Night Shine

by Tessa Gratton

  “Kirin,” the dragon said, “is here in the mountain. I am compelled not to tell you where.”

  “Of course.” Nothing released Sky’s hand and sank to the floor, her back to the altar. She cradled her hands in her lap.

  The dragon sat beside her. Their shoulder glanced against hers. Both of them stretched out their legs and looked at their four bare feet: two long and silver-white, two stubby and sandy-white.

  “Are all dragons like you?” she asked, wiggling her toes. She’d been tempted to ask What does it feel like to be a dragon? What a day this was. What a place.

  The dragon wiggled their toes too, slower. “Are all Nothings like you?”

  Nothing giggled, surprised. “I’ve never met another Nothing.”

  “Oh. Well, then, no, and yes. Neither, too.”

  She laughed a little harder.

  “Both no and yes, dragon and human, river and spirit. Dragon spirits are change. That’s why we inhabit rivers and crossroads most often. Movement, shifting, fluid. More than both, not either-or: we’re the places in between. Potential.”

  Nothing quieted as they spoke, closing her eyes. Between breaths she felt a pull and tug, to either breathe in or out, suspended there. Between two sides, between ground and air. “I would like to be a dragon.”

  The dragon lifted a hand into their silky straight hair and pulled out a short, curving feather. They offered it.

  As Nothing took it between her fingers, a rainbow gleamed along the row of barbs. “Beautiful,” she said, and reached up to pluck a hair from her own head. She offered it in return.

  They didn’t take it. Nothing, suddenly afraid she’d misstepped—and with a dragon—pulled her hand back and turned her face fully to them.

  The dragon’s water-eyes were huge. They seemed surprised.

  “What?” Nothing demanded, too loudly. Though Sky was under a magical sleep, she feared waking him nonetheless and hushed herself. “What?” she whispered.

  “Humans usually take gifts.”

  “Are dragons not allowed to do the same?”

  “A trade is a bargain, not a gift.”

  “Or just… friendship,” Nothing said, turning away.

  “You are a strange human. Your people usually want something more from me. Power, riddles, never-ending fish.”

  “I only want Kirin.” Nothing offered her hair again, and this time the dragon of the Selegan River took it. She lifted the feather they’d given her from her lap. It felt like a breath of moisture on a summer day. It was perfect, and she loved it as she loved so many things here at the Fifth Mountain.

  Maybe it was where she belonged. With dragons and unicorns and sorceresses.

  She said, “The sorceress told me I’m her lost demon consort.”

  Beside her, the dragon went so still it was like a river freezing over in a single snap.

  When she looked, she saw they stared down at the line of blackness that was her hair, slicing across their palm. They said, “She has been searching for her demon for a long time.”

  “Is it possible?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You’re a dragon!”

  “I know change and water, river to steam to cloud to snow. I know trickling and flowing. I know raging and vibrant, lustrous storms. But I don’t know rebirth and creation.” They stood, padded a few paces from her, and quite suddenly instead of a lovely youth, they were their dragon form again, filling the crystal chamber with undulating silver-white scales and rainbow feathers and triple tail. The dragon said, “When I shift my shape, I choose who to be, what to be, and make my seeming match my will and core. Inside I am always what I am: potential. Do you know what you are inside? Can you change?”

  Nothing stood and held out her hands. She stared at the backs of them, the subtle gleam of sand-pale skin and wrinkled knuckles, the moon-white beds of her nails, and pretty pink shadows. In one hand, the dragon’s feather curved away, fluttering lightly. She imagined feathers bursting from her skin, then a ripple of pebbled scales growing down toward her wrists.

  She did not transform.

  She said, “I’m not a dragon. I’m not a demon.”

  “You know what you are not.”

  “That’s the easy part,” she murmured.

  “She loved it, you know.” The dragon changed again, to their youth form. They stood directly before Nothing, watery eyes on hers.

  She tried to respond, but found she did not know how, and touched the dragon’s cool cheek.

  “That’s why she worked so hard to find the right magic to bring it to life again,” they said.

