by Liz Delton
Blackened Vines
A disturbingly handsome grin pulled up the corners of the Storm King’s mouth. His dark eyes crinkled at the corners.
“So you’re the little Starless one?”
Starless one. That’s what Zowan called her. Her heart twisted, knowing how much it would outrage Zowan that she had come here.
All the binds were gone. Kira opened her mouth to speak, finally.
“I am. And I’m here to bring you a message from the spirits.”
The Storm King cocked his head, his eyebrows furrowing.
Then she heard footsteps. Lots of footsteps. Coming from the Hall of Spirits, the passage below her.
“What now?” Thistle griped from where he had crawled inside her jacket.
The Storm King glared down the Hall of Spirits and clasped his hands behind his back.
Kira stared down, though the sight made her stomach lurch constantly. She hung pressed against the wall perhaps twenty feet above the floor.
Beneath her dangling feet, five people burst from the Hall.
“Where is she?” Zowan demanded.
Anzu, Ichiro, Nari, and Jun fell into place beside him. Thistle chirped in surprise. Kira closed her eyes briefly in despair. The Storm King seemed only mildly perturbed that five intruders had gained the foyer of the Spire. Had Zowan led them in?
“No!” Kira shouted. They all jerked around to look up at her. “You shouldn’t be here—Jun, Zowan—why?”
They gaped up at her.
“Let her go,” Jun demanded. He had a Light staff in his grip, and in an instant, it clattered to the floor by the Storm King’s feet.
Then Jun was airborne, flung to the back wall, far from Kira. He grunted on impact.
“No,” Kira whispered. They weren’t supposed to be here.
Zowan took a step forward. “Let them go.” Each word ripped from his throat with pure rage.
The Storm King narrowed his eyes at his nephew. The foyer, until this moment bathed in the dim light of dusk, grew dark. Above them, in the many galleries of the Spire, black clouds blossomed and morphed. The air changed. A belt of thunder rolled through the Spire, rumbling through the very stones. Through the shadowy clouds, Kira could see the dark outlines of people gathering on the galleries above. Surely the rest of the castle could hear the disturbance.
“What sort of pathetic trick is this?” the Storm King sneered. “Did you think you could distract me with a child claiming to be from the Starless Realm?” The thunder grumbled behind his words, and Kira flinched as cold, harsh raindrops pelted her.
“Wait! Stop!” Kira cried. “Please. They weren’t supposed to be here.” She threw them an apologetic glance, but they were all glaring at the Storm King.
“We’re all in danger!” she shouted. Could the Storm King even hear her over the terrible thunder? “The spirits are going mad!” But no one listened.
Zowan stepped toward the fountain and pulled his sword from its sheath. The Storm King laughed, a big booming sound accompanied by more thunder.
As Zowan lifted his sword in a careful arc, water from the fountain rose and followed its path. More water came as Zowan traced another arc then sank into a calculated crouch.
He swung, slicing the sword sideways toward the Storm King. The water slashed—rushing forward like a deadly scythe.
A flick of the Storm King’s hand turned the oncoming water to a wall of ice, which dropped in useless shards at his feet.
Zowan ran along the edge of the fountain and leapt, sword held above his head. Ichiro summoned a longbow, the Light magic flashing briefly white before settling into a bow made of worn wood. He summoned arrows as quickly as he fired them. These sailed through the air like white-hot missiles.
The Storm King flung Zowan back with a burst of wind, pinning him against the wall not far from Kira. She glanced at him and grimaced.
Ichiro’s arrows held a similar fate. The Storm King swatted them away as quickly as they came. White arrows littered the floor on either side of him.
Nari and Anzu charged around either side of the fountain, summoning Light weapons as they went. Anzu now held the long, bladed staff she favored and Nari two sharp swords.
Not five paces from the Storm King, both warriors halted in their tracks. Blocks of ice surged from the floor, the fallen water freezing up to their knees. Anzu wobbled and braced herself on her staff.
The Storm King guffawed, and the rain finally let up.
