Shadow Scale

by Rachel Hartman

  I frowned. “According to your earlier analogy, that’s my mind, friend.”

  He chuckled into my hair, enjoying this. I loved him terribly just then, how he puzzled through obscure scholarship and reveled in ideas, never mind that he’d called my mind hell. The idea was the thing; he would entertain all comers.

  “So if the Infernum is an empty interior, what’s Heaven in their conception?” I asked, nudging him.

  “A second inside-out house, inside—or rather, ‘outside’—the first,” he said. “If you cross its threshold, you realize our world, for all its wonder, has been but a shadow, another kind of emptiness. Heaven is more than this.”

  I snorted, unable to contain the urge to argue. “Might there not be another inside-out house in Heaven, and on and on in infinite regression?”

  He laughed. “I can barely get my head around one,” he admitted. “In any case, it’s just a metaphor.”

  I smiled in the darkness. There was nothing “just” about metaphors, I was beginning to think; they followed me everywhere, illuminating and failing and illuminating again.

  “I have missed you so much,” I said, overcome. “I could spend eternity here at your shoulder, listening to you muse about whatever takes your fancy.”

  He kissed my forehead, and then he kissed my mouth. I kissed him back with an unanticipated urgency, thirsty for him, dizzy with him, filled with light. One of his hands lost itself in my hair; the other found itself at the hem of my doublet, fingering the linen shirt at my waist.

  Alas, I was a dragon at my center, encircled in silver scales. That touch started me thinking, and thinking was the beginning of the end.

  I spoke into the space between kisses—“Kiggs”—but then another kiss pulled me under. I wanted nothing but to forget all my promises and drown in him, but I couldn’t let myself. “Lucian,” I said more determinedly, taking his face in my hands.

  “Sweet Heavenly Home,” he gasped. He opened his deep brown eyes and leaned his forehead against mine. His breath was warm. “I’m sorry, I know, we can’t.”

  “Not like this,” I said, my heart still racing. “Not without discussing or deciding.”

  Kiggs wrapped his arms around me, as if to still my trembling, or anchor me to the earth; I buried my face in his shoulder. I could have wept. I hurt all over like one suffering terrible insomnia, when the body aches with longing for sleep.

  Somehow we both did find our portion of sleep there in each other’s arms.

  I awoke, with my cheek against his shoulder and a terrible crick in my neck, to the sound of voices in the council chamber. The drapes filtered light greenly through a lattice in the door; we could see nothing but could hear everything clearly. The councilors, a couple of dozen ministers and nobles, filed into the room beyond and found their seats. A trumpet fanfare goaded everyone into standing for Queen Glisselda’s entry.

  Kiggs shifted from floor to bench and leaned his elbows on his knees, listening.

  Glisselda spoke in a voice subdued and mild: “Blessed, would you kindly open this session with a prayer?”

  Blessed? Kiggs and I exchanged a glance.

  “I am humbled and honored, Majesty,” said a contralto voice. It was Jannoula’s. Kiggs raised his eyebrows inquiringly, and I nodded. He twitched restlessly, as if fighting the urge to rush out and put an end to this false-Saint nonsense right now. I touched his arm to still him; he covered my hand with his own.

  “Hark, ye lovely Saints above,” Jannoula began, in an unwieldy imitation of ecclesiastical language. “Gaze on us beneficently, and bless your Goreddi children and your worthy ityasaari successors. Give unto us the strength and courage it will take to fight the beast, thine unrighteous enemy, and bring us bold allies in our time of need.”

  It was time. I nodded to Kiggs, who opened the door. I silently slipped through the curtains and stepped onto the dais beside the golden throne. Jannoula stood a few steps in front of the Queen. The ministers and courtiers of the Queen’s council had bowed their heads in prayer, as had the dozen ityasaari to the left of the aisle. They did not notice me.

  I glanced over at the throne, looked again, stared. I had not recognized Glisselda. The full crown, not her usual diadem, was perched on her head, and in her pale hands she bore the orb and scepter, emblems of queenship that her grandmother had rarely brought out of storage, considering them an unbecoming ostentation. Queen Glisselda wore a stiff golden cape edged with ermine, prickly lace at the neckline, and a silk gown, embroidered gold on gold. Her fair hair seemed frozen in corkscrew curls; her face, already pale, had been whitened with cosmetics, her lips stained pomegranate red.