  Nothing let her hand drift down the dragon’s cheek and fall to her side. “Did it love her back?”

  The dragon only looked at her, as if to say she was the one to answer that question.

  NINETEEN

  INSISTENT TIDE CAME TO fetch Nothing for dinner. Finally! Nothing had begun to think the day would drag on and on—not that the Selegan River was poor company, but she needed to see Kirin.

  First the old woman dragged Nothing back to her room, where a gown was folded over the makeup chair. Insistent Tide put her fists on her hips, glaring through her wrinkles at Nothing. “Strip,” she ordered.

  Taking her own turn at grumbling, Nothing obeyed. Insistent Tide thrust a cup of water at her and Nothing drank every drop. The cool water was refreshing, and she shook herself like a dog, rolling her neck and shoulders. She stretched her fingers and reached for the ceiling, then bent in half to touch the floor.

  “Finished?” Insistent Tide asked.

  Nothing stood and lifted her chin.

  The old woman stared. Her long wrinkles shaped her face around her frown. But her dark eyes glittered with amusement. “New underclothes there,” she finally said, pointing at some pale silk bits atop the smallest trunk.

  Nothing put them on, wiggling her hips a little to appreciate the softness. The thin silk slip tied over her breasts and fell in a narrow shaft nearly to her knees. She smoothed the material against herself, enjoying the sensation. Insistent Tide brought a sleeveless under-robe nearly as thin, but in shell pink, wrapping it around her waist tightly. Over that went a pale-green jacket that left most of her collar bare, hugging her shoulders only a little. Then a set of black and silver wrapping skirts tied at her waist with a bright-green sash embroidered with white lilies. Nothing obliged Insistent Tide tonight by sitting at the makeup desk while the old woman braided and pinned a few pieces of her hair and used a silk-and-horn band to hold it all in place. Then she put coral red on her lips and green around her eyes. Nothing supposed the old woman thought she was being funny, using the same colors as Nothing’s outrageous demon face the night before. This time they fit well with the gown.

  “Do you have feathers?” Nothing asked, thinking of the dragon’s feather. She’d left it with Sky, for he was the one who needed the dragon’s friendship most.

  Insistent Tide grudgingly supplied a few sleek green primary feathers. She tucked them into Nothing’s hair in an off-center crest. “Strange,” the old woman said.

  “Perfect,” Nothing agreed. She wanted to greet Kirin as prettily as she could, as it would be a pleasant surprise for him after so many weeks alone. He did like pretty things. Her chest felt tight with excitement. She’d missed him so much while he was gone on his summer trip with Sky, aching every day in the littlest ways, and then when the imposter returned, fear and uncertainty had overtaken her longing. But now: she might vibrate herself through the floor with anticipation.

  Insistent Tide gave her little black slippers, but as soon as Nothing was in the corridor, she took them off and continued to the geode room barefoot.

  Her heart pounded as she entered; she searched every amethyst glimmer and violet shadow for Kirin.

  But the geode was empty except for the same low, set table with the same thin golden cushions.

  Nothing tapped her fingers against her thighs, wondering how long to wait and what she should do. Certainly not
begin eating or drinking. She walked across the clear quartz floor, watching her toes peek out from the hem of her skirts, and imagined walking across the sharp facets of amethyst below instead. At the far edge, she crouched, relishing the slick of silk against her legs, and reached for the nearest spear of amethyst. Her fingers were cool against it! The crystal was warm and humming. And it was no constant hum, but a rhythm like a pulse.

  Before she knew it, her own pulse answered, trying to match the slow heartbeat. Nothing closed her eyes, listening. It soothed her, dazed her, like instant meditation.

  “Nothing,” Kirin said.

  She stood and whirled, nearly tripping on her skirts. There he stood: tall and lean, in a long robe of black and red, his trousers loose, hems falling over bare feet. He smiled at her, and Nothing dashed for him, ready to fling herself into his arms.

  But she stopped.

  Several feet away, she stood still and stared, pulse pounding, stomach rolling. Cold sweat beaded along her spine.

  “Nothing?” He frowned. He stepped toward her.

