“Do you know where we’re going?” asked Damon.
Ria shook her head. “I have heard that the Athla Agualai is where the Athlatak resides. It roughly translates to the Water Palace.”
“Let’s keep our eyes peeled for a river.”
She nodded, her eyes panning across the area in front of them. “There. That is ton-ton, a local community hall. I have no doubt I can ask for the directions we need or even send a message to the Athlatak from there.”
A large building with a curved roof and several doors seemed to be a hub of the nearby section of the city, with a constant stream of people in and out. Ria held up a hand as he made to follow her toward it.
“You should wait here,” she said. “It would not end well if you were recognized as a Merinian face to face.”
“Fair enough.”
“Stay close, Damon. I am serious.”
“I will,” he said. “Relax.”
He smiled at her, resisting the urge to kiss her. They were already conspicuous enough and drawing a fair amount of attention. He went around to the side of a nearby building as Ria headed into the ton-ton, finding a spot out of direct view of the crowd.
A young Remenai girl with only wispy traces of her clan tattoos along the edges of her face approached him slowly. Damon smiled and held a hand up, deciding that if he were to be recognized as a Merinian, he might as well make a friendly impression.
“Hello,” he said in Konokai.
The girl blinked in surprise and then smiled, grabbing his hand and pointing. Damon chuckled and tried to draw back, remembering what Ria had said. The girl was insistent, however, and he decided that it couldn’t hurt to follow her if she wasn’t going far.
She led him into a small alleyway that followed a slope downward into a tiny grove of trees and then let go of his hand, sprinting off. Damon turned to make his way back toward Ria only to find himself staring into the face of a wooden mask with demonic features painted black and red.
He flinched backward and reached for his myrblade, cursing himself for being such an idiot. He opted not to draw his sword, remembering where he was and how it would come across. It hardly mattered in the end, as a heavy cudgel took him in the back of the head. He heard it connect, but was unconscious before the pain set in.
CHAPTER 16
Damon was shivering from the cold when he woke up. He was in a cage, but that seemed secondary to the more important fact that the cage was hanging high in the air, at least a hundred feet up. He rubbed his hands together and then lightly touched the back of his head, groaning as his fingers touched a wound matted with hair and blood.
His myrblade was gone. No surprise there. He’d been strung up in one of the massive trees he’d seen in the distance during his initial glimpse of Yvvestrosai. Few people walked directly below him, though it was hard to tell exactly what was going on through the thick curtain of branches between himself and the ground.
His cage was made of solid wood and was neither high enough for him to stand up in, nor wide enough for him to lay down. It was snowing, a fact which he disregarded, until stopping to consider that he didn’t have his myrblade. The cold was back to being a threat.
A few hours must have passed since he’d been imprisoned, at the least. It was the middle of the night, with the ghost moon casting its teal glow across the city. Damon was struck by how few lights he saw, most of which came from the interior of buildings.
People weren’t walking with torches or lanterns, and few of the streets and courtyards had dedicated sources of illumination. It made Yvvestrosai feel sleepy and abandoned, like an empty ruin amidst the trees.
He tried to reel himself in, turning his attention back to his own circumstances. Ria might still be nearby, and he could call out to her and hope his voice carried. It wasn’t much of a plan, but he didn’t exactly have a range of options.
“Ria,” he called. “Ria.”
The wind blew through the tree from which he hung, overpowering his voice and swaying his cage in a manner that was incredibly disconcerting. He didn’t try again, even as his cage slowed to a stop.
If Ria were near enough to lend aid, what was he expecting from her? It wasn’t as though she could take on the Remenai warriors of an entire city. Damon pulled his knees into his chest, feeling increasingly desperate to preserve any amount of warmth, and looked up.
Several ropes attached to the cage’s top half, coming together into a thick knot above him. It wasn’t a static arrangement, as he noted the addition of a pulley and a long, wooden cylinder from which the extra rope seemingly unwound or into which it wrapped, allowing for ascent or descent.
With numb fingers, he tried to reach across to the mechanism. It was just out of reach, and he considered whether he could rock the cage to make it sway near enough. There would be little he could effectively do with just his fingers, however.
The cold was distracting, pitilessly effective at stealing and holding his attention. Damon brushed snowflakes out of his hair and tried to slide his arms inward along his tunic. He leaned his head back against the bars of the wooden cage. He’d think more about his options after taking a second or two to warm up. He was just… too cold.
***
“Damon… Hey! Damon! Wake up!”
He recognized that voice and knew where he was even before he opened his eyes.
“Myr…” he muttered. “Am I dreaming?”
He blinked, recognizing the austere surroundings of her ice prison within the myrblade’s enchantment. He didn’t have the sword with him. As far as he knew, he couldn’t enter Myr’s realm without close contact with the myrblade.
