"I don't know," Maya said.
"You do." Avinasi smiled thinly, revealing the tips of toothless gums.
Maya swallowed. "You've served Zohar loyally for many years, Avinasi, and are well respected both here and across the sea. In honor of your wisdom, Emperor Marcus has allowed you to remain in your homeland."
The lumer barked a hoarse laugh. "A diplomatic way of calling me old. Yes, child, you speak truth. I'm too frail to be sent overseas. I would only take up space in the ships of Aelar, likely to arrive dead in that distant kingdom. Ah, but you, child . . ." Avinasi reached out her stick-thin fingers and caressed Maya's cheek. "You are young, in the full bloom of youth. How old are you?"
"Fifteen."
"I was younger than you when I first studied Luminosity from the eastern mistresses, when I gazed fully into the light. You have the gift, do you not? I can sense it in you. Your body, your heart, your soul, your mind—they are soaked with lume, as bread soaks oil."
Maya lowered her head. "I have the gift, Avinasi, though my mother has banned it. I dare not luminate the lume, lest the eagles of Aelar fetch me, fly me to their nests."
Avinasi walked toward the edge of the palace balcony. She stood between two columns, staring eastward. The sandy wind billowed and jangled her gown. "Tell me, child, what do you see in the east?"
"Sand," Maya said. "Dunes. An endless desert. The wilderness beyond our kingdom. The end of the world."
"There is no end to the world, child, and while the earthly kingdom of Zohar has its boundaries, the kingdom of Luminosity is eternal and infinite. There is life beyond the desert. There is a secret place." Avinasi turned toward her, eyes narrowing, and clutched her hand. "The eagles have not plucked all lumers. I've been sending a precious few, a hidden handful, to my eastern sisters, ancient mistresses who shine and teach beyond the desert. This city of Beth Eloh is the world's greatest fountain of lume, but there is another spring, child . . . a hidden light. A place where lumers can be free."
Maya's eyes widened. She gasped. "But . . . Master Malaci, the sage of Gefen, claims that lume can be found only in Zohar."
The winds gusted, blowing a thin veil of sand onto the city. "Master Malaci is wise in the ways of astronomy, herbology, and lore, but we, child, we are the mistresses of magic. Men deal with earth and metal and flesh; we women are beings of light. Our life force, the precious lume, is like the bitumen buried under the earth. Invisible to all who know its secret dwellings. The ancients built Beth Eloh here on this mountain, for here the flow of lume is a geyser. But as bitumen can be found buried in small, distant pockets, so can lume." Avinasi pointed toward the east. "And there, far beyond the endless distance, beyond deserts and mountains and the halls of cruel kings, a thin trickle of lume flows—no more than a hint, detectable to only the greatest lumers." Avinasi turned back toward Maya and grabbed her arms, her fingers coiling and tightening like shackles. "You must travel there, child. You must cross the desert, and you must seek my sisters, for a great storm rises, a storm that will bury our light."
The sandy wind billowed her hair, and Maya gasped, caught in the grip of the old woman. Avinasi's blazing green eyes seemed to strip off her clothes, her skin, exposing her very soul, all her innermost dreams and secrets.
"I . . . I can't," Maya said, trembling.
"Do you not wish to study Luminosity, child?"
"I do. More than anything!" Maya nodded emphatically. "But my mother—"
"—does not understand the ways of light."
Maya lowered her head. "She does not. She struck me once, when I summoned luminescence to heal her cut finger. But she did so because she loves me, because she wants to keep me safe. I can't leave her, Avinasi. I can't leave my family or the rest of Zohar, not at this hour of great darkness. How can I just run away?"
"Run away?" Avinasi stroked her hair. "You've been running away all your life, child. Running from your true destiny. Hiding from who you can become, a great lumer, a figure of mercy and effulgence. It's time to walk the path of light, a path that will lead you east, to knowledge, to grace."
Maya looked away. Her eyes dampened. "I'm sorry, Avinasi. I want this more than anything, but I can't. As you do not abandon your king, I cannot abandon my mother."
A strange smile crinkled Avinasi's face. "Do you sense it, child?"
Something in Avinasi's eyes made Maya shiver. "Sense what?"
"Use the lume. Illuminate it and see. Your mother isn't here, and I will guide you, a first lesson."
