The Heart Forger

by Rin Chupeco

  “It is my honor today,” King Telemaine said, “to officially declare the engagement of my son, Crown Prince Kance, to the beautiful Princess Inessa, the First Daughter of Kion!”

  The crowd cheered. Kance’s eyes widened, and he turned pale for a moment before swiftly recovering. I stumbled back.

  “Steady,” Fox instructed, though the faint tremor in his voice painted his own words shaky. He could not look away from Princess Inessa, who spotted him but averted her gaze.

  The next couple of hours passed in a daze. I was barely cognizant of what I was doing, like I was watching myself through some other person’s eyes. I looked on as I smiled and shook the hand of the beaming King Telemaine. “I must commend Polaire for helping me bring this all together,” he said with his customary near-deafening laugh. “She is a treasure, your Polaire.”

  “Is she, Your Majesty?” I heard myself murmur, struggling to make small talk.

  “She broke up a plot of the Faceless against the Yadoshans—an attempt on Lord Besserly’s life, their Grand Duke. Endeared them to us in the process, so we’re in talks for a better trade route. And she was most supportive regarding my son’s engagement. I cannot thank her and you, asha, enough.”

  I barely had time to congratulate Princess Inessa before a bevy of handmaidens swept her away to the next group of well-wishers.

  Then Prince Kance’s hand grasped mine. With as much sincerity as I could muster, I found myself mouthing platitudes, wishing him all the best in his forthcoming marriage.

  He smiled back, and I wondered if I only imagined the faint melancholy lingering at the edges of his mouth. “Thank you, Tea,” he said, “I’m glad you approve.” His kind words dug deeper into my gut. “I only wish that…” He stopped, staring over my shoulder with a puzzled frown.

  I turned but saw no one. “Prince Kance?”

  He blinked and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’ve been having headaches for the last few days.”

  “You must not work yourself too hard, Your Highness.”

  “I know, but I’ve had little time to rest, and Lady Altaecia’s herbal teas don’t seem to be working.” His green eyes, worried, met mine. Then he said, “I wanted to tell you sooner. About the engagement. I should have told you sooner. I don’t understand why I didn’t.”

  “I thought you didn’t know,” I said, bewildered. “You looked fairly shocked at the announcement.”

  “I knew. I just wasn’t expecting Father to issue the proclamation today. And he didn’t…” He stopped, frowning, almost seeming to forget I was there.

  “Are you all right, Your Highness?”

  “Kance,” Kalen said, materializing behind the prince, “your father wishes to speak to you.”

  The prince shook his head and smiled weakly at me again. “I have to go. Thank you again, Lady Tea. Kalen, keep her company for me.”

  “I have better things to do.”

  “No, you don’t.” The prince’s voice was unnaturally stern. “See to her concerns. I want you to watch over Lady Tea the same way you watch over me. I have some important matters I need to discuss with Father.”

  “She can handle herself just fine.”

  “Please, Kalen.”

  Kalen scowled. Together, we watched the prince leave, but as soon as he was out of sight, I spun around.

  “And where do you think you’re going?” Kalen demanded.

  “Away.” Kalen was the last person I wanted to see me cry. I took a step toward the door, and he grabbed my hand.

  “Listen here, Tea. I know that you’re—”

  I whirled back, my eyes glistening. “I thought you had better things to do,” I hissed.

  Kalen hesitated, staring at my face. After a moment, he let go.

  Fox was waiting for me by the doorway. His face was grim, as he was eager to be off himself. But Polaire caught me as we were leaving. “Come here, Tea,” she commanded. “Stay. Their royal majesties would be offended by you slinking away like this.”

  Perhaps it was the events of the day compounded by my vulnerability, but I chose to be snippy. “I don’t want to.”

  Polaire frowned. “Immaturity isn’t becoming of an asha, Tea.”

  “Maybe if you didn’t persist in treating me like a child, I might be more motivated to act like an adult!”