“What were you trying to accomplish?” he mocked. “Did you think you could come here and kill me—me?” The mages watching from the galleries laughed as the Storm King encouraged them.
“No, please!” Kira shouted. “Just listen to me!”
“Did you think you could trick me with a so-called ‘Starless’ child who can practice Light magic?”
Kira’s stomach dropped. “It’s true!” she screamed. Tired of the lies. Tired of not being listened to. Tired of being thought of as a child who couldn’t make decisions, couldn’t control her own life.
A storm surged through her. She couldn’t take this anymore.
She dropped from the wall and landed with a crash.
The Storm King gazed at her in horror. “How—?”
The fountain had refilled with its recycled rain, but Kira tromped right through it. She was only a little bruised from the fall. Water splashed everywhere as she advanced upon the shocked Storm King.
“Listen to me!” she demanded, stepping up to the edge of the fountain. Anzu and Nari gaped up at her.
No one spoke. Even the thunder stopped.
Finally.
“Something bad is happening to the spirits of Camellia,” she began, addressing the whole room but directing her ire at the Storm King. He watched her with dark eyes, his mouth slightly open. “The dark-creatures wreaking havoc are actually spirits. Spirits darkened by chaos. And it’s going to happen again tonight with the full moon! The spirits warned me—”
An arrow flew past Kira’s ear and froze mid-air in front of the Storm King before dropping to the ground.
Kira turned, but it wasn’t Ichiro who had fired it. It was the Grey Knights.
“Another trick!” the Storm King roared.
Kira groaned in frustration.
The Camellia Six stood in a row behind Sir Jovan Kosumoso, grey sashes glimmering at their waists. They were an impressive sight. Kira thought the history books did them no justice.
Between them, they carried an armory’s worth of weapons. The slight man with his hair tied back held the longbow which had fired the useless arrow. A quiver full of arrows—whether real or Light, Kira couldn’t tell—hung over one shoulder. The stout, bearded man next to him carried a formidable-looking chain at his waist, which carried blades on either end. Two swords jutted from most of the men’s belts, including Sir Jovan’s. So he had finally gathered the Six.
“Raiden,” Sir Jovan spat.
Kira swiveled to gaze back at the Storm King. She shrunk away. She was a mere arm’s length away from the man.
She didn’t see how it happened. The room simply exploded.
Water everywhere. Chips of stone falling, hitting her in the head. Kira cowered and tried to run underneath one of the galleries, but a random gust of wind knocked her to the ground.
It was chaos. The Grey Knights unleashed their balance of powers upon the Storm King in whirls of Shadow and Light. Jun and Zowan fell to the floor, the Storm King evidently releasing his hold as he fought off the Six. Kira almost felt bad for the cocky man until he whipped out of one of the enormous windows and with a gust of Shadow magic brought Jun with him.
“No!” Kira cried. She wasn’t the only one.
Sir Jovan rushed out the window, not even pausing to see what lay below. Zowan and the Grey Knights were right behind him, flying right out the window with Shadow magic.
Nari and Anzu finished dispatching of their icy prisons, summoning fire and soon standing in puddles of water. Ichiro joined them in front o
f the windows, and Kira came up behind them.
“Stay with Kira,” Nari directed Anzu.
Though the drop out of the windows was more than two stories, Nari and Ichiro stepped out just like the others.
Except it wasn’t like the others. When Kira looked out, she saw a series of steps—Light magic—sticking out of the stone foundation. Ichiro and Nari flew down them as fast as they could summon them.
Anzu turned and clapped Kira into a suffocating hug.
“Why did you come?” Kira grumbled, pulling away so Thistle wouldn’t be crushed. “I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“That’s not your decision to make,” Anzu chided.
Kira huffed in annoyance. “What can we do?”
Down in the courtyard, night was falling. The Grey Knights surrounded Raiden. Jun was like a ragdoll in his arms. Kira couldn’t tell if he was unconscious or frozen with fear.