Maya meant to refuse. She still shuddered to remember how she had summoned so much lume outside the city, how the luminescence had nearly drowned her, and she had promised her mother. And yet so much lume flowed here in Beth Eloh, and so much soaked her body, that she could not help it. The mere suggestion of luminating it shattered her walls. The lume flowed through Maya, and she ignited it, weaving it around her, letting it glow, flow around her, turn into luminescence—into magic. The light shone in her eyes.
"You are strong in the magic," said Avinasi. "You are a child of great light. Control it, Maya Sela! You summon too much. It will burn you. Master the luminescence lest it masters you."
Yet Maya could barely hear the old lumer. She fell to her knees, overwhelmed, weeping. So much light. So much history. The past, the future, the present, rolling around her, all woven of light. She saw the dog approaching her from the hill. She saw her sisters—a warrior on a wall, a tortured soul in a tent. She saw her brothers—afraid, facing war. Their voices called to her. The voices of her family. The voices of a million souls, of ancient tribes, of outcasts, of dying boys, of burning children, of crucified fathers. She saw this city a thousand times, a city of ancient prophets, a city of great kings, a city burning, a city crumbling, a—
"Master it!" Hands reached through the light to grasp her. "You're like a cracked dam, seeping all its water. Shape the luminescence! Weave it around you. Focus on the northern hills. Listen. Seek the glow there."
Maya trembled, on her knees, the glow spinning around her, struggling to grab the strands, to wrestle them under her command. So many visions filled the light. Her father crying out to her, blood on his brow. Ofeer weeping, reaching to her. Her brothers dying on the field. Visions. Dreams. Possible futures, interweaving, shattering, reforming. Maya clenched her jaw.
"Weave the light, child." Avinasi's voice rose through the storm, a single pillar of calmness. "Weave it into a thin strand. Focus to the north. Use the Sight."
Maya gasped for breath, focusing, grabbing the light, letting it slip away, grabbing it again, pulling it downward. And she was doing it. Weaving the strands. Bending them to her will. She laughed, suddenly no longer tumbling through a storm but riding its waves, staring north, seeing.
And she saw.
Her tears burned down her cheeks.
"I see, Avinasi! I see . . . a light. Like the moon. A strong light wrapped in chains. Hurt." Maya cringed. "So much pain. It . . . it's taking form! It looks like a woman. A woman all in light, but fading and flickering, hurt."
Avinasi nodded. "You see another lumer. Her mistress, the cruel Porcia Octavius, calls her Worm, though her true name is Noa Bat Seean, a daughter of Zohar in chains. Her light reached out to me only days ago. She asked me to come here, to Beth Eloh, for our gates to open and welcome her. Do you see who walks with her?"
Maya narrowed her eyes, staring into the light . . . and she saw.
She gasped and lost her magic. Her luminescence fled like wine from a shattered jug.
Maya ran. Panting, she leaped between two columns, grabbed them for support, and stared north. The wind gusted, whipping her hair, tossing sand onto her.
"They're coming," Maya whispered. "Only hours away. Spears. Iron. Sand and death."
She spun away from the view. She forgot about her magic, forgot about the secrets of the east, forgot about Avinasi. Maya raced into the palace, seeking her mother.
YOHANAN
Yohanan Elior, eldest son of late Queen S
ifora, paced his tent, his belly knotting.
"Aelar invades." He gripped the hilt of his sword. "An empire of eagles attacks, and we languish here outside the walls of Beth Eloh. Damn it, my aunt is right. My brother and I need to end this conflict."
"Yet what can you do?" Ishay lounged on the bed, plucking a lyre's strings. Candles glowed around him. "You've sent your aunt into the city to speak sense to your brother. Come now, lie down beside me. Drink wine and rest."
"Rest?" Yohanan scoffed. "How can I rest when I'm here, trapped between the closed gates of my city and an invasion of eagles?"
Ishay plucked a random lyre string. "I'm resting successfully."
"You always rest." Yohanan pointed at the younger man. "You have no concept of the burden of a king."
"And thank God for that!" Ishay placed down his lyre, sipped wine, and stretched.
