by Rin Chupeco
What does it look like? We’re looking for anything that resembles a Blight rune.
You don’t even know what the Blight rune looks like! And you’re not doing much to hide yourselves!
“Are you talking to Tea?” Zoya asked Fox while she snooped around a heavy stack of papers lying on a table.
“How did you know?”
“Your nose always scrunches when she’s in your head, especially when she’s about to lose her mind.”
I am not losing my mind!
“She is definitely losing her mind,” Fox confirmed.
“Well, tell her not to worry. Shadi’s keeping a lookout, and Mykkie’s keeping nearby asha distracted.”
You brought Mykkie into this?!
“She volunteered, actually,” Fox said, defending them. “This isn’t as harebrained a scheme as you might think, even if Zoya thought it up.”
“Oh, ha. Ha-ha. You’re going to regret that.” Zoya held a book aloft, triumphant. “I take apologies as payment in paloodeh. With extra cantaloupe.”
The Blight rune?
“Well, not exactly,” she admitted when Fox asked, “but we found the next best thing.” She turned the volume over to my brother, and in his mind, I gasped.
“It’s the same unnamed book we found in Istera,” Zoya said. “Not as decrepit as the one there, so I’m guessing this is a later copy. But it’s an unaltered version, with the foreword written by Vernasha of the Roses intact. Hestia can no longer claim ignorance about shadowglass—not only does she have the original legend here, but it also contains Vernasha’s letter in all its bigoted glory.”
• • •
It was evening by the time Lady Mykaela and Mistress Parmina arrived at the dungeons. Neither looked happy. They received Zoya’s revelation with grim satisfaction but, as Althy put it, “it’s enough proof for us to realize their meddling, though not enough for the public to believe the same.” She rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “It’s not enough to accuse the elders of conspiring to steal Mykkie’s heartsglass. The best we can do is obstruction, perhaps, but they can always claim they were withholding information in good faith. Whether or not they were responsible for the blighted is another thing entirely. We can’t accuse them without more objective evidence.”
“They accused Tea without evidence,” Zoya grumbled. “Why can’t we do the same?”
“Because people tend to believe those who are in charge, no matter how ridiculous or corrupt they may be,” Mykaela told her gently. “Who would you believe—an asha council with centuries-old roots in the kingdom and a reputation for justice and order or a bone witch you’ve been taught to fear all your life?”
“I—I would think I’d know the difference.” Zoya looked troubled.
“Most people would like to believe that about themselves, yes.” Mykaela sank wearily into a chair. “But we have been conditioned to obey authority in subtle manners, Zoya. You would be surprised at how very few actually speak up in the face of injustice.”
After a pause, she continued, “We’ve discovered who Sancha al-Sarim is. She was a runeberry picker from Murkwick village.”
“I’ve only been to Murkwick once,” I protested. “Several years ago. You’d taken us there from Knightscross after I’d raised Fox.”
“It only took that one time.” At Mistress Parmina’s imperious gesture, Shadi trotted off to find a cushion. “A few witnesses recounted her slapping you.”
My mouth fell open as I remembered. “I called Mykaela a bone witch, and the girl took offense. But I never knew her name.”
“Well, you know it now. Hestia claims this as your motive for killing her. Though I wonder what possessed you to wait years to exact your revenge after having met her only the once. The Willows haven’t been able to adequately explain that yet. Foul magic transformed the girl. The Deathseekers were forced to kill her before she harmed anyone else. Althy believes it to be the work of this Blight rune you uncovered in Istera. She and Likh are still in Murkwick, drawing Delving runes to ensure none of the other villagers have been compromised.”
Knots formed in my stomach. “I’m sorry,” I said, and Kalen’s hand found mine.
The Valerian mistress dismissed my guilt with a wave, settling against the pillow. “Oh, posh, Tea. You’ve earned me quite a lot of money since you’ve arrived, and it’s only fair that I protect my best investment. Besides, I shall enjoy any chance to tweak Hestia’s nose. But theirs is a heavy accusation nonetheless, even with scant circumstantial evidence.”
