The River King

by Kim Alexander

  He’d slept through their reunion, wrapped in a heavy quilt and snoring softly. That, at least, hadn’t changed.

  “He was a great teacher even a few years ago,” Olly told her. “And a talented mage, as you call it. He’s still in there, I know it.”

  “Scilla will find him, there in the dark,” she said. “And Coll will lead him out.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Eriis

  Lelet opened her eyes. “Why do I keep waking up when I don’t remember falling asleep?”

  The last thing she remembered was following Auri, who’d been following Moth. Then Auri had a knife. He was aiming at Moth’s heart, and the blade had that green glint she recognized. Without hesitating, she took a step forward, pushed against a wall in her mind, and shimmered into its path. A pain that was equal parts numbing cold and searing heat ripped through her. Then the thing that lived in her chest woke up with a roar, and it wasn’t a thing at all—it was she herself who was roaring. And she stood between the prince and harm, one more time.

  Then Moth had been there, and for a moment, everything had been fine. Then nothing.

  As she sat up, she pulled a blanket around herself. It wasn’t a blanket though. It was a bolt of Everblue silk, enough to cover furniture—a couch, chairs, make shoes, dresses. A bolt this size was worth a fortune. At the moment, it stood between her and the elements of Eriis. She was on a flat shelf of rock, and the wind made the raw edge of the silk ripple like an unfurled sail. She got to her feet—her human feet—and picked her way to a finger of stone that looked like it might afford some shelter.

  “Ah, right on time,” Light said.

  “Love your outfit. Very soignee,” added Wind.

  She looked down at herself. The bolt of cloth was now a tunic, rather like the everyday tan and brown and gray of the demons, only rendered in the exquisite, shimmering blue silk.

  “Please, join us,” Wind said. “We were just talking about you.”

  Instead of dainty, white, wrought-iron chairs and a porcelain tea service, today the ladies had recreated a picnic at the shore. Light wore a loose, white cotton tunic hemmed with a pattern of dark red birds. Herons, maybe. Their eyes were tiny mirrors. Wind wore a jaunty boat neck in white-and-dark-blue stripe and slim, black trousers of nubby silk, like a man’s but cut for her slender frame.

  “Madam,” said Lelet, “If I ever get back to Mistra, I am borrowing that look.” And to Light, she said, “My best friend favors that style, and everyone looks to her to set the trends.”

  “Well,” said Wind, “I’m pleased we are so on point this afternoon.” She beckoned Lelet to sit with them on the red-and-white checked gingham blanket and handed her a glass with an inch or so of clear liquid. “This is called gin.”

  Lelet recalled the tea she’d taken with the ladies and how their pretty fare had been made of sand and water. She smiled and tossed back the liquid. When she was done coughing, she squeaked, “That was gin.”

  “We felt like you needed a drink. It’s been rather a hard day.” Light sipped her own drink. “You’ve made a bit of a hash of things.”

  “Well,” Lelet said, “I did figure out your riddle. Bitterness, shadows falling, and all that. Ocean sends her regards.” She counted the night on the shore with Moth and his newly acquired wings as one of the finest of her life, despite almost drowning and nearly freezing to death. Aea Nea A, welcome back to my garden.

  “We didn’t say you weren’t clever,” remarked Wind. “But you have a decision to make.”

  “I want to go back,” she said at once. “I want him back. I want another chance.”

  The ladies looked at each other with the flickers of expression she’d come to recognize as a whole interior conversation.

  “This is not the decision to which we refer,” Light finally said.

  “We assumed you would be a toy, a distraction. But Jaa’s boy proved us wrong.”

  Light nodded and continued. “When he said he would love only you until the moons fell, he meant it quite literally.”

  “His head cannot be turned. The fact that you parted at all made us wonder about your fidelity. And then of course you took up with another.” Wind shook her head sadly.

  “She did kill him though,” considered Light. “That should count for something.”

