Submit emotion to reason. We must trust His Majesty to seek justice for Boreal.
Ethnicam eyes watch for any misstep.
rul’Aniell,
Alora
Luscia delicately refolded the parchment, her lips pursed. It was irrational to take offense from her aunt’s instruction, but she felt rebuked all the same. Discrediting the sting, Luscia gently thanked the maid and sought the canopied terrace outside her bedroom for air.
Not a moment later, a crash of oak and stone had Luscia whirling around as the captaen of her guard stampeded into the apartment. By the tremors across his forehead, he wasn’t pleased.
“LUSCIA!” Marek barked as he marched into her bedroom, trapping her on the balcony. “Not one, Luscia. Not one Najjan knew your whereabouts. You left your entire guard behind! Here, in this yancy shrine, of all places!”
“Am I a prisoner in my own apartments, Captaen?” Two alabaster fingers shushed his lecturing. She was not his inferior, and it was a gross overstep to speak to her as such. Her spine straightened as she leveled her gaze, “There are elements of my station which require attention outside of this room.”
“Your father holds me accountable for your safety! In the name of Aksel’s Keep, why did you conceal yourself from us?” Marek demanded.
“Perhaps I needed space from my warden. He’s insufferable.”
“An al’Haidren is to be protected at all times, Luscia.” Marek scratched the rust-colored stubble on his jaw in visible frustration. “You don’t get to have these juvenile disappearances anymore! And certainly not here.”
Luscia’s face felt aflame.
“I do not answer to you, Marek Bailefore,” she said, flattening her voice and staring into his strained, oceanic eyes. “Do not allow your speech to turn so informal with me. You may be my father’s choice, but you were not mine. If I must submit to rank, so must you.”
Marek’s gaze plummeted to his wrist. Trailing his line of sight, she saw her father’s beaded cuff tied snugly around it. Flooded with shame, her chest caved in.
She’d rejected his kurtfrierï, a token of courtship, when he’d offered it on the eve of her Ascension. Luscia stared at the beads in the lacing, rebuking herself. It was extremely unusual for a suitor to wear the kurtfrierï, for if accepted, it was worn by the suited. The cuff’s prominent display implied that Marek still waited to be acknowledged; for Luscia to change her mind. She’d not handled their conversation graciously that night, and she was cruel to so callously remind him of it now.
“Marek, I—” Luscia moved toward the cuff, but her hand fell, unwilling to take it from him.
“Tadöm, Ana’Sere, for reminding me where we stand,” he whispered vacantly. “Meh’fyreon, for forgetting. It won’t happen again.”
His nose twitched as the captaen quietly bowed his head, and left.
Luscia swallowed, watching him depart. Though he wouldn’t admit it, she’d been justified in rejecting him that night, for there simply wasn’t reason enough to accept his courtship. She had no need for a union, not until conditions require her to continue the line of Tiergan. Having just embarked into her new life, Luscia wasn’t ready to lay down her blades, or her independence. And were he to be honest, neither was Marek.
A midday breeze swept her reddening cheeks, guiding her to look out over the colorful floating stalls below. Luscia slumped against a limestone column, guilt and resentment coiling her thoughts. Children were being butchered, tossed like trash into those very waters, while she was forced to become an idle figure, watching by. Were Luscia to gather her weapons and seek answers herself, her own Najjan would remain an obstacle. The men were obligated to uphold Alora’s mandate for passivity, including the passivity of her niece.
Shaking her head, Luscia glared across the vast openness to the adjacent terrace, where the nearest byrnnzite cupola glimmered in the sun. Even the servants of Sayuri Naborū-Zuo come and go more freely than I, she brooded.
Gradually, a sly grin replaced her frown.
“Mila!” Luscia abruptly yelled through her bedroom, into the common room. “Mila, my Aksel is parched. Let him drink his fill.”
Balmy air lapped the side of her face, beckoning disobedient hairs to stick to the thin blanket of sweat coating her moonlit skin. One would’ve imagined nightfall might lessen Bastiion’s smothering humidity, but the crown city had proved more disappointing by the day in that respect.