  Nothing parted her lips to say his name but couldn’t.

  He was perfect: vivid brown-and-gold eyes held hers, gently curled lashes blinking hardly at all. His skin was healthy, bright moon-white; his brows lifted elegantly; his hair fell over his shoulders in heavy black layers. He was still rather weedy in his height, not entirely grown into it. There was the familiar cock of his shoulders, and he leaned on one hip. His slightly pink lips tilted as he smiled at her.

  His hands were relaxed, elegant and strong looking. It was him. Everything about him was him.

  Her hair-bracelet wrapped his left wrist, just over the knob of bone.

  And still Nothing could not say a thing. She could not take the final steps.

  “Nothing?” asked the sorceress softly.

  The word tore her eyes from Kirin to the sorceress.

  Power radiated from her luminous face, the round prettiness of her copper cheeks and red lips overwhelmed by those monstrous eyes. Her black-brown-red hair was a mass of coils like tentacles snarled around her head. She wore bold green, blue, and black in lustrous layers, and a single fire-red gemstone hung on a chain over her heart, like a crystalized fist of blood.

  She was entirely distracting from Kirin. That shouldn’t have been possible.

  Nothing forced her attention back to the prince. “Kirin?” she whispered.

  “Who else would I be?” He came for her. “Nothing!”

  She let him embrace her, flattening her hands on his ribs. He smelled like the mountain, and a sharp tea. His hair brushed her forehead as he curled around her, tightening his hold.

  “No,” she whispered against the warm spread of his silk-clad chest.

  “No? You found me. You did it. I said Nothing would come for me, and you did.”

  Nothing pushed firmly away. The frown he gave her was only slightly confused, married with a growing irritation. Exactly the right reaction. Kirin would be irritated she wasn’t behaving happy or even satisfied to have him again.

  Exactly right.

  She was still sweating coldly as she backed away and said to the sorceress, “This isn’t him. It’s another imposter!”

  The smile that spread across the sorceress’s lips was like an arrow in Nothing’s heart.

  “How do you know?” the sorceress asked gently.

  Kirin crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  Nothing pursed her lips as her eyes flicked to him again. “I’m sorry, but I know it’s not you.”

  “I am perfect.”

  “He is perfect,” the sorceress echoed.

  “I know,” Nothing said. “But it’s not him.”

  “Go sit,” the sorceress commanded.

  Kirin immediately went to the table and flung himself down upon a cushion, leaning his long body back to prop on one elbow. He crossed his ankles and watched them arrogantly.

  It hurt Nothing to see. But she knew.

  The sorceress approached her like a stalking panther. “How do you know?” she asked again.

  “I know him better than anybody.” Nothing hugged her stomach as her only defense.

  “Explain to me what gave him away.”

  “So you can make one to fool even me?”

  The sorceress reached for Nothing, and Nothing jerked back just as her fingernails grazed her chin.

  “I swear,” the sorceress said, “I will not make another. If you tell me.”

  “I…” Nothing licked her lips and stared at Kirin. At the fake Kirin. She couldn’t point to anything in particular. Each detail, as she thought of it, she realized was right. His smile, his attitude, his pose and the way he plucked a blueberry from a shallow bowl upon the table and popped it into his mouth. Everything was exactly as it should be.

  Nothing’s eyes pricked with tears. “I just know.”

  “It’s because he’s your master,” the sorceress murmured in Nothing’s ear, hovering just behind her: a cool presence, like a shadow blocking the sun.

  “What?” Nothing held herself as still as possible. Eyes on the false Kirin, too aware of the sorceress breathing at the nape of her neck.

  “You were my lost demon, Nothing, and when you were reborn, Kirin—your Kirin—somehow made you his. Named you, then bound you with the name he gave you. It’s the only explanation for how you know it isn’t him, for why you do not know yourself.”

  Nothing realized she was breathing too quickly. “He wouldn’t. He’s my friend.”

  “He might not have meant to if he did not know what you are.”

  “Only a sorcerer can bind a demon or a great spirit,” Nothing said.