The Storm King had summoned a cyclone of wind and water around him. It was beautiful. The water from the lake behind them glittered with Light as it whipped through the air, broken by slashes of gusting wind.
Jovan and the Six circled around them, but their strikes could not pierce the cyclone. The forceful winds deflected every arrow, every blow thrown. The Grey Knights, though skilled in Shadow magic, were no match for the Storm King’s legendary powers for manipulating the weather. It was no wonder that they hadn’t confronted him in his own territory before. He more than lived up to his name.
Ichiro, Nari, and Zowan were not without adversaries. Shadow mages had finally joined the fray at the Storm King’s order. These mages favored attacking with gales of wind. Ichiro actually summoned Light magic to bind his feet to the stone as he fired heavy bolts at the mages with his bow. He had some success, but the chaos of the cyclone drew more mages by the minute. Nari and Zowan worked together, Nari summoning heavy objects and Zowan flinging them at their attackers.
Kira clutched Thistle to her chest. This was all her fault. If she had been more careful, Jun and the others would still be safe back at Gekkō-ji. And she hadn’t even finished her bargain with Gekkō.
She glanced down, contemplating the Light steps left behind by Ichiro and Nari. Anzu grabbed her arm. The steps began ripping themselves from the foundation, flying toward the Storm King, sailing over Jovan, who controlled them. Those, too, failed to pierce the wall of his cyclone. The wind was far too strong.
The wind howled past the windows of the castle and through the many levels of the Spire. The wind grew, more fuel added by the mages.
Kira saw each strike, each gust of wind highlighted in starlight. It was beautiful and horrific. She could still see Jun’s silhouette through the cyclone, limp and clutched under Raiden’s arm.
“Jovan won’t give up.”
Kira glanced at Anzu with wide eyes.
“We couldn’t stop Jun from coming. We were all against it, even Zowan.”
Kira stared down at him, the man who had taught her how to fight, though he hadn’t been great at teaching her about Camellia.
“But he said he had to help you—because you were from—”
Kira’s eyes locked onto Anzu’s.
“—the Starless Realm.”
Kira’s heart melted. Another truth. “Yes. I am—or at least I thought I was.” There was no time to explain now. Kira was only glad that Anzu knew the truth or at least part of it.
Zowan now faced down four Shadow mages near the edge of the lake. Kira could see he was struggling. The mages kept pushing him closer and closer to the water. One more gust of wind, and—
Zowan brought the water to them. He reached over his head, straining as if hauling a heavy boulder. A surge of water rushed over his head, arching toward the mages.
Someone screamed. It was Nari, fighting three mages alone. She had risen high up in the air against her will. Daggers of ice sailed toward her from below.
Zowan’s arch of water crashed onto his assailants and he darted away, toward Nari’s attackers. He deflected one—two—
A terrible scream. The third dagger sliced through her side. The icy dagger, now covered in blood, sailed to the ground and landed with a cold clatter.
It landed near a door.
A door that stood alone, supported by nothing. A door that was covered in heavy vines draped with purple flowers.
Kira gasped. She dragged in air as if drowning. Anzu gaped at her, and Kira pointed.
“Do you see it?” she cried.
“What? Oh—what in Light’s name is that doing there?”
“Anzu! That’s the door! Just like the one that brought me to this realm!”
“Truly? How did it get there?”
“I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with the full moon, and the spirits going crazy, and—”
Kira’s surprise turned to icy terror. The bulbous moon hung full in the sky. It hovered just off the horizon, as if too heavy to rise any further.
And then, the wailing began.
A keening. A drawn out, high-pitched moan. Coming from the lake.
They could hear it over the wind. The Shadow mages heard it too, and even the cyclone shrunk as everyone turned to see her.
She was beautiful or had once been. Her long curly hair fell past her elbows, but it was as if the color was being sucked out of it, to be replaced with a heavy darkness. Her full cheeks and deep-set eyes darkened, as if pulling away into an impossibly black shadow.
And then there was the tail. A muscular serpent’s tail melded seamlessly with her torso, the scales losing their sheen as she slithered from the water.