“You’re not dreaming,” said Myr. “You’re dying.”
“Ah. Well. That’s no good.”
“That’s extremely no good!” snapped Myr. “You need to summon me!”
“What?”
He saw her scowl. She was beautiful, even chained as she was. Blue skin, blue hair, bright blue eyes, and the sort of body that would have earned her the enmity of all the working women at a tavern.
“Since you’re a wielder, our bond still exists even when the sword is out of your hand,” said Myr. “It’s why no one else can tap into my enchantment, even if they hold me. Under certain circumstances, you can call me to your hand. Now would be a good time to give it a try.”
“Certain circumstances?” he muttered. “It would be easier if you explained what you meant by that.”
“I’m in a warm hut right now. Warm enough to melt ice. You’re outside, in the cold, cold enough for the air to freeze. Imagine the myrblade is simply like the ice you create with the enchantment.”
She spoke quickly, her voice sounding far-off, like a whisper from outside a window. He nodded slowly, though was still unsure whether he completely understood.
“Do it now!” snapped Myr. “Damon… you might die if you don’t.”
He chuckled despite how sobering he found her words. Myr’s realm dissolved, and he felt snowflakes fall away from his eyelashes as he blinked them back open.
Her description of the process of summoning the myrblade had been so straightforward that he couldn’t help but assume there must be more to it. Wouldn’t he have figured the technique out through his own razor-sharp intuition if it could be done so easily?
He splayed his sensationless fingers and tried to focus his will in the same way he did while manifesting Myr’s enchantment. He wanted his sword. He needed his sword. He exhaled and pictured it forming in front of him.
Strangely, it was as though he could feel his myrblade melting from wherever it currently was, locked away in a guard hut, perhaps, and reforming within his hand. Scabbard and all, his sword appeared, passing through space in response to his summon. The instant it finished forming, Damon felt his body readjusting to the cold, treating the weather like a newly saddled horse, a beast at his beck and call.
“Better?” whispered Myr.
“Immeasurably,” he sighed. “Now. Let’s get
out of here.”
Seeing the winding rope mechanism before had given him the basis for an idea. With deliberate motions, Damon rocked the cage back and forth, until he was within striking distance of the pulley’s extra slack.
His idea was not to simply cut the rope. That would lead to a much more dramatic and deadly descent than his body would find agreeable. He was inspired by the new application of Myr’s ice enchantment and had a thought about how it might serve him now.
He lashed out with his sword, but didn’t aim to cut the rope, not yet. Instead, he froze the entire mechanism in solid ice, taking several strikes to make sure the entire cylinder was completely covered, aside from a tiny section he’d need to sever.
With that done, Damon finally did cut the rope. The cage barely reacted, given that the tension was frozen in place farther up the line. He braced himself against the sides of his tiny compartment and focused intensely on the ice. He exhaled, letting it melt, but only just enough for a portion of rope to slip through before reversing his will and freezing it again, letting the cage descend in small, stopping spurts.
He clenched his teeth in concentration, and his head throbbed from the intensity of focus, but the scheme worked perfectly. It took him a few minutes to descend all the way to the ground, but the process was silent, and no guards awaited him at his final stop.
Damon hacked through the bars of his cage with a single rough chop, picked up his myrblade’s scabbard, and silently began creeping through the City of Flowers.
CHAPTER 17
Damon had barely made it ten strides before a figure collided with him from behind. He almost spun and slashed on reflex, but a familiar voice stayed his hand.
“Damon!” hissed Ria. “Oh, Jad’s mercy! How did you do that?”
“I managed to use my myrblade to…” He frowned, turning into Ria’s embrace and an onslaught of kisses. “Wait, you were down here?”
“I was watching you,” she said. “It was hard for me to contain my worry.”
“Why didn’t you try to find a way to help me?”
“I did.” She took his hands into hers and squeezed them softly. “I spoke with the Athlatak’s mother, and she recognized the situation as a misunderstanding. She ordered you released, but only a few within Yvvestrosai are allowed to operate the tree cages. I was waiting for your jailor to arrive, in essence.”
“I was to be released?” he said, shaking his head. “So I escaped for nothing?”
“In essence, yes.”
He found it hard to be too aggrieved by that, given how the situation had led to him discovering a new ability. Ria attempted to rub some warmth into his hands. She made to take her own cloak off and give it to him, as his had been confiscated with the rest of his equipment. Damon waved the gesture off.
“The cold doesn’t bother me when I have my myrblade,” he said.
“If you insist. We need to make our way to the Water Palace without delay. The Athlatak will be expecting us.”
She took his hand and began leading him forward through the city.
“You said you met his mother?” he asked. “Did she seem agreeable?”
“She seemed… complicated,” said Ria. “This entire situation is not what I had expected.”
“What does that mean?”
“Best if you see for yourself.”