  The sorceress laughed. “Kirin, more than anyone but his mother, has a sorcerer’s potential within him. Not only because he is both a prince and the most beautiful maiden, primed to step into the aether between.”

  Nothing wanted to argue, but if anyone in the great palace was accidentally a sorcerer, it would be Kirin Dark-Smile. “That shouldn’t be enough.”

  “No. But when you consider the Moon, it might have been.”

  “The Moon?”

  “The great demon of the palace, Nothing. Bound by a powerful amulet to the empress, and to her heir, for generations.”

  “What?” Nothing whispered, confused. She didn’t know what to do.

  The sorceress touched her shoulder, gently turning Nothing to face her. “I think in retrospect, tender heart, that it was the only place you could be reborn. Inside another great demon’s house. It must have been safe, like an eggshell, to hold you until you were ready. And Kirin Dark-Smile, because he was young, and you were young, and he partially bound to the Moon, already living in a twilight of sorcery, had just enough aether and instinct to give you a true name. Bind you.”

  Nothing sucked in a surprised breath. “I want my Kirin.”

  “Because you have to want him.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. He named you; he bound you.” Something hard tinged the sorceress’s words. Frustration, or anger, maybe. “He’s powerful because he knows he doesn’t fit where he is told he must.” The sorceress smiled sadly. “That was my first step along this path too.”

  “What’s your name?” Nothing demanded. “Tell me. If I was your consort, I must have known. Tell me again.”

  “Not while you are his. I won’t let him use you against me.”

  Frustration clamped Nothing’s teeth together. She made fists and squeezed until her bones hurt. “Give me something!” she cried.

  The sorceress said, “Kirin helped me with this one.”

  “Helped you with…” Nothing glanced back at the false prince as he arranged blueberries in a line against the edge of the table, then ate them one by one. Lazily, with the affectation of boredom. It hurt her to see it. Under her heart, like a heat in her stomach. “Why would he…?”

  “To save The Day the Sky Opened. I bargained, and that is what he gave me for the warrior’s life.”
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  “He saved his own life with information about me and saved Sky’s by helping you? Why?”

  The sorceress shrugged a slender shoulder, her gaze sliding from Kirin to Nothing. When Nothing hadn’t been looking, her pupils had shifted from red slits to plain black circles. Nearly human, except no human had a single bone-white eye. “He may be a baby sorcerer, but I am not.”

  “He gave you the bracelet,” Nothing whispered. The one braided of her hair.

  “He did. And suggested I try a fox spirit bound to this simulacrum. Last time I chose a crossroads spirit.”

  “To fool me.”

  “But, Nothing”—the sorceress lowered her gaze—“you were not fooled.”

  Nothing sank to the quartz floor. She knelt, staring at the false Kirin, in pain. It was an ache in her center, radiating out with biting fingers, pinching at her guts and heart, and it drove tears up her throat to fill her nose and eyes until her vision wavered with a smoky burn.

  What name to give this feeling? Anger, hurt, betrayal?

  She didn’t know. Nothing would be better. To feel nothing, or merely the edges of what other people felt. She was a shadow, a slip of a girl dashing through the walls, climbing into secret chambers folded between rooms and corridors of the seven circles of the palace. Between the world and the world, anchored only to Kirin.

  Nobody else had known Kirin was not Kirin. Not then, and certainly they wouldn’t know now.

  She couldn’t explain it.

  “I have to see him,” she whispered. And she reached for the sorceress to plead.

  The sorceress’s eyes widened as Nothing touched the back of her hand.

  Blackness swallowed her.

  Inside the blackness was heat, and a flower. The flower opened and spilled more flowers, oblong, vivid pink and dark purple, falling in crests, into the blackness—no, born of it, falling into—

  Nothing opened her eyes to the cutting curve of the amethyst ceiling. She was reclined in the sorceress’s lap, held in the pool of her skirts, and the sorceress leaned over her, one arm around her shoulders. The strands of thick tricolored hair fell around Nothing, and both the green and the white eye shone with intensity. “Oh, I do not want to take your heart,” she whispered.