  She scowled, displeased by the furtive looks being thrown our way. “Is this because I neglected to tell you about our plan with Likh? Come now, Tea. You shouldn’t fuss over such a trivial matter.”

  “Yes, I should. I suppose your taking credit for rescuing Lord Besserly shouldn’t be held against you either. Or the prince’s own engagement, which I had no inkling of until the announcement an hour ago.”

  “Tea, that’s not fair.”

  Tea, Fox warned me. This is not the time.

  I knew I had to leave. To lose my temper in a roomful of nobles would not be to anyone’s advantage, least of all my own. But I couldn’t resist one last dig.

  “Or perhaps it would suit you better if I shut my mouth and did as you wish, like a little toy dog performing tricks for no purpose other than to please you. Perhaps it shouldn’t matter that I risk life and limb to put down daeva, risk sanity to confront a Faceless you are too cowardly to interrogate yourself. But I’m the immature one, aren’t I?”

  I didn’t wait for Polaire’s response. I turned on my heel and strode off, glad she realized her hypocrisy enough not to pursue.

  The celebrations continued for the rest of the night until, I was told later, the early hours of the morning. Fox and I said little, looking out from my window into the world below, at the expanse of the city. “What are we doing?” I finally asked. “How ridiculous are we to be depressed about two people who are engaged to one other?”

  “At least we’re still doing things together.”

  I started giggling, and it caught on. Fox and I laughed at our absurdity, laughed until we had exhausted our surplus, until the lights winked out, one after the other, as the twenty thousand eyes of the city closed to dream.

  Fox stayed with me until I fell asleep. When I woke sometime later, he was gone. I could feel him somewhere within Kneave, aimless. Beyond him, the shadows stirred and sighed, the azi sensing my melancholy and commiserating.

  Alone in my room, I held up my heartsglass. Framed against the moonlight, it sparkled back at me. Resigned sadness occasionally marred the surface, but to my credit, neither resentment nor anger clouded its glass. It would take much more than this, I knew, to break my heart.

  “I heard of the engagement,” I said, intrigued despite myself. “I had always wondered what brought it about.” Kion rarely made arranged marriages. Possessions and titles were passed down through the matriarchal line, so their women often had a say in who they married.

  The bone witch closed her eyes, as if done with the conversation. “I can feel him, Kalen,” she said after a moment. “He’s here in the palace.” She strode to the still-cowering emperor, and her voice rose. “Where do you keep him, maggot? If you have shorn so much as a strand of white hair from his head, you will regret it for days.”

  The Daanorian noble cringed. The Dark asha’s hand whipped through the air, and he sank back, crying out in pain.

  “The prisons,” he gasped. “The prisons!”

  The asha’s eyes hardened. She stepped toward the fallen man and crouched. “You will stay here until I return,” she said. “You will not move or blink from the moment I step out of the throne room until the moment I step back in. If you so much as twitch, I shall twist your insides and roll out your entrails like a royal carpet, and you will die as you choke on your own liver, your heart in my fist.”

  The emperor said nothing and remained stock-still, his eyes round with fear.

  And then, inexplicably, the asha began to laugh. “You are powerless. You are powerless! You are
nothing more than an illusion. Oh, the irony!” She pushed him, sending him sprawling back to his corner. “If I find him harmed in any way, Your Majesty, I shall make good on my promise to gut you.”

  The aeshma plodded nearer, settled itself at the base of the throne, keeping a languid, lazy eye on the dethroned noble.

  Kalen rose as well. “I will search for the princess, and I will ask the soldiers about the blight. There might have been more sightings.”

  The asha nodded. “Follow me, Bard. There is someone I would like you to meet.”

  I followed her down the hallway and into an unused wing of the palace. The asha knew the way; she drew a sword and a locked wooden door shattered under its blow. Darkness beckoned us in. She led me down to the dungeons, and I shuddered to think of what we might find there.