“For now, the elders’ main goal is to keep you stationary,” Mykaela noted dryly. “The wards make sure of that.”
“Do they know about what we found in Istera, Mykkie?” Kalen asked.
She shook her head. “As their predecessors believe they destroyed all the compromised books, they might think themselves safe. Quite foolish for Hestia to keep another one in her study. It was good of you to entrust the original book to Lord Garindor. I suspect the elders may pay the Isterans a visit themselves, so at least King Rendorvik has been forewarned.”
Fox smiled briefly at me. “Alyx has granted you leave to go to the oracle, if you’d like. Asha are allowed to present themselves to her for counseling apparently.”
“Alyx?” Shadi drawled. “Are you on a first-name basis with the empress now?”
My brother reddened. “She doesn’t like to be referred to by her title when not in a royal capacity…”
The young asha smiled. “I trust that your relationship is going well, then?”
“It is.” Fox’s face glowed. I didn’t need for him to speak to know why; images trickled through our shared link, the Veiling rune briefly lifting for me to glimpse happy thoughts of him and Inessa.
Mistress Parmina snapped her fan. “You’re a terror, Tea. You’re impulsive and disobedient, and you have a habit of dragging other people into your fights. But you’ve grown on me, and those hags deserve what is coming to them. It’s about time we find better representation in our association. Perhaps I will decide to run for council myself.”
“Wouldn’t you worry that, by joining those hags, you’d become a hag yourself?” Zoya asked.
“Zoya!” Shadi scolded.
“Well, shouldn’t the rules be changed, rather than the enforcer of those rules?”
“What do we do next?” I asked Mykaela, as Zoya and Mistress Parmina fell into a spirited argument.
“I don’t know yet. The Willows are waiting for something.” Mykaela frowned. “And that’s what’s been nagging at me—I don’t know what they’re waiting for. But whatever they have in mind, we’ll fight them. What do you wish to do now?”
“I think,” I said, “that I’d like to take Empress Alyx up on her offer and pay the oracle a visit tomorrow.”
“Good.” Mykkie sighed. “I miss Polaire. She always had a plan.”
“I wish she were here too,” I whispered. Polaire and Mykaela had performed the Heartshare as well, and Mykkie had been with her in her final moments. I couldn’t even begin to know what that loss must have felt like.
“I swear I can still feel her sometimes, at the oddest moments. Heartshare is both a blessing and a curse. I haven’t had my heart back long, but I struggle to know whether this is my heart, whole and true, or if there remains in it parts of her that she left behind.” Mykkie smiled sadly. “Somehow, that brings me much comfort.”
The conversation turned to other matters, and soon it was time for the others to leave, Fox opting to remain behind. “Is Kalen staying with you tonight?”
I nodded. “I told him it wasn’t necessary.”
“Of course it is. I doubt he’d choose a warm bed in the barracks while you’re here.” He paused. “But I can tell you’re worried, and it’s not about that.”
“There is something you need to know about me,” I whispered, dreading my confes
sion.
Fox’s puzzled expression cleared, giving way to worry as I told him about the black specks on my heartsglass, the spells and zivars I’d used to hide my desperation.
“Darkrot?” he asked, giving voice to my own fears.
“I…I don’t know. I mean to tell Mykkie soon, once this is over.”
“Letting her know now would only give credence to the elder ashas’ accusations, will it?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“But you can’t keep this secret. Surely Mykkie would keep quiet, as would Althy.”
I thought about Illara, the girl before me consumed by darkrot, the Dark asha Mykkie had slain. “She would give me over to the association without a thought, Fox, if she didn’t kill me first. She loves me, I know that—but her views on darkrot are uncompromising.” Mykkie killed her charge long before the black showed in her heartsglass, Althy told me. It was the only way.
He was angry, as I had feared. “This is your life we’re talking about. The strange emptiness between us back when you were in Istera—it was your heartsglass and not our distance, wasn’t it?”
“I…don’t know.”
“Something happened in Istera, didn’t it? I know it did.”