  The lively, intelligent girl I knew was almost invisible under all that pomp. The blue eyes were familiar, but they pierced me with a terrible coldness.

  We’d wondered how much influence Jannoula had gained over the Queen; the answer was visible in this change, I had no doubt.

  I tore my gaze away from the glittering Queen. Jannoula, dressed in crisp white linen, stood before me with her head bowed. Her brown hair came to a point at the nape of her neck.

  “Does Heaven ever grant you the bold allies you pray for, Jannoula?” I said, loud enough for the whole room to hear.

  She whirled to face me, mouth agape and green eyes startled. “Y-you’re here,” she stammered. “I knew you would come.”

  She hadn’t known; I’d caught her flat-footed. I found a small satisfaction in that.

  “My Queen!” cried Jannoula, turning to Glisselda. “Look who’s come.”

  Glisselda looked past us as if we weren’t there, but Jannoula didn’t seem to care. She turned back toward me, her hands tucked into the broad sleeves of her pale gown. “I knew you would return to me of your own accord, Seraphina,” she said ingenuously, surely playing to her audience. “Do you regret forsaking your dearest sister?”

  It was a ludicrous, deplorable act, and yet even I wasn’t immune to it. She’d asked the one question that would hurt me. “I do,” I said, swallowing hard. Alas, it was true.

  Was it possible for me to test the degree to which Queen and council were being manipulated by Jannoula? I wanted to shock them, and I wanted Kiggs to hear the reaction, too, from his hiding place. I cleared my throat and tugged at the hem of my doublet, buying time as I considered what to try. “I rushed back from Lab Four because I feared for you, sister,” I said slowly. “I heard news that worried me.”

  Jannoula’s lips parted; she looked convincingly innocent. “What was it?”

  “The dragons claim you work for them, that you devised the Old Ard’s strategies and advised their generals. They nicknamed you General Lady,” I said, surreptitiously observing the room. The half-dragons did not react to the news, but many council members were whispering among themselves, looking disturbed. Glisselda remained impassive.

  I held my breath, imagining Kiggs holding his, too. Would Queen and council question Jannoula about this alarming information? Were they so besotted with her that they’d excuse her every transgression?

  “Blessed Jannoula,” said the Queen, her high voice piercing the councilors’ growing grumble. “Seraphina implies that you’re the Tanamoot’s spy.”

  For the briefest instant, Jannoula met my gaze with steely coldness, but then her green eyes widened. “Your Majesty,” she said warmly, “it pains me to say that Seraphina’s charge is true, if incomplete and imperfectly understood. Dragons held me prisoner my entire life. My mother, the dragon Abind, returned pregnant to the Tanamoot and died in childbirth. My uncle, General Palonn, donated me to Lab Four as an infant.”

  I expected her to show her scarred forearms again, the way she had in Samsam, but she was unlacing her bodice, baring the middle of her torso. The council gasped in horror; she turned to face the Queen, who neither flinched nor looked away. A long, purpled scar ran down Jannoula’s body, from her breastbone to somewhere below her navel.

  “They opened me up,” she said, her eyes locked on me, as she refastened he
r gown. “They filled my blood with poisons, taught me physics and languages, ran me through mazes, determined how long I can last without food or warmth. I died twice; they brought me back to life with lightning.

  “When my mother birthed me, I wept. When I was reborn, I raged. My third awakening made me realize I was meant to be in this world. I could not leave until I had discovered my purpose and fulfilled it.”

  She turned with a graceful whirl of skirts, like a dancer, clasped her hands to her heart, and continued: “One day, one of my kind—our own St. Seraphina—found me and gave me hope. I learned I had a people.”

  I glanced out at the ityasaari: Dame Okra, Phloxia, Lars, Ingar, Od Fredricka, Brasidas, the twins. They smiled; I couldn’t bear to look.

  “From that day forth,” Jannoula was saying, “all my energies focused on escape. If that meant convincing my uncle to trust me by devising strategies for the Old Ard, then that’s what I did. I won them victories, yes, but each came at terrible cost. I saw to that.”