  “I will not defend myself to you,” Lelet said. Then she realized she had to and continued in a calmer voice. “We were misled, both of us. More than once. And we...it just got so complicated.” She took a breath. “I know you have it in your power to send me back to him. I’ll make it right.”

  Light nibbled what appeared to be a curried chicken salad sandwich. “Think of the alternatives, before you decide.”

  “I’ve already decided,” she said. “Haven’t I?”

  “Your decision isn’t about the prince,” said Wind. “It’s about you. You are on a journey which leads you off the path of life and away from the light and into whatever lies beyond. We can let you continue, and your grief and confusion will vanish. You won’t even remember them as a dream. The prince will mourn, but he may in time find a more suitable partner, once he accepts that his moons have fallen. His life may, in fact, be easier. An heir to the High Seat would follow him, and the scars of this unfortunate period would fade, in time. Your human family will also grieve, but the pebble which is Lelet will be removed from the va’Everly shoe.”

  Light continued. “You have thrown a rock into a pond, dear. It may be for the best that you let the ripples subside.”

  “I think,” Wind said, “in that analogy, she is the rock. In any event, that is the decision you must make. Think of your family and think of the prince.”

  “You’re saying that choosing to live would be selfish, that I would hurt Moth more than I already have? And that my family would be better off without me.” The worst part was, she could see it—Moth smiling at a proper demon woman who loved him for himself, taking her hand before the High Seat and his people; a celebration; a child with his beautiful eyes and a mouth like the wife he could be proud of; Pol and May and Rane toasting her memory, finally, in peace and quiet. Maybe her father would come home from the mountains and the family would be together again, once she was gone.

  Lelet reached across the blanket and helped herself to another finger of gin. “I understand that I’m not necessary.” She was suddenly tired, and the cold flare of pain from the knife edged closer to her heart. She fought it down. No, I am necessary. They love me. He loves me. She looked up. “But I also remember what you said last time—you don’t like humans. Maybe you’re just trying to get rid of one.”

  “Well,” countered Wind, “you aren’t entirely human anymore, are you? All that back and forth with your body? The chlystrons had their way with you. And the sand of Eriis itself more or less finished the job when Ilaan sealed you up.”

  Something flickered in Lelet’s chest entirely unrelated to her injury. She watched as Wind toyed with the collar of her linen blouse. The diamonds in her rings flashed hot in Lelet’s eyes, one more thing that hurt. She knew she was close to being beyond such things, if she wanted.

  But there was something about what Wind just said that made her pause. “If I’m not human, please, madam, tell me what you think I am.”

  Wind laughed. “Dear, if I was trying to insult you—”

  The flicker turned into a light, strong and steady. “I’m serious. What am I? What have I turned myself into?”

  The women looked at each other, and Light shrugged. Wind said, “As far as we can tell, your blood is nearly indistinguishable from proper Eriisai. Why, you’re practically one of us. “

  “In that case, my accepting the spark of the prince would no longer be a threat to the High Seat, would it?” Lelet held her breath.

  Light covered a laugh with her hand. “Sister, she’s got you there.”

  Wind managed to keep a bland smile on her face, but Lelet could see the steam rising from her skin. “This nonsense with the spa
rk might only make things worse.”

  Her glass shattered into sand as she gripped it. Light raised her brow at her sister, and Wind murmured an apology, snapping her fingers and making the glass reappear.

  “We don’t want sand in the food,” said Light.

  “A deal is a deal, and our deal was his present for your future. We gave you that riddle on one condition—no spark, no child.” Wind looked less than pleased. “Our main concern has always been the High Seat and keeping humans out of it. But you are correct. You are transformed. We will reconsider.”

  With a glance at her sister, Light continued. “Dear, we don’t have our hands on the future. We don’t know the outcome if you stay or if you go.” She sipped her gin. “Yes, it may make things worse, if you chose to stay. Spark or no spark, your continued presence certainly will make things more complicated.”