Gripping the decorative cutouts on the palace walls, Luscia became one with the stone as she slid her body along the exterior. Despite confidence in her own nimbleness, Luscia was keenly aware of the steep drop awaiting a fall, should her footing falter. Mentally reciting Boreali poetry to keep her wits about her, she slithered to the edge of a narrow overhang. As she’d done the night prior, Luscia felt for a beam on the underside of the cupola, secured her grip, and on an exhale, hoisted her entire frame to the opposite flank.
Inching toward where the beaming met a column, Luscia pushed her upturned boots against the pillar and ran toward the ceiling of the dome, landing on the balcony in a backward crouch. It would have been perfect, a soundless dismount, if not for the jangle of luxiron blades secured about her person. Luckily silence was not the present priority, considering Sayuri Naborū-Zuo no longer occupied the apartment.
Since her earsplitting shrieks early that morning, the al’Haidren to Pilar had refused to enter her former quarters. Luscia had overheard the entire ordeal as she drank her breakfast cup of ennus and viridi tea. The al’Haidren had screamed to her staff about some fetid odor and demanded her belongings be relocated immediately. Palace staff had yet to find the source of the stench, or a remedy for it.
Luscia grinned. They wouldn’t.
She’d ventured into Sayuri’s apartment the previous evening with Aksel’s contribution in hand, sprinkling lycran waste over every piece of upholstery. Luscia had even coated the wood moldings while Sayuri dreamt, none the wiser. Luscia didn’t harbor any remorse for repurposing the al’Haidren’s unique quarters—by Mila’s testimony, Sayuri had abused the hidden stair to better regulate her inferiors. Under new stewardship, it could be used to save them.
Locating the main chamber, Luscia squatted low and plucked a few hairs from her scalp. Suspending them aloft, Luscia studied the pastel strands for movement. The entire suite had been boarded upon the al’Haidren’s transfer, so any breach in the interior wall would emit a subtle draft, though probably imperceptible. Her superior eyes caught a slight sway of the ends and tracked the course of airflow to a massive, ornate armoire, situated in front of a floor-length tapestry.
Moving toward the piece of furniture, Luscia angled her body to shove the hunk of timber away from the wall, only to realize it was fixed in place. Circling it, she knelt to feel under the bottom lip. A cool draft caressed the back of her knuckles.
“How clever you are, Sayuri Naborū-Zuo,” Luscia credited.
She had been foolish to assume the entry point would be so blatant. Because Dmitri’s grandfather, King Aquila, had the passage sealed, Luscia doubted Sayuri’s reopening of it was exactly sanctioned. Ingeniously, Pilar’s al’Haidren had concealed her unauthorized stair in plain sight, as just another article of her overzealous decor.
Luscia opened the face of the armoire. There, a few steps inside the piece of bulky furniture, stood a humble wooden door within the stonework. Pausing, Luscia reached into the black cloak concealing her personal armory and produced a round, glossy stone.
Entering the stairwell, she brought the lumilore to her lips, the pebble’s warmth a familiar kiss of home and history. Luscia inhaled the dank flavor of mildew and let her breath pass over the surface of the lumilore, awaking it to life.
A subtle, kaleidoscopic light flooded the emptiness, set off by tendrils of lumin pulsing inside the small stone. Even Tiergan eyes needed aid to see in complete darkness, and the moon could not fo
llow her into the stairwell. Luscia stretched the lumilore before her feet, grateful she’d thought to bring it with her to Bastiion. When they were young, Boreali children spent days during Ana’Innöx searching for the strange pebbles among the rocky banks of the Dönumn. Phalen swore she always found the brightest stones, as his never seemed to shine quite the same.
Luscia smiled tightly, trying not to miss him.
The stair descended in a steep spiral, the quiet stuffier with each step. After what she estimated as seven stories lower, another modest door came into view. Luscia pressed her ear against the rough grain. Muffled, racing chatter and clanking pots indicated the kitchens lay on the other side; a less than preferable route.
Curious, she crept off the landing and slunk deeper, where the temperature dropped to a refreshing chill. At the final door, the whoosh of rushing water beyond met her ears. Luscia cast the lumilore about, spotting a soiled pot near her boot.
Gripping the corroded handle of the door, left unlocked, she pushed it open. Luscia dry-heaved at the smell, so much stronger to her nostrils than those of a Unitarian maid. A brackish brew of excrement and sludge flowed past the archway.