  I had noted this before. I hoped Kiggs was paying attention.

  “My only purpose, my single-minded goal,” said Jannoula, her voice high and clear, “was to come to Goredd, the home of my dearest sister. I would have moved Heaven to do it.”

  There wasn’t a dry eye among the councilors, old and young alike. The Queen dabbed subtly at her own with a lace-edged handkerchief; the ityasaari wept openly. Jannoula stepped toward me, took my hand in her cold fingers, and raised it triumphantly, as if we were dear friends reunited at last; only I could feel how hard she clenched my hand.

  “O brethren!” she cried. “Let this be a day of rejoicing.”

  And with that, still clamping my hand like a crab, she strode up the carpet toward the far end of the chamber, dragging me with her. Behind us the council broke out in heartfelt applause. Jannoula waved without turning around and said nothing more until we were out in the corridor, walking swiftly through the palace.

  She flung my hand away. “What was that?” she said through her teeth. “An attempt to discredit me? A little something you thought everyone should know?”

  “I really do want to help you,” I said. I meant it, though probably not the way she hoped. “I saw your old cell at Lab Four, your fur suit on the peg behind the door. I know what they did to you.” The thought of the place made my throat tighten. “The dragons told me you were still theirs, though.”

  She stopped short. “I am not theirs. I have never been theirs,” she snarled. “The unbearable arrogance of dragons! They will learn soon enough.”

  “Will they, indeed?” I said. “How do you intend to teach them?”

  She spread her arms. “Look around you. Find one thing I’ve sabotaged. The Goreddi war effort is the stronger for my presence, I promise you. Lars and Blanche are perfecting the war engines; Mina is teaching new sword techniques; my artists are inspiring the people. St. Abaster’s Trap was full of holes; I’ve fixed it. Goredd needed me, and I am here.”

  “And Orma?” I said. “I was promised he’d be here.”

  Her expression darkened. “You’ll see him when I decide you may.”

  “You underestimate my stubbornness,” I said.

  Jannoula leaned into my face, lowering her voice to a vicious whisper: “You overestimate my patience. Let me make one thing clear: I could dismantle you before the whole world. I could persuade any of those simpering courtiers to knife you, or each other, or themselves. Bear that in mind.”

  I raised my hands, conceding, and she nodded grimly. “Come on,” she said, not reaching for my hand again. “I’ll show you the Garden of the Blessed.”

  The Ard Tower, where Glisselda and I had waited for Eskar, was now home to the collected ityasaari. It loomed, dramatically tall, at the western end of the palace complex; the belfry at its top, bellfree for many years, had once warned the citizens of Lavondaville that it was time to take to the tunnels under the city.

  “You can see the entire Mews Valley from the top,” Jannoula said as we traversed one last courtyard, crisscrossed with red euonymus hedges. “It will be the perfect place from which to spring St. Abaster’s Trap.”

  Lars and Abdo had bowled me over with Abaster’s Trap when it was just the two of them creating it. Jannoula had many more ityasaari at her disposal. That was a lot of power available to someone I didn’t trust.

  Jannoula gazed at the crown of the tower, shading her eyes with one hand. “You realize that we, too, are Saints, as surely as St. Abaster himself.”

  “I don’t believe that,” I said.

  “Ingar brought me the testament of St. Yirtrudis; I read his translation, but I’d already gleaned that we ityasaari were Saints. It’s in my gift to apprehend these things.”

  “The Saints were half-dragons. It doesn’t follow that all half-dragons are Saints.”

  “Does it not?” she said, a smile playing on her narrow lips. “Do I not reveal the light of Heaven to humankind? Are we not all ablaze with soul-light? All of us but you.”

  I studied her fine-boned face, trying to gauge how much she believed and how much was cynical pretense. She seemed sincere, which only made me more skeptical.

  “Even with your stunted soul,” said Jannoula, “it’s still right that you’re here, Seraphina. This is to be the genesis of a new world, a new age of Saints, an era of peace. We will make ourselves a place of safety, and no one will ever harm us again.”

  That, or something like it, had been my dream, too. I felt a little queasy.

  “You will be my deputy,” she said, taking my arm, smiling as if this were the coziest thing in the world. “We all have jobs to do.”