Yohanan spent a moment looking at his companion. Sometimes Ishay could be infuriating. He was a young man, barely more than a boy, and fair to look upon. His curly brown hair was just long enough to fall across his ears and forehead, and his eyes were grayish green, the color of a forest under a storm. Unlike Yohanan, who wore armor and bore a sword, Ishay lay in a cotton tunic, and his blade lay on the floor.
Yohanan thought back to that day, three years ago, when Ishay had first come into his life. A cocky youth, the son of a shepherd. Slender and fair, clad in only a tunic, armed with only a sling.
Shefael tried to kill me that day, Yohanan thought. My own brother.
The five brutes, the champions of Shefael's army, had come upon Yohanan in an olive grove, determined to slay the eldest son of Queen Sifora. Their mother had not been dead a week, and already Shefael had sent his knives after his brother. Yohanan had fought them well, had slain two before a blow knocked him down. The three remaining assassins towered above him, grinning, knives raised, and Yohanan prayed to God to save his life or welcome him into his eternal grace.
And God had answered his prayers. Answered with a beautiful youth, a shepherd's boy with crook and sling. Those smooth river stones had sailed through the air, had slammed into the forehead of assassin after assassin, slaying them between the olive trees.
Older now, gaunter, harder, Yohanan stood in the tent and gazed upon his companion, this boy who had barely changed even through three years of fire.
"Three years ago," Yohanan said, "you delivered me from my brother. You gave me my life, and you gave me your love, and since that day, Ishay, you've fought with me against him, against the man who still tries to kill me. You know the cruelty of Shefael. The hatred he bears me, bears us. Join us? He will refuse. You know this. Shefael would rather hide behind the walls and see Aelar smash us against them. He would rather see Emperor Marcus Octavius rule Zohar than his own brother."
"Then he's a fool." Ishay rose from bed and walked toward him. "Then we'll defeat them both. If the legions of Aelar reach us here, we'll cast them back into the sea, with or without your brother."
Yohanan stared at the map on his table, showing the known world. He gazed upon the kingdom of Zohar—a narrow strip of land, trapped between sea and sand, so small one could traverse it within mere days. To the south loomed the land of Nur, fifty times the size of Zohar; the ancient savanna civilization, once the mightiest kingdom in the world, was now the largest province in the Aelarian Empire. East of Zohar spread the kingdom of Sekadia, still free, still vast, a full hundred times the size of Zohar; here sprawled the great desert power that Aelar had not yet crushed. And in the northwest, across the Encircled Sea—Aelar itself, a mere city on the coast, a beast that spread its tentacles across the world, pulling nation after nation into its embrace, building the mightiest empire in history. On this map, Zohar was but a speck, small as a scorpion caught between battling elephants. What hope did Yohanan have to remain free in this world of fire and sand?
"We need him," Yohanan said. "God damn it, we need Shefael. We need his troops. We need his horses."
"You have me. That counts for something, doesn't it?" Ishay stroked Yohanan's hair. "You've always had me, in light and darkness, in peace and in war. You always have my sword, my music, my love."
Ishay's lips were soft against his, his hair scented of frankincense, his hands flowing like myrrh. Yohanan nodded and caressed his companion's cheek.
"I know, Ishay. I love you more than I love Zohar, more than the sun loves the sky, more than I could ever love a woman."
The young musician scoffed. "When have you ever loved a woman in any capacity?"
Yohanan bristled. "You injure me, my Ishay. You know how I loved my mother! But you're right. Remember the time my parents tried to marry me to that woman from the southern fort—what was her name?"
"Lee'el."
"Lee'el! That's it. Sweet enough girl, but a blade I'm glad I dodged." Yohanan sighed. "Someday when I'm king, I'll be forced to marry, to father heirs. In some ways I'm thankful this war has delayed the inevitable. Though I suppose now, with Aelar's invasion, it all falls apart. This dream we had of winning the throne. What good is a throne if the kingdom falls?"
"Don't let despair claim you. I won't allow it." Ishay's eyes hardened. "Someday when you're king? You are a king. You are your mother's firstborn. You lead your people bravely, not cowering in a palace while they starve. You are now, and always will be, the King of Zohar, and you will lead us both into Beth Eloh and to victory against Aelar. And I'm proud to fight at your side." He kissed Yohanan's cheek, then kissed his lips again. "Now will you lie down and rest?"
