations are. I know I tell you to question things, ayetha. To always be skeptical of when people tell you truths. But for this one thing, I ask you to take my word. I ask you to believe me without question or doubt, and to never forget it. Otherwise, you will fail against her.”
“I will trust you, Taa.”
“Good.” She held up five fingers. “Narkissa plays chutrang on a five-dimensional plane. What she sees and thinks, her movements, she makes it all look like the work of a daemon blinded by bloodlust and power, but it is not. She is calculating. She is cunning. You like to show off, Dina. You can be arrogant. It is okay to be like this when you are young, but it is a weakness. Something like this, Narkissa will want to manipulate. She will want to use it against you or use it to predict your movements. When Narkissa plans to take down a kingdom, she does not focus on tactical weaknesses or what their army formations look like. She likes to learn about their leaders. Their weaknesses.” Taa pointed to her head. “Narkissa wants to know what kind of daemons lurk in here, and she wants to see if they will listen to her. You understand?”
“I understand.”
Taa pointed to her forearm. “Narkissa’s greatest ally is time. She is immortal. You must remember that, always. If a kingdom declares war on her, she will strike, but not right away. Not when people expect her to strike. She’ll wait years, and then she’ll come. When leaders of the world stand up to her, she waits for the anxiety of their own mortality to creep into their thoughts and urge them into mistakes. Everyone rushes to the Shaed. That is why the darkness always takes them.”
Taa leaned back in her seat. I repeated her words in my mind. Taa didn’t speak with this kind of intensity often. I wouldn’t forget what she said, but I wanted to make sure I could recall her words with precision. If I memorized them, I could dissect her thoughts syllable-by-syllable later.
“Now, Dina, let us begin,” Taa said. Do you remember the people in the great hall today? How many of them there were?”
“Two hundred and forty seven. Seven people left while I was there. Nine people entered.”
I saw Mother and Yephi fidgeting from the corner of my eyes. Iris got out of bed and sat on the floor. A bit closer to us, but she kept a comfortable distance.
“Good,” Taa continued, hinting at a smile toward Mother. “Tell me what you noticed about every person. Start with the spectacled man with the green scarf sitting at the Speight table.”
I closed my eyes.
Enter the great hall. Walk to the right. Watch the people. Touch the table by the window. Fourteen people sit here. A man with a green scarf. Speak to him. See his clothes. Look at the blue moon. Watch his pockets. The shape of the things in them. How he speaks. How he looks. His eyes. He doesn’t smile often. He has a grey mustache. There are blue-green threads on the shoulders of his coat. A master alchemist. Watch his body language. Feel for his tone. Keep track of what he is d
oing while Queen O’nell walks toward me. Step to the front of the great hall, but watch him still. Speak to Father, but watch him still. Listen to the courtiers and nobles give their introductions, but watch him still. Try to guess when he is listening and when he is not. Remember the room when I am standing by the wine casks. Watch him from my peripherals.
“A guild master,” I said. “An acquaintance of uncle. A new ally. His first time in the palace. He arrived early yesterday but did not stay in the palace. His clothes were from Mimenhi. He carried no sword. He doesn’t approve of the war. He wants us to continue our conflicts with the Serpentine tribes. While I was speaking to Queen O’nell, Uncle walked up to him. I cannot read their lips from my memory, but I remember Uncle holding his shoulder.”
“Good, Dina, good,” Taa said. “Go deep into your mind, and go slowly. That is the way.”
CHAPTER 19
“Dina, come open the door for me,” a voice said.
I was used to waking up in the middle of the night, but never to the sound of someone else’s voice. Iris and Yephi would always nudge me if they needed something. I was a light sleeper when I wasn’t dreaming. That made it easy to wake me in the first half of the night, and nearly impossible by the second half. It also made Cecily’s job much harder on days when I had class early. For all the privileges that came with being heir to the throne of Chaya, going late to alchemy lessons wasn’t one of them. Mother had made it clear to my teachers at the Cathedral that I was never to be given special treatment. Besides Father Clairmont, most of the priests and mothers were harder on me than average. Some of them, like Mother Helen, took every opportunity to punish me to demonstrate their belief that no one was above the Church. Even when I faked incredibly powerful magic, she would do no more than give me a nod of approval. On the other hand, if I did something wrong, she would come down upon me with the full wrath of a scorned priest.
I’m not saying I planned on getting revenge on anyone once I was queen—but I did have a list of names that I updated every now and then.
Vermilion Dreams Page 32