Yvvestrosai’s night life was different than Avaricia’s and other major cities in which Damon had spent time. The web of paths through the trees and flowers felt sleepy and muted with the few people out traveling with purpose.
There were no drunkards sitting in alleyways or arguing outside of taverns, no wandering groups of young ruffians looking to stir up trouble. Damon saw a pair of women walking while holding hands, neither dressed for the weather nor concerned with their surroundings. They would have been a target in Avaricia, or more likely, not on the street to begin with.
Ria led him through a wall of trees of suspiciously similar height. Their destination stood on the other side of it. The Water Palace was aptly named, with a thick moat encircling it, fed by several channels that ended in breathtaking, multilevel waterfalls.
The palace itself was elegant, with a fragile air about it. The walls were made of white stone, and numerous windows of stained glass stood out, serving less of a practical purpose and more of an artistic one. Each level’s windows were a different color: blue, red, a deep, glorious purple.
A simple drawbridge which looked to have been left down for long enough to set into the ground extended across the moat, connecting to a walkway of smooth gray stone bordered by flowing water on either side. A single guard stood in front of the palace’s main entrance. He stepped aside as Damon and Ria approached. They were expected, apparently.
“I suspect this hardly bears stating, but allow me to do the talking,” said Ria.
“I’m not a child,” he said.
“You would speak like one if you attempted to answer in Konokai.”
Damon bumped his hips into hers, and Ria planted a quick kiss on his cheek. They were led through the palace’s foyer by an attendant who bowed deeply to them, until they were left outside a door with two more guards standing either side of it.
Ria exchanged a few quick words with the men. They slid the polished wooden door open and gestured for Damon and Ria to step through.
The chamber they found themselves in was far stranger than Damon had been expecting. He assumed it to be the Remenai equivalent of a throne room or audience chamber, but he didn’t know enough about the culture surrounding the Athlatak to know for sure.
A wooden platform hung from ropes in the center of the room, suspended no more than two or three feet off the ground, but clean and resplendent—and uniquely strange. A Remenai boy of perhaps fourteen sat lounging atop it, clad in a black and gold mask painted with a face that reminded Damon of an owl’s head. He suspected that it would still look like a face even flipped upside down.
A beautiful Remenai woman with silver-streaked black hair stood next to the platform, gently rocking it back and forth with small pushes of one foot. She was tall and elegant, with beautiful, almost severe facial features. She wore a plain white gown belted around the waist with a silver sash.
Ria bowed toward the boy, shooting Damon a glance that compelled him to do the same. She then exchanged a few words with the woman, who smiled and offered her own, far more restrained bow.
“I will speak the Merinian language, in that case,” said the woman. “It is to everyone’s benefit for us to understand each other.”
She smiled at Damon.
“Thank you,” he said.
“I have already spoken some with Vaista Aestairius, the honored Queen of Storms,” said the woman. “I understand that the two of you were raised under the same aesta. Can I assume that you are both comfortable sharing this audience?”
“We are close,” said Ria, nodding. “There are no secrets between us.”
“I apologize for the manner in which you were apprehended upon entering Yvvestrosai,” said the woman, looking toward Damon. “We accepted another Merinian into our boundaries who has left us with a certain wariness of strangers.”
Damon nodded slowly. “I can understand that. There are no hard feelings on my part.”
“Good,” said the woman. “Allow me to formally introduce myself and my son. I am Ayisa Restador of Clan Ironblood. This is my son, Lassus, the Athlatak of the Assembled Clans.”
Ria bowed, and again, Damon followed her lead. The Athlatak lounged on the hanging platform, lying on his back with his hands folded into a pillow underneath his head.
“It is nice to meet you both,” said Ria. “I am Ria Zakur. This is Damon Al-Kendras.”
“You both have reputations which proceed you,” said Ayisa. “Vaista Aestairius herself, here in Yvvestrosai at long last. And Damon Al-Kendras, one of the most wanted men in Veridan’s Curve. No doubt it is Jad’s chosen fate for the two of you to share yourselves with one another.”
> There was a knowing edge to her statement. Damon resisted the urge to glance toward Ria to see if she’d noticed it, too.
“Lassus,” said Ayisa. “Would you care to introduce yourself to our guests?”
The Athlatak let out an exaggerated groan and rolled onto his side. He propped his head up on one hand, watching them with the lazy familiarity of a tired old friend.
“Hello,” he said. “Vaista Aestairius. You are beautiful.”
His Merinian was accented to the point of being barely comprehensible, but Ria still bowed in response to the compliment. She said something to the teenage boy in Konokai which made him flinch back. Damon suspected he was either blushing or cringing underneath the mask.
“As I mentioned earlier, we have a great deal of respect for you, honored Ria,” said Ayisa. “My son had no ulterior motive in presenting you