"No." Yohanan grabbed Ishay's hand. "Come with me, shepherd's boy. Walk with me outside. I can't languish in this tent a moment longer. I must walk outside among my warriors, let them see they still have a king."
They left the tent together. Their camp sprawled across the dark mountainside, thousands of warriors—men, women, youths—walking to and fro, clad in armor, armed with spears and swords. The moon shone above. Olive trees clung to the mountain, trunks gnarled like ancient faces, their fruit long gone. Beasts moved here too—fine horses, weary with war; camels laden with saddles and weapons; cows and sheep, givers of milk and meat; and donkeys hauling wood and water. In this war of kings, even the beasts of the field fought for this land.
The wall of Beth Eloh soared a mil away, the wall they had been trying to breach for a year now. Yohanan stared at the city battlements, at the towers that rose beyond them, topped with gold and copper and silver. Yohanan had not the gift of Luminosity—no man in Zohar did, and only a handful of women—but whenever he gazed upon the City of God, he felt its holiness, its antiquity.
"City of Kings," Yohanan said softly. "City of copper and light. Home of God and fountain of Luminosity. For three years now, it has hurt me, Ishay. That my mother named Shefael heir. But that pain is nothing compared to the pain I would feel should Aelar shatter these walls, should profane these holy stones, should raise their false idols in the Temple that has given us light for a thousand years."
Ishay placed a hand on his shoulder, and they gazed together at the city. "Queen Sifora's final will was forged. You know I believe that. I always have. The handwriting was hers, yes, but done with Shefael's hand. He will not keep this city, nor will Aelar claim it. You are the one true king of Zohar. God's grace shines upon you. A path of darkness spreads before you, my king, but it ends in light."
Yohanan ran his fingers between the leaves of an olive tree. Slender, dark, firm leaves like little blades. He remembered how, as a child, he and his brother would pick these leaves. They would carefully perforate one leaf—just a slit—and place a second leaf into the tear, forming a little boat with a sail. Their leaf boats would always tilt over in puddles, yet the siblings would spend hours building more. It was funny, Yohanan thought. They had been princes, sons of a great queen, with the finest toys from across the world—little soldiers that moved when you wound them up, platinum animals with ruby eyes, dice of precious metals, and model ships that were masterworks of polished wood and cloth. And
yet they had preferred building boats from olive leaves, playing with emptied snail shells, with pine cones and apricot seeds, with the toys of common children.
And now we play with armies, Yohanan thought. Now we play a game of swords and arrows and thrones.
"I wonder, Ishay," he said softly, "how many other kingdoms thought the same. How many kings, queens, and warriors around the Encircled Sea spoke of their gods blessing them, of paths of light, of royalty and timeless divinity. They all fell. Leer. Berenia. Nur. Phedia. Kalintia. Denegar. One by one, washed under the waves like kingdoms of sand."
"We are no kingdom of sand," Ishay said. "We are a kingdom of iron, of gold, and of light."
Iron can rust, Yohanan thought. Gold can melt. Light can fall into shadow.
As if to confirm his fears, distant drums beat.
Across the camp, warriors frowned and stared. Some fell to their knees and began to pray. Others drew their swords and arrows.
Horns blew. Horns of warning and horns of war.
Yohanan ran. He leaped onto his camel, and Ishay mounted a second dromedary. They rode through the camp, racing between warriors and olive trees. More camels and horses galloped with them, and soldiers ran, and still those horns blared, and still those drums beat.
They raced up a dry, rocky hill that bulged atop the plateau, affording a view of the landscape for parsa'ot around. Sandy wind blew, scented of the desert.
Yohanan halted his camel and stared.
Paths of darkness, he thought. A city of stone and light. A boy who came into my life with sling and faith. An ancient kingdom under God's grace, a people who stood and sang and prayed and lived for thousands of years, from wild tribes in the desert to kings on thrones of gold. All will fall. All will burn.
There, from the north, they marched. Thousands of legionaries, all in iron, their spears rising like a forest. The army that had never been vanquished, the army that had conquered the world. Their standards rose high, glinting in the sunlight—eagles of gold, eagles of wrath, eagles of death.
Kings of Ruin (Kingdoms of Sand Book 1) Page 24