“We have to talk about your new security measures, Dmitri.” At the prince’s dark look, Zaethan rushed to add, “Uni—it’s time. The witch is said to arrive soon, along with the rest of the y’siti. With that in mind, I’ve drafted a list of alterations to the guard rotation, a log system for private visitation, and a new training regimen for those assigned to this wing. Also, I want you to keep either Zahra or Jabari within sight of you at all times.”
Heaving a sigh, the prince set the documents aside and perched forward. Clasping his hands together, he eyed Zaethan intently.
“She’s not a witch, Zaeth.”
Zaethan stared at him in astonishment. “In a handful of hours, another full-blooded y’siti will be walking these halls!” he exclaimed. “A y’siti raised completely outside Bastiion, fully indoctrinated in that foul Boreali sorcery! Therefore, one of my pryde will be with you at all times—minimum.”
Zaethan glowered over the tray of food Eugenio delivered, exasperated by Dmitri’s inability to see through Boreal’s deceptions.
The prince’s aristocratic nose crinkled as he pursed his lips. “Oh, is that all? Any other demands you’d like to make?” Dmitri asked, with practiced patience.
“Uni. Yes, actually. The al’Haidren is to be housed on the lower level, near the guard offices.”
Dmitri’s eyes widened in disbelief. “I’m not putting my newest al’Haidren in the dungeon, Zaethan.”
“Our facilities are very generous,” Zaethan grumbled.
“Behind bars, in the dark, with no windows?” Dmitri clarified.
“She’d burn in the daylight, anyway. It’s better for her complexion.”
“I’ve already ordered the appropriate accommodations be made to her apartments. They began earlier this afternoon,” Dmitri said, dismissing Zaethan’s plans.
“But her presence will be an ongoing threat just a floor below this one! Depths, Dmitri! How am I supposed to shield you from what you refuse to see?”
Zaethan stood, seething as he began to pace. Dmitri was his charge. For centuries, the al’Haidrens to Darakai had protected Orynthia’s crown princes and, eventually, her kings. It was beyond personal consideration for a friend; it was duty. And for the first time in their personal history, Dmitri seemed to be truly questioning Zaethan’s judgment.
“Boreal’s Haidrens and al’Haidrens have been housed on that floor for generations, Zaeth, and none have proven to be assassins. Besides, if she was a threat to anyone’s safety, it would be yours, I think.”
Zaethan paused his pacing mid-step to study the other man. Dmitri smirked at a memory from their youth.
“Don’t make this about me. You know that was an accident,” Zaethan said defensively.
“You accidentally pushed her off the railing and into the bay?”
A muscle moved in Dmitri’s jaw, but he retained his calm indifference. It was a talent Zaethan had envied on many occasions.
“I didn’t push her. I…knocked her. Into the bay. Accidentally.”
“Yes, so you’ve said. You broke her arm, you know,” Dmitri countered.
“Kàchà kocho,” Zaethan shot back. “She was fine the next day.”
“You know I hate that phrase. It doesn’t mean anything! Zaeth, the girl’s arm was in a sling.”
“She deserved it.”
“She was twelve.”
Dmitri reclined his head against the arm of the sofa and closed his eyes. He suddenly looked exhausted, apart from the triumphant grin he wore, content with the temporary win.
It didn’t matter how many attempts Zaethan made to excuse what he’d done the night of Dmitri’s Ascension. His friend would never understand. Zaethan had already humiliated himself enough the morning after, when he’d tried to explain. Glowing eyes, he’d said. The prince had merely chuckled and shook his head, convinced Zaethan’s vivid story was the result of too much wine.
But he hadn’t imagined or hallucinated anything, and Zaethan never touched any refreshment besides water when his father was near. It still stung that Dmitri had never considered that.
Over and over, he’d replayed those events. In the month following, Zaethan nearly lost his sanity picking that night apart. Yet, with six years to forget, it still haunted him.