“I might have nearly jumped off a tower without realizing it,” I whispered. “And I…saw Kion on fire, in a vision.”
“Tea!” I could feel his panic. “You know what happens with darkrot! Do you seriously want to allow yourself to get worse before you get better?”
“Give me a few more days to sort myself out. Just give me that long. Please?”
My brother closed his eyes, still mad, but willing to compromise as I’d offered a deadline. I could feel the fear he was trying to hide from me; he’d heard Mykkie’s stories of darkrot and madness, and knew all too well what would happen should I fall under the same curse. “Fine. I’ll give you three days, Tea, and then I’ll help you make them see reason. No more delays.”
• • •
Fitful dreams plagued me later that night. I dreamed that I was inside the Ankyo cemetery, the moon staring down at me with all of its judgment and none of the sympathy. Polaire’s grave stood before me in the quiet. I was barefoot and dressed only in my nightclothes. The cold was a cutting knife, its blade skimming against my skin.
A harsh, grating sound broke the silence. The ground underneath me moved. Something had been disturbed in its sleep and now struggled for a way out.
I tried to leave, but my feet refused to obey. The noises grew louder until the earth before me broke apart, freeing its prisoner. The corpse that crawled out looked worse than human. Bits of brown hair clung to the base of its head, but its hollow sockets and yawning mouth gaped back at me from a grotesque skull in the final stages of a great and terrible decomposition. Strips of decay that were once skin dripped from its bony fingers, and remains of yellowed teeth that looked unnaturally bleached against the darkness dotted the remains of a jawline. Ironically, her dress survived when the rest of her had not—a white hua, tattered and stained from dirt and death, the embroidered crest of House Hawkweed still visible on her breast.
The corpse staggered toward me, and I could do nothing but wait, petrified, as it brushed its rotting face against mine.
“Your heart is the key,” it whispered in Polaire’s voice. “Love’s blood soaked through, in a tinsel of sparkled black. Do not let them take your heart.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I cried, terrified. The winds around us picked up, my hair whipping around as we stood in the center of a forming tornado, us at its eye.
The corpse took my heartsglass in a skeletal hand. I looked down to see a swirling miasma of black instead of silver. “No,” I choked out.
“You cannot hide who you are, Tea, my poppet. There is black in all our hearts. We hide it well enough and bring it out on harder nights, when we think no one sees.”
“I don’t want it!”
“There are worse things than black heartsglass, Tea. Silver is just as capable of hate.” She leaned closer then, dead lips against my ear. “Trust your enemies little,” it whispered, “and trust your friends even less.”
I came awake, sweating profusely despite the mild breeze coming in through the half-open window. It was dawn, and the space beside me was empty of Kalen. I twisted and saw him putting on his Deathseekers’ armor.
“Kalen?”
He glanced at me and tried to smile, but his face was grim. “I was hoping to let you rest longer,” he said.
“What do you mean? What happened?”
“There was another suspected Blight attack. This time, it happened in Knightscross.”
“Lady Altaecia was in error,” Lord Garindor told me. “Black heartsglass is not proof of darkrot.”
We stood in the room that once belonged to the bone witch, and it struck me how ordinary it was. The closet was heavy with hua of different kingdom styles and colors, and the dresser overflowed with an alarming assortment of cosmetics and perfumes. Books filled the shelves of one wall, and other paraphernalia lay neatly stacked in piles at one corner: silk handkerchiefs with Arhen-Kosho motifs, jade from Daanoris fashioned into plain rings, even an ancient gor-fa knife from Drycht—no doubt presents collected from clients she entertained at the cha-khana. A black armband, similar to what most Deathseekers wore, lay carefully folded on her nightstand. It was a room befitting a teenage asha, untouched at Mistress Parmina’s orders.
“The darkrot is a subversive magic,” my kinsman continued. He had, quite unfortunately, volunteered to accompany me, but now idled in the doorway, uncomfortable at stepping into the room of a woman not in his family, even after all his time in Istera. “That subversive magic corrupts Dark asha with no outward sign of its taint. History shows that most Dark asha bore no black heartsglass when they succumbed to it.”