  But only one of the cells was occupied. Its prisoner sat, unblinking, as the asha moved closer. Even in the gloom, his heartsglass shone a blinding silver that was a light all on its own.

  “This is Khalad, Bard,” the asha said. “The first-born son of Odalia, the former crown prince of House Wyath, and Heartforger to the Eight Kingdoms.”

  Khalad stared up at us from underneath a shock of white hair—though he was still a young man, no older than Lord Kalen—with eyes almost the same shade as his heartsglass.

  “What took you so long?” he asked quietly.

  6

  “And to what do I owe this honor?” Aenah drawled. “Two visits in two days! What a wonderful surpri—”

  The rest of her words were cut off as she sagged back against the wall, coughing uncontrollably, her hands clutching at her throat. I hated being in her head, even when forcing her to do as I wanted. But I had all of the anger and none of the patience, and this was the fastest way to find my answers.

  “Tea!” Fox had never followed me inside the cell before. Khalad was close on my brother’s heels, looking nervous.

  “How did you know?” I nearly snarled.

  “How did I know what?” Aenah gasped, struggling for breath.

  “Quite ominous circumstances for a betrothal, I’d think.” I echoed her words from my last visit. “How did you know about the prince’s engagement to the Kion princess?” I ignored Fox’s startle of surprise. The thought that someone within the prince’s inner circle worked for this Faceless scum was terrifying enough. “Who are your spies? Tell me!”

  The woman laughed weakly. “You have nothing to fear, Tea. I compel no one from the Odalian nobility. I simply found a flaw in your wards.”

  I applied more pressure—not enough to rob her of speech but enough for her to realize I was willing to do worse. “This room is warded with enough magic to stop a daeva!”

  Aenah smiled. “You exaggerate. The magic here is impressive, that is true. It prevents me from escaping. The wards can cloud your bond with your brave older brother here and, to a lesser extent, with the azi you share your innermost thoughts with.”

  “What?” Fox exclaimed, but I refused to let go.

  “Are you saying you can overcome these wards?”

  “Not in the way you believe.” She tapped her forehead. “When you were but an asha apprentice, I was foolish enough to think I could compel you. I could plant suggestions in your mind and you would believe them as your own. All that changed, however, when the azi chose you. And now it is I who, embarrassingly enough, must dance to your tune.”

  “That’s not an answer,” I said, seething.

  “It is called a Scrying rune.”

  “There is no such thing as a Scrying rune.”

  “Do you require a demonstration?” Aenah closed her eyes, and a strange rune flickered across my mind, one I had never seen before.

  Fox tensed, ready and watchful.

  The Compulsion rune flared brighter as I plunged into her head, commanding her to remain still, to do nothing. And yet I could sense her thoughts drifting where I could not reach.

  “There is a guard stationed outside my door named Garveth. His wife is nine months with child and due for labor any day. But he worries his duties at his post prevent him from being with her should her water break.”

  Fox left the room before she had even finished her thought.

  “He must be a joy to have around,” Aenah said cheerfully. “Aren’t you glad you could spend more time with your brother than fate originally intended?”

  I tightened her hold, and her smug grin vanished. “Explain yourself.”

  “I imagine it would be a difficult to teach you the Scrying rune in this small cell, all the wards being what they are. Perhaps a small compensation for my assistance—a larger room, perhaps an actual bed—”

  “No.”

  “You wanted a memory. Why not ask the young Heartforger to extract it now from my mind? He can see for himself that I do not lie.”

  I glanced at Khalad, who nodded. “If this is another trick…” I warned.

  Khalad laid a finger against the Faceless woman’s heartsglass. His eyes widened, and his hand trembled.

  “Don’t be shy,” Aenah cooed. “Do not let my unusual memories color your judgment of me.”

  With a violent jerk, Khalad stepped back. Violet-hued smoke clung to his fingers. “I got it,” he said hoarsely.

  “Are you all right, Khalad?”

  “Yes. It’s just…her mind…”

  “I should have warned you,” the Faceless said cheerfully. “I have quite the checkered past.”