After all, who would lock a servant’s access to a sewer? Luscia chuckled to herself.
“Pretentious yancies.”
She renewed the lumilore’s glow and studied the architecture. An adjacent ledge bordered each side of the outtake conduit. Luscia entered the slimy tunnel and skirted along to the west. Something flickered in the distance. Following the direction of the flowing muck, the offshoot bent and narrowed until the conduit ended. Brown water spilled over like a murky tongue into an external aqueduct, carrying it away from the palace main. Gulping the newly fresh air, she’d never been so grateful for the seedy odor of the west docks.
Luscia huffed victoriously. Over the edge of the sewer aqueduct sprawled the freedom of the backstreet, stories below.
She pulled her hood over her fair braids and secured a veil to hide most of her northern face. Standing atop the rim of the waterway, Luscia gazed over the trembling embers of decadence and depravity illuminating the night sky.
Unbeknownst to the monsters within, tonight the city of Bastiion would host a hungry al’Haidren to Boreal. Taking a step into nothingness, Luscia leapt, eager to greet them.
NINETEEN
Zaethan
Teetering atop the witch’s wooden orb, Zaethan’s weight bobbed to the side when she offered him another curved rod, mirroring the first in his right hand.
“No, niit. Lower your center if need be,” the y’siti scolded, strutting to her trunk against the wall. “You breathe, you balance.”
“‘You breathe, you balance,’” he mocked in her raspy accent and bent his knees. “Meme qondai, I get it already.”
“Then do it without being told.”
Zaethan all but fell off the klödjen, eager to retaliate, but stabilized himself when the rim almost dipped into the faint ring of powder encircling the base. Last time, he’d gone the entire session without disrupting it. Damn him to the Depths if he couldn’t do it again.
“Waedfrel,” she remarked as she bent into the trunk. “Get down.”
“Yesterday, you kept me on this kakka-shtàka ball for over an hour.”
“Were you to look—” The y’siti snaked a long, braided whip around her neck and closed the lid. “—you’d realize this is today, and not the day before. Would you prefer we repeat it?”
Zaethan tensed his grip on the rods and jumped off the orb, coming toward her. “One of these mornings you won’t be able to run that mouth anymore.”
“Because I’ll finally be able to sleep in again.” The leather whip wrapped around the front of her crisp tunic, where she casually held each end in either hand. “Toward the middle, arcs at the ready.”
Unmoving, Zaethan cocked his head at the weapon, noticing flakes of crimson along its tail. Uneasiness stiffened his posture. The witch carried a whip, while he only had two sticks.
“Ano zà. Not until you tell me what that’s for.”
“Incentive,” she answered, suppressing a grin. “Now come along and stop pouting.”
Her chin lifted defiantly, passing him across the mat, as if she were his equal in height. In reality, she barely stood taller than his scout, Dhalili, who frequently and convincingly impersonated children while gathering intel. The y’siti unraveled the whip, sending its length tumbling to the ground, uncoiling around her feet. Like his, they were naked.
“Crescent wraiths require agility as well as balance. Move too slow, and their length becomes a hindrance. Moving fluid like water…” She furled the whip, cracking it on itself. “…the wraiths become a sphere of death, both offensive and defensive. One weapon, one being. If you are unable to sustain their momentum, the victim is you, instead of your intended.”
Zaethan repositioned the curved rods, raising them between his gut and the witch. “You’re not using that on me.”
The corners of her lifeless lips flicked upward as she tenderly slid the whip through her open palm. “My own Captaen Bailefore used this same feidierdanns during my training, on the Isle of Viridis. These bloodstains are proof of his effectiveness.” She tilted her neck, scanning him up and down. Shrugging, she sighed, “On a Darakaian, it’s unlikely to be worth the time. Few can stomach it.”
He knew the y’siti was baiting him. She’d become rather good at it, too. But based on the skill with which she’d wielded the wraiths alongside her captaen two weeks ago, he also knew she was telling the truth.
Flexing his shoulders, he hoisted the rods in the air and gritted his teeth.
Her unnatural eyes twinkled with excitement. “Start spinning.”