“Black heartsglass,” I said, “is more in keeping with the Faceless.”
“That is true. But that is not a sign of darkrot either. If you remember, from Tea’s own telling, Hollow Knife had to achieve the black before he could create shadowglass, as they call it. Many associate this with evil, for most Faceless bear that stigma. But black heartsglass only means that a practitioner of the Dark has survived some traumatic experience, often the death of a loved one.
He recounted, “And upon taking his brother’s heartsglass, still stained with his lover’s blood, did Hollow Knife turn to slaughter the seven creatures of Blade that Soars. That was part of the original legend. Stained with his lover’s blood—even gods, I assume, suffer trauma. It’s why I believe Dancing Wind died. Whether her death was by design or by accident, that is the true question.”
“I can see how that might have made her eligible,” I murmured. “But the Dark asha’s letters also talk of needing to present herself to a mountain to be judged worthy.”
“I confess I know little about that.” Lord Garindor sidled as close to me as he dared. “Incidentally, old runic magic and legends are not my only métier. I am a historian first and foremost, and have devoted my life to researching and compiling the genealogies and bloodlines that shape Drychta royalty, from the early days of Mithra and Rashnu down to Aadil. The mad king is an unusual study. He was not the direct successor to the crown—he usurped the rightful ruler, Adhitaya, and slew all his known family. I wager the people would prefer King Adhitaya to the warlord ruling in his place.”
“Maybe so.”
“Drycht has a long history of pain. Adhitaya was not as cruel as Aadil, but people often think the olden days are better than the ones they have to live through. Drycht nobility has always had a cruel streak. I remember how Princess Esther of House Ordith tried to elope with a struggling craftsman, how both were put to death for their efforts. How a poor boy accidentally stumbled in Adhitaya’s presence, his legs cut off for his impertinence. How the noble House of Hazirat massacred the Parenka distric
t because their farmers asked for more rice. But sometimes—sometimes—some rare few are capable of benevolence. Adhitaya’s son, the young Omid, was said to have been a kind man, unlike his father. King Walid ushered in fifty years of peace. Queen Thana often opened her coffers to the poor.”
I closed my eyes, struggling against tears. Lord Garindor was too observant for my taste. “I am not interested in the past of a kingdom that rejected me, milord.”
“Sometimes the past is all we know.” He paused. “Milord.”
A commotion rose outside. I dashed to the window and so did my kinsman, briefly forgetting his Drychta decorum.
A circle of elder asha gathered outside the Valerian, facing a small group of soldiers. At the latter’s helm was a beautiful woman clad in royal red. Her face resembled Inessa’s, though the princess stood on the woman’s left. Lord Fox emerged from inside the asha-ka, Lady Altaecia and Councilor Ludvig beside him.
“She killed Hestia!” one of the asha sputtered. “And still you protect her! Still you defend her!”
“I defend no one but my family.” Empress Alyx was cold ice and hot passion all at once. “It is because of Hestia that Ankyo lies in ruins. Did you think I would not suspect? I know that Hestia frequently leaves Kion for her own private matters—she had done so in the weeks leading to Tea’s disappearance. What other information did you all keep from me, the sovereign you have sworn to defend and obey? The secrets you hide from us have long outlived Hestia, and it is time they be cast out into the sunshine for all to see. How long have you known about the Blight rune?”
The older woman faltered. “I… Hestia has always been in charge of—”
“Hestia is no longer here. You have lost half your allies, transformed into the very creatures whose existence you sought to hide from the rest of us. Inessa herself was present when they were slain, and not all by the Dark asha’s hand. Were you so desperate that you were willing to sacrifice your own? We lost Lady Mykaela for your treachery!”
The asha wrung her hands. “We had nothing to do with that! We hid the rune, but never did we dare invoke Blight for our own means! Only bone witches and Faceless can strike its killing blow! Even Hestia wouldn’t dare taint herself with such vile magic! We wanted neither her nor Mykaela dead!”