Fireworks shot into the darkened sky, exploding among the stars that littered Thoarne Bay with tiny pricks of light, reflecting the tears of Àla’maia, the moon. Guests spread along the deck of the private vàssa ship, cheering hungrily for more. Bastiion’s elite loved to be entertained, he’d thought, watching their lush clothing shine in the night, much like the very stars overhead.
The newly Ascended prince stood several feet away, surrounded by a cloud of ruffles and perfume. Every ambitious daughter of the nobility was eager to ensnare Dmitri Thoarne, along with his crown, now that he’d crossed into adulthood. Zaethan smirked at the prince and jerked his head to the left, communicating his vote for the animated brunette who’d elbowed the contestant interrupting her.
Yes, she’d do.
He turned back to the celebratory display illuminating the docks, currently devoid of the colorful floating stalls that usually made up the Drifting Bazaar. Bastiion’s young al’Haidren launched into another monologue about the grandness of his estate in Arune, encouraged by the bubbly intoxicant in his hand. And across the deck, the little y’siti played atop the ledge of the railing. Scanning the cluster of partygoers, he couldn’t find her keeper. The Haidren to Boreal was nowhere in sight.
His obligation to protect Dmitri had won out, and so he watched her. The witchling had worn leggings beneath her formal garb, which soon proved intentional. She moved with an otherworldly grace atop the thin wall of lacquered wood, balancing, flipping, rotating. She played with more strength than he exhausted in standard drills. The formations eased into a kind of silent dance as she leapt from the ball of one foot to another, moving her palms in sharp patterns to cut through the gathering smoke of the fire show.
She paused to stand in place as she eased her entire weight onto one foot and raised her body to balance on a set of toes. Arms crept outward to create a foreign pose, clearly well-practiced by the required tension. Even slower, the y’siti angled her chin and let her eyes fall on his.
Then she smiled.
It was a look that encompassed pure euphoria, pride, and a challenge. It wasn’t right for a child to move in such a way, or any human. Even in Darakai, the House of War, no man conquered his body so completely, so effortlessly. Unease tightened his throat and chilled his bones. He began to step in her direction to encourage her down, to stop the wrongness of it.
Then she changed.
Her body remained as still as the dead heart she surely carried. It was her eyes that shifted. One eye bluer than the Khan River; the other paler than the sky. Eyes seen only on the Haidrens to Boreal. And as he watched her, those eyes began to emit an incandescent light of their own. A gust of wind swept across the party, lifting her strange, pastel hair to join it.
The stories were true, he realized.
She really was a demon from the Depths.
Before his mind caught up with his body, he’d pushed her from the railing, watching without a trace of guilt as she fell into the black waters. Instinct had dictated it be done.
Stranger still was how her Haidren interceded on his behalf. Once the witchling was fished out of the bay and sent to her quarters to be tended, the Haidren to Boreal turned to where Zaethan’s father and the rest of the king’s Quadren stood gaping. After a series of questions, she’d set her mystic eyes upon him and insisted it had been an accident.
“Children just being children. Isn’t that right, young Zaethan?” the white demon had suggested with ease. Her cool persistence forced him to nod.
“That’s right—an accident. It looked as if she was going to fall, and I was only concerned for the al’Haidre
n’s safety,” Zaethan had confirmed aloud, more confused than ever.
Regardless of the spoken niceties between the members of the Quadren, his father still struck him that night to remind him of his shame. As well as the next.
It had been six years since her only visit to court, and even now, reflecting on the ordeal, Zaethan didn’t regret his actions. If she pointed that otherness against Dmitri, he’d do it again.
This time with more…permanent results.
“Dmitri, recent events may change your position toward her coming.” Zaethan rubbed the interior of his palm. “The kakk in Marketown I mentioned—”
“Whatever has occurred,” the prince said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Luscia cannot be faulted in her absence. That’s the end of it, Zaeth.”
Zaethan watched the flames lick the walls of fireplace, biting his tongue. He detected the order, hidden beneath the prince’s casual composure. Despite their closeness, Dmitri was still his future sovereign.
“Thinking on Flourette’s unending agreeableness, again?” Dmitri said, changing the subject. “I can see Gregor’s face now, when you announce your forbidden love for his daughter.”