Several hours later, at another one of Dmitri’s useless Quadrennal meetings, Zaethan watched the y’siti crane her ghostly neck from across the historic pentagonal table.
How he wanted to strangle it.
Zaethan’s toes curled while Ira blathered on. It was miraculous that Gregor’s son had managed to button his own coat today. The smell of stale ale wafted off his lapel. Zaethan readjusted in his chair, trying not to wince at the sharp pain in his feet. He refused to give the y’siti any gratification by hinting at the lingering sting of the shallow cuts she’d made. Irritatingly, the gauze stuffed inside his pigskin boots only made things worse.
Weeks under her peculiar and rather vexing tutelage, she still avoided the crescent wraiths. Consequently, he imagined the y’siti’s death on a regular basis. He might’ve moved to orchestrate it—she’d certainly driven him mad enough—were it not for the subtle enhancements her training had made to his balance and endurance. Shtàka, even his posture. Zaethan would never admit it aloud, but the northern methodology had even started to influence his drills with the palace guard, as well as his exercises with the pryde.
“Lady Boreal, you’ve stayed silent the majority of this debate. I’d love to hear your perspective on the matter,” Dmitri ventured, halting Ira’s passionate insistence that his estate would serve as an optimal venue for royal guests.
Faint shadows pooled beneath the y’siti’s cryptic eyes, adding to her spectral appearance. He’d noticed them earlier that morning, when she’d lashed his feet as he spun in circles like a fool. By the time he ended their session in favor of the sentry drills, he’d left her standing upon a scarlet canvas of his own making.
Damn her to the Depths, Zaethan thought with a scowl, knowing it would only make him faster tomorrow.
“I’m not convinced the best use of this Quadren is to discuss lodging arrangements for the Queen of Razôuel during their official visit.” Disinterested, the witch spoke to the table, but eyed Dmitri intently. “The Zôueli are no strangers to massacre. Perhaps they would enjoy the newest attractions of the Drifting Bazaar.”
“It is a ma-massacre.” Ira hiccupped back into his seat. “The price those greedy
merchants demand for the shtàka they tout is criminal!”
“Lady Boreal raises a real concern.” Sayuri brushed her jet hair over a glistening shoulder, baring it for Dmitri as if it were a cup of sweetened cider. “We certainly can’t parade the Zôueli queen along Thoarne Bay, not after it’s been polluted with Boreali scum. It’s an embarrassment, really,” she added haughtily.
Zaethan’s eyes narrowed at Sayuri’s knowledge of the body pulled out of the bay upon Wekesa’s arrival to Bastiion. But then again, what need did the valley pryde have for confidentiality. Court rumor was their ally, anything to bolster confidence in Wekesa’s investigation.
“Lady Pilar, this Quadren mourns the loss of—”
“Another exotic prize, squandered.” Ira threw his courtier hands in the air, cutting off the prince. “My father has yet to replace our northern cross-caste! They were rare to begin with!”
It amazed Zaethan how the witch did not move to strike either of them. His feet stung, the pain a vivid reminder of the violence her petite frame could inflict; the confidence she masked under layers of poise and linsilk. Even he, a Darakaian alpha, was sickened by the recent crimes against the north’s forgotten children. Each an innocent, lost to Bastiion’s cruelty.
Had it been Darakai’s cross-caste floating in the very public waters of the Bazaar, Zaethan would’ve painted each al’Haidren in bruises for their privileged snobbery.
“I will never understand why you trouble yourself, Ira.” Unconcerned, Sayuri trailed three elegant fingers to the base of her throat. “What is your father willing to pay for another? A few silver dromas? His gold?” She slunk leisurely into her seat and peered through thick lashes at the y’siti. “How can any creature be worth an entire auras when it looks just as dead while it’s still alive?”
“Lady Pilar!” Dmitri exclaimed, stunned.
A loud thump sent tremors across the tabletop, rattling the glassware.
At last, the y’siti stood. Her grip tested the limits of the wood table. Although she uttered not a single word, her expression spoke volumes. A flush of rage erupted over her taut cheekbones. Zaethan squinted at her. He could’ve imagined it, but he swore the ends of her hair lifted, floating in a nonexistent breeze.
House of Bastiion (The Haidren Legacy, Book 1) Page 18