  “And everyone’s happy with this?” I asked, observing her shrewdly. “St. Pende’s been incapacitated, you broke St. Camba’s ankles, and St. Blanche wants to die.”

  “Unavoidable casualties,” she snapped. “Everyone’s mind works differently. I haven’t found the easy way into them yet.”

  “You lost St. Abdo altogether,” I said, goading her. I couldn’t stop myself.

  “You’ve heard a lot of interesting things.” Her smile was brittle, her eyes hard. “From whom? I wonder. You needn’t worry about any of them.”

  “I do worry,” I said quietly.

  “Well then, perhaps that can be your job,” she said.

  Along the western edge of the courtyard, workmen smoothed sand, laying a new flagstone path. “We’re calling that the Pilgrim’s Way,” she said. “It leads into the city, open and unobstructed for any who wish to approach us devotionally.”

  We met townsfolk coming out of the tower, old crones, little girls, young wives of good households with servants in tow. At the sight of Jannoula, they pressed hands to their hearts and gave full courtesy. Two girls, maybe five years old, bumped each other as they curtsied, fell down, and burst into giggles. Jannoula pulled them to their feet, saying, “Stand, little birds, and Heaven smile on you.” Their mother, blushing, thanked Blessed Jannoula and led the giggling sisters away.

  Was Jannoula showing them her mind-fire? I wished I could tell when she did it.

  Jannoula lingered at the tower door, watching them go. “They come to cook for us and do our laundry. They bring fresh flowers, hang draperies, and sweep our floors.”

  “How did you merit so much devotion so quickly?” I asked, making no attempt to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

  “I show them Heaven,” said Jannoula, without a trace of irony. “People are so desperate for light.”

  She opened the tower door and mounted the spiral stairs. The walls were freshly whitewashed, the steps painted blue and gold. On the first floor, a short hallway spiked off from the stairwell; we didn’t go down it. We paused at the second floor, which comprised a single large room. The vaults of the ceiling were supported by a fat column in the center, like a date tree. Slim arrow loops had been converted to glass windows; a fire roared in the hearth. A lectern at the far end faced rows of stools, arrayed like pews in a chapel. Townswomen dusted the
recesses of the vaulted ceiling with rags on long poles, polished the plank floor, and hung garlands of hedge laurel.

  Jannoula pulled me back into the stairwell, leading me up two more stories to the fourth floor, where a short hallway ended in four blue doors. She opened one, revealing a wedge-shaped room. “I’ll have your things brought up from your old suite,” she said, leaning in so close she could have kissed me. “Yours is the most coveted room, of course. Directly next to mine.”

  By afternoon, eager pilgrims had spirited my possessions—instruments, clothing, books—from my old suite to the Garden of the Blessed. I hovered, supervising, wincing as they banged my spinet on the spiral stairs. The instrument barely fit beside the narrow bed; I stowed my flute and oud under it. Most of my books were left behind, but I was told I could use Ingar’s library, imported all the way from Samsam, which took up the entire sixth floor. I jammed my sheet music into the crowded chest alongside the new gowns Jannoula had insisted I have, all crisp white linen.

  My door hinges shrieked like the restless ghosts of cats. Floorboards grumbled crankily wherever I stepped. With Jannoula next door, sneaking out would be difficult; speaking with Kiggs on my thnik would require circumspection. The walls were thick stone, but rafters rested in open notches below the ceiling. All speech risked being overheard.

  I wanted so badly to contact the prince, to learn what he’d done after the council meeting and what he was doing now. Would he try to see Glisselda? There were other ways he could help me; he could spy in the city at large and come to understand the general attitude toward these upstart Saints. If the city was still preparing wholeheartedly for war, what did the people believe about this era of peace Jannoula had told me she was ushering in?

  Or he could find my uncle. I had no intention of waiting on Jannoula’s whim.

  Jannoula had tasks to attend to, as did most of the ityasaari. I checked every room, starting at the top, and learned that none of the doors locked. I found no one but cooking, cleaning pilgrims, until I reached the bottom floor. In a whitewashed room with a sooty hearth and a shuttered arrow-loop window, Paulos Pende lay upon the narrow bed, Camba in her wheeled chair at his side.