“In the name of your crown, shut it,” Zaethan barked, returning to the sofa.
It was a typical picture of their friendship. Sitting together, Zaethan felt too nostalgic to push the matter any further—not tonight, at least. The warmth of Dmitri’s apartments always provided a shared haven from the demands of their outside worlds. A haven, it seemed, they both still needed. As Dmitri rested his eyes, Zaethan tilted his glass, absent of the golden liqueur, and gestured to the checkered board on his friend’s wall.
“One round of darts and dice? Or does the prince need his beauty rest?”
Dmitri’s eyes reopened with the promise of victory at their favorite game, though the darkening circles on his skin betrayed him.
“This calls for more bwoloa.” With contrived enthusiasm, Zaethan bounded to the cart and poured two more glasses. He raised both in the air and twisted to shout through a corner archway. “Eugenio! The prince is in need of your talents. Now, come have his drink!”
FIVE
Luscia
They’d agreed to enter Bastiion after nightfall.
When Marek suggested they employ a concealed advantage in the relatively unknown environment, Luscia had readily approved. She concurred that in a city where men with pale faces, light eyes, and fair hair were not welcomed anymore, darkness would reduce the risk of an unexpected confrontation.
She’d chosen to make use of their pausing to privately redress and mentally prepare. Fastening the clasps along the front of her surcoat, Luscia tried to control her restlessness. Trembling fingers brushed the line of fabric toward her collar to straighten it, pulling the material higher to hide the faded scar marring her porcelain neck. Given enough time, Boreali skin could heal from almost any wound—except for an encounter with luxiron.
She stared blankly into the dimming forest as her thumb traced the raised tissue that painted a jagged line from her left earlobe to her clavicle. Branding her skin, it served as a daily reminder of humanity’s nature, etched by the very consort dagger strapped against her thigh, adjacent to its mate riding the other. She’d left Bastiion six years ago as a joyfully innocent, brave little girl. Returning now as a hardened woman, Luscia vowed to honor that little girl’s memory in any way she could.
But tonight was not about the past, she resolved, standing under the moon’s increasing glow. Tonight was the beginning of what was to come: the age of Dmitri Thoarne.
For this reason, Luscia had selected her attire with great intention, choosing a piece normally reserved for ceremonial combat. She’d last worn the garment during her final evaluation on the Isle of Viridis. Paired with a sleeved vest, the indigo skirt split in four places to allow a woman’s full range of motion and hung low atop thin, black linsilk breeches. Trimmed in a radiant labyrinth of silver needlework, it boasted Boreal’s interpretation of war. Her brethren were a people of balance, who executed every practice with disciplined elegance. A people who gave each stitch the precision of a tempered blade.
Uncovering a shard of grey kohl, she lined her eyes in a darkened intimidation the Najjan saved for ceremony, and for battle. She had one chance to make a memorable entrance, and despite her racing heart, Luscia planned to enter Bastiion as a warrior. Gingerly, Luscia felt for the warm metal tickling her nose.
At the sound of rustling leaves, she spun to see Aksel padding into the small meadow, his tongue dangling lazily from a mouthful of serrated teeth and sharp canines. Trotting toward Luscia, he slowed to press heavily against her side in a passing hello. Her fingertips trailed across his back as he rounded her frame.
She dropped her other hand from its fiddling, releasing the tiny, crescent shard of luxiron piercing her septum. The solrahs was a concrete, indisputable declaration of her station in Boreali society. Upon her Ascension, she’d undergone the bestowing like all Boreali Haidrens, including Alora. Even though Luscia had waited eighteen years to receive it, her skin was still adjusting to such intimacy with the living metal, warm against her nose.
Luscia gathered her small handful of belongings, buckled her kuerre at her waist, and headed toward the tree line to join her men. When she noticed the absence of four paws, she looked back to find the lycran patiently sitting where she’d left him.
Blasted beast, Luscia cursed.
“I’m leaving with or without you,” she stated, continuing forward.