It was as if all the Light had been pulled from her.
The cyclone dropped to a mere breeze. Raiden maintained a whirling guard of icy daggers as a precaution while he stared at the once-beautiful spirit. The spirit of the lake, the one Kira had seen in the Hall of Spirits.
“Oh no,” Thistle moaned. His dark eyes gazed in terror. “Not Kagami.”
She wailed again, and Kira could feel the terrible sound deep in her chest. She clutched at Anzu’s wrist.
Kagami slithered onto the stones, dark as a void. Kira could only see her by the lack of Light.
The blackness grew. Kagami surged forward, all the while growing larger herself. She was now twice the height of the Storm King, her serpentine tail long enough to wrap around all those present and more.
She stared at the mages and knights only for a moment. And then she struck, lunging for the Storm King—Jun still in his clutches.
The mages were instantly by his side. Gusts of wind and icy daggers burst forth toward Kagami, but they made no mark on the dark spirit.
Jovan and the Six retreated back to the castle wall, but the movement caught Kagami’s eye, and she lunged again. She surged forward like a snake, except instead of fangs, her hands grew claws. She gouged at the Camellia Six until they drove her back with gusts of dagger-laced wind. The Shadow mages joined their efforts, fearing Kagami’s attention returning to Raiden.
Zowan managed to dart toward Raiden and Jun in a moment of confusion—Kagami had encircled a group of mages in her serpent’s tail. Instead of making a strike for Raiden, Zowan grabbed Jun. He sped away with a helpful gust of wind.
The door was still there.
Was it the cause of the spirit’s madness? Or was it something else?
Whoever had summoned either the door or the chaos that consumed Kagami must be near. Thistle had said a human was behind it. And it was clear that it was not the Storm King.
“Come on.” Kira grabbed Anzu by the sleeve. She summoned her Light staff and tugged at the knight. “We need to find whoever summoned the door or whatever caused this!”
“No! Kira—I’m supposed to—”
“I don’t want to stand here and watch while the spirit kills everyone! While they all kill each other! Let’s go!”
Kira had to admit while they hurtled down the corridors of the Spire that she wanted to know what was behind that door. It had to be the
Starless Realm. How many mysterious doors could just appear like that?
She was sure it had something to do with the spirit’s madness. She was sure they were connected. Sure that if they found whoever had conjured it, they could stop the chaos from consuming Camellia. That the door might take her back.
They bolted down the corridors, searching for anyone, any sign. But there was no one. The castle was deserted, its inhabitants no doubt hiding or on their way to assist their fellows. The hallways were not lit brightly, and the darkness outside was overpowering. Lanterns of magicked fire hung every few feet, their dim light not strong enough to even cast shadows. But Kira didn’t need regular light to see.
Her feet slammed hard into the stone as she forced herself to stop. A window had drawn her attention.
“You don’t think this is normally like this, do you?” she asked Anzu.
They both stared at the window. It was covered in withered black vines, dead black flower petals littering the floor all around them. The vines wound around the frame and out the window, all the way down the steep foundation, and crept along the stones. It was clear the vines were headed in a particular direction. Yet they didn’t quite reach the door.
It was as if they had been burned.
“By the Light,” Anzu gasped in a strangled voice.
Kira looked up. Anzu pointed her staff to the side of the window frame, where Kira could see the glint of metal. It was a ring. And it was attached to a finger.
Her stomach heaved. Two burned fingers, clutched around the window frame as if the hand were still there, as someone steadied himself against the frame. Kira had no doubt they belonged to whoever had conjured the door.
A flash of Light magic blossomed as Anzu summoned what looked like a leather drawstring bag. Without touching the remains on the vines, she wrapped the bag around them and pulled the strings tight. She stuffed it in her pocket, grimacing.
Anzu prodded the blackened vines with the end of her staff. They didn’t crumble, as Kira had expected.
Anzu cocked an eyebrow at her. “Well? Do you want to go first?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Misery of Chaos