  “Send me back,” Lelet said. “I won’t make you sorry.” She glanced down at her chest, which was starting to itch and ache. It was becoming blurry and indistinct, like a smear of paint. “I’d better go. Thank you for the gin. And I apologize for my harsh tone. As you said, it’s been a long day.”

  Wind surprised her with a smile. “Oh, one more thing. Send a message to Ilaan. Tell him to stop his moping and dry his tears. The one he seeks waits for him in the Veil.”

  Light nodded. “Him, we like.”

  Lelet groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. May was going to kill her if she was late to breakfast, to say nothing of sleeping through class. But it was so warm she couldn’t bear the thought of getting up. She took a deep breath, which hitched painfully. Her chest ached, like there was a chunk of ice sitting on it. She lifted her hand to brush it away, and that hurt as well.

  “Welcome back,” said Ilaan.

  Now she did open her eyes.

  “You gave us all a bit of a scare.” He sat cross-legged on a thin red-and-gold woven rug in a softly lit, quiet room. The walls rippled. It was the tents.

  She struggled to sit up. “What...how did I...”

  “Shh, let him sleep. Light and Wind knows he needs it.”

  Lelet twisted around. and realized she was warm because her head rested on Moth’s leg. He was propped against a pile of cushions and slept with his lips slightly parted and his hair in his eyes. She thought he looked very young. She held up her hand, and the unexpected weight bounced something hard off her forehead.

  She held it out and looked, amazed, at her arm, encased in glass halfway to the elbow. Only her fingertips protruded. Through the glass cast she could see the small, circular wound on her palm. It resembled a blueish coin that let through the daylight. She tapped her chest with her good hand, and it chimed faintly. More glass, over her heart.

  “We’ll be getting rid of most of that glass around your arm pretty shortly,” Ilaan said. “Nothing to be done about the plug in your hand, though. That, and the bit over your heart, those have to stay. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Um...I was in a house in Mistra. With Auri. Everything happened, just as you said it would. And Moth was there. They argued. Auri threw a knife. There was poison on the blade, and it hit me.”

  “You mean to say you stepped in front of it and caught it.” Ilaan moved to closer to her so they could speak more quietly. “His life for your own.”

  “I couldn’t just let...” She paused, unsure of how much to say. “How did we get here? I thought you two—”

  “We have put aside our differences,” he said. “Waiting to see if you would rejoin us on the path of life or not, we had some time to talk. He’s hardly left your side since I brought you here.”

  Lelet frowned. “You brought us here? How did you know we were in trouble?”

  “Your clever sister, Scilla. You probably didn’t know this. She’s been keeping an eye on both of you all along. I might have had a chat with her while she was here for your negotiations and told her to let me know if a situation were to develop at some point. I think you’ll agree this qualifies. She contacted me and said the blood of Eriis had been spilled. I don’t know whether she got it wrong or was trying to trick me into coming to Mistra. I mean, she must have known I’d never let him come to harm, no matter how harsh the words were between us.” He glanced up at her. “They were pretty harsh.”

  She nodded, remembering their strange, tense conversation over coffee at the palace. “The blood of Eriis. What a strange way to put it. And how could Scilla have known who was hurt? I mean, I don’t have the blood…” Something important, just at the edge of her mind.

  “Well,” Ilaan said, “you have spent quite a bit of time in a proper demon body. Why, you’re practically one of us, now.”

  She gasped as the memory came rushing back. “Light and Wind,” she whispered.

  “Are you unwell?” He leaned forward. “Is there a pain? I can fetch Mother Jaa.”

  “No, it’s Light and Wind. I saw them.”

  He drew back. “Again? Not another riddle, I hope.”

  “Oh, Ilaan.” She smiled and reached out her undamaged hand to him. “I have a message for you.”