  “She’s telling the truth.” Khalad placed the purple smoke inside a glass vial. “But scrying is the extent of what she can do.”

  Fox returned, scowling. “The guard’s name is Garveth. It’s true, every word she says. Damn her. He swore he never talked to her, much less entered this room.”

  “He could be lying,” I insisted.

  “I can give you more examples if you wish,” Aenah offered. “The prince was here. I brushed against a royal mind some days ago. He worried that his sheltered upbringing prevents him from ruling Odalia. He wished to see more of the land beyond its borders, to allow him a better understanding of his people. Incidentally, it was in his mind where I first gleaned knowledge of his impending engagement—”

  I increased my hold on her, and her eyes rolled back in her head, her body twisting in agony as the grip tightened.

  “Tea!” Fox’s arms circled me, shaking me out of my rage. “Tea, stop it!”

  I let go. Aenah collapsed. Only the manacles chained to her wrists kept her upright, and those just barely. Her head drooped. I thought she had lost consciousness until she made a soft wheeze.

  “I must…congratulate you…Tea. You have only…gotten stronger in…the year since…”

  “Whatever possessed you, Tea?” Fox was furious and rightfully so. I didn’t answer, focusing on reining in my anger, aware that I could not lose control of myself like that again.

  Aenah lifted her head. A tiny smile hovered on her lips. “Very well. I swear to never enter your beloved prince’s mind again. I swear it on my daughter’s grave. But I have been very forthcoming today. I only have one boon to ask of you in return.”

  “No.”

  “It’s only a book, Tea, passed down to those like me for centuries. Many have killed for it, yet I give it to you freely and ask you to protect it.”

  “And what book is this?”

  “A book of hidden runes, Lady Tea. Hidden runes wielded by Dark spellbinders, lost over time—deliberately—by the asha, to prevent Dark witches like us from rising too high. I learned of the Scrying rune there and of many others. Your own elder asha possess a copy.”

  “You lie.”

  “It’s all about control, my dear Tea. They only teach you the necessary runes to put down daeva and risk your life for their cause. Why would they teach you the very runes that would allow you to rise above them?”

 
“Then why are you giving this to me?” I asked.

  “Because I have not given up on you.” Now recovered, she leaned back against the wall and stretched. “Your anger is promising, my bone witch. We have need of your fury. Once you have decided to take my claims seriously—about the effectiveness of these runes and about your asha elders’ treachery—then come back to me, and I will tell you everything.”

  “I need none of your help.”

  “Ah, but this knowledge will eat at you. We have shared minds, Tea. I know a little more about you than others do. I know of your hunger for strange books and stranger learnings. I know you worry constantly over Mykaela’s fate, your concern that one day the azi that lodges in your mind might overwhelm you—that your mind will be corrupted and overwhelmed by the darkrot that your elders frighten you with.

  “There are many spells in my book that hold the answers to your troubles. Once you acquire such tastes for power and appreciate its sweetness, you shall stop playing asha and come to us, the Faceless, where your skills will be put to better use.”

  “Never,” I spat.

  “Never is such a long time to promise, Tea. We live too short of lives to consign ourselves to an eternity you may regret. And it is not terrible to have a black heartsglass. We are stronger with it, more steeped in the Dark, less vulnerable to darkrot. Ah, but the elders will not allow you to think that.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Black heartsglass will never be taken from you the way Mykaela’s heartsglass was taken from her. Black heartsglass will always return to you regardless of anyone’s control, whether you wish it to or not. Is that not temptation enough to take my book?”

  “The process makes it less than appealing.”

  She laughed. “A little corruption is good for the soul, Tea. The book I speak of lies within the Odalian cemetery. Where lies poor forgotten Millicent Tread of Istera, there you shall find your true calling.”

  I said nothing and headed for the door.

  “Until we meet again,” Aenah called after us before the heavy metal doors slid shut.