She heard a mass hit the earth and turned to see Aksel’s reclining outline among the tall grasses. His unblinking, glowing eyes fixated on where she stood at the edge of the clearing. With a quick yip, Aksel tilted his head and lowered it stubbornly over his outstretched legs.
“Really? You think now is a good time for this?”
Luscia knew what the lycran waited for. It was what they were all waiting for.
Pure Tiergan blood offered the Haidrens to Boreal an ability to experience what others could not. The higher gifts gave their Ascended Haidrens the sacred ability to hear and feel things not of this world, but of the hidden existing in and around it. That gifting manifested in various forms, but Luscia had deliberately postponed exploring them. She’d avoided attempting her initial Sight, the first sign of true Tiergan lineage, since the evening of her eighteenth birthday.
A vacancy or disturbance in the higher gifts was unacceptable in Boreal’s next spirit leader. Therefore, failing the Sight would only confirm Luscia’s silent fears—an uncertainty of self which could never be spoken aloud. Luscia feared something she could not endure. Something she’d witnessed Eoine, her late mother, bear until the day she disappeared. Her magical, tormented, beautiful, and strange mother.
Luscia stifled the thought of her. Now wasn’t the time to linger on such fears.
She regarded the unwavering lycran across the empty clearing. The wolx was right—she’d waited long enough, and time was running out. Submitting to the inevitable, Luscia closed her eyes and remembered Alora’s instructions. She imagined reaching past the blackness and felt for what her aunt described as a feather brushing the mind.
After a few absent heartbeats, Luscia’s eyes began to water. She lifted her face upright, refusing the outpouring of emotion. Keeping her eyes pressed shut, Luscia inaudibly begged, “Bolaeva. Bolaeva, Aniell, please let me see.”
A spark, then another, tingled up her spine and traveled down her arms. As with a tether, she tried to reach out and pull. Reopening her eyes, Luscia willed herself to see beyond the veil that masked the unseen.
In a flash of light, there they were.
Faint but present, as expected so far from the source, glittering threads of lumin danced with the breeze. The light energy snaked about her body and floated toward the night sky. Fleeting traces of it awoke in the striation of the nearest tree bark, the swa
ying blades of grass, even Aksel’s coat. Luscia’s breath caught at the beauty of the living luminescence. Hesitantly, she raised her forefinger toward a branch of leaves. The iridescent veining brightened at her touch, as if greeting an old friend.
The undiluted lumin, no longer sleeping in her Tiergan blood, pulsed beneath her skin. A nearly euphoric sensation lifted her upright, intensifying throughout her body. It was an awareness unlike any other. And though her Sight was gone with the next blink, she felt a magnetism to the threads as she hadn’t before.
Alora promised that once the veil was removed, it would never return. Thus, in its exodus, Luscia released all doubt, finally believing the potency of her inheritance.
“Tadöm, Aniell. Selah’Aurynth,” she whispered in a prayer of gratitude.
Suddenly a sharp, burning pain seared through her temples. Crying out, Luscia collapsed. Aksel ran to her side and with a wet muzzle, shoved her satchel toward her fingers. Gasping, she searched frantically for one of Alora’s glass vials and swallowed the prescribed tonic in a panic. Then Luscia cradled her head in her hands, pleading for the familiar pain to dissipate.
Disappointment drowned her agony. She’d taken her most recent dose just a few nights ago; it was far too soon for her to need another. Forcing herself off the ground, Luscia prayed for relief and quickly grabbed her things. She shook with remnant throbbing, but made way toward where her Najjan had assembled at the overlook, just a short walk through the trees.
Reaching their position, Luscia proceeded to one of the pack horses and stored her things inside a woven case. Head aching, she barely registered the clearing of a throat behind her at first, but when she turned around, all five men were staring at her in silence.
“Wem?” Luscia demanded, before noticing the collective pattern their gazes traced about her figure. Luscia may have chosen that particular surcoat for two reasons, for it fit rather well, and no one ever achieved anything by dressing like a sack of produce.
“Ana’Sere, you look…” Declan began, trailing off in consideration.
House of Bastiion (The Haidren Legacy, Book 1) Page 5