  Chapter Forty

  Mistra

  The trip from the city to the Guardhouse went by in a blink, as Coll had Scilla practicing the entire time. Although Coll didn’t come out and say it, he obviously knew she could barely see a page anymore and casually suggested it would be easier for her to listen to him recite the passages and then repeat them back rather than try and read them when it was time to use them, to have her hands free—for what purpose, he didn’t say. She barely had time to eat or sleep. Even at the inn, something called Beb’s Place—there was no Beb around, as far as Scilla could tell—he wouldn’t let her even have a sip of the beer everyone else was drinking.

  “We are not on vacation,” he reminded her as they climbed back into the carriage. It was the morning of the day they would arrive at the Guardhouse. “If you are damaged on this venture, I believe May will spontaneously manifest some very dangerous powers and use them on me.”

  “But it’s dangerous, what we’re doing, right?” She hoped it would be at least thrilling, if not hair-raising.

  “One would think you’d had enough excitement,” he observed. But helping Coll discover the truth about Billah, Lel and Moth being back together—one more thing she was right about—the fire, Rane and Althee’s engagement, and finally getting rid of Auri—maybe the best part, although since he was dead she kept that to herself—only made her want to do something amazing. She wanted to do real magic, not just hold a book. And this might be her chance.

  “If you do exactly as I say,” Coll told her, “it will not be dangerous to you. Now, from the middle of the second passage, please.”

  And she dutifully recited the chant in what she considered to be decently accented Eriisai as the forest rolled past them.

  They were greeted at the Guardhouse gate by Olly along with the queen, Rhuun’s mother. Scilla tried not to stare. She looked like a cross between Aelle and Rhuun himself, if he were massively scaled down. Despite everything Scilla had heard about this terrifying woman, she was actually kind and seemed grateful both of them had shown up. Scilla got to see her other side that night at dinner when the representatives of the Primes arrived.

  “In the morning we’re to give you our dirt,” the gentleman said to her, pulling in his chair. Then he laughed. “Next thing you’ll be wanting I suppose’ll be our coffee grounds and egg shells.”

  “You have me at a disadvantage,” she said. “I’m not certain why we would want those things.”

  “He means garbage,” said Olly, shooting daggers at the man. “He’s making a joke. Aren’t you?”

  “Oh,” said Hellne, “a joke. We enjoy our jokes on Eriis, only the difference is ours are usually funny. Is it different here?” She smiled sweetly at the man. “Also, our jokes usually don’t come at the expense of a guest. Ah well, I am learning much about your customs.”

  The man, red to his ears, muttered an apology and at
e the rest of his meal in silence. The man was important, and maybe Hellne had made a mistake. Scilla didn’t have long to think about it because after dinner Olly asked her to join him, Coll, and Hellne in Blue’s office. She figured it hadn’t really been Blue’s office for quite some time. The first time she’d been there, a brand new student scared of being alone; conjuring her own demon down at the stumps; when she and Lelet had begged Blue to open The Door and save Moth; when she’d performed the charm of seeing, when the landscape of Eriis had unfolded before her eyes...her eyes. That was where the trouble had begun. Magic took, and in her case, it took a sliver of her vision every time. After today, she wondered what she’d have left.

  “Scilla, do you know why we’ve asked you to be here?” Coll asked.

  She frowned. What a strange question. It had never occurred to her she might not be present. “To help open The Door tomorrow. And move the dirt.” She looked from face to face. “There’s another reason?”

  “Between us,” said Coll, “we can keep The Door open. Of that, I am certain. But we need to keep two Doors open.” Monsters, he said. There were monsters on Eriis, and they were coming here.

  “Who knows about this?” Scilla’s voice was high and trembling. “And what can I do about it?”

  “You already know what to do,” Coll said. “You have everything you need, right here.” He touched her forehead.

  She was wild with excitement. The long phrases she’d memorized now made sense. “And I’m to open the second Door? And kill the monsters?”

  Coll and Hellne glanced at each other.

  “Not exactly,” Coll said. “To open this new Door, to a place unknown and unseen, requires skills I don’t have. Skills lost to time, that were once taught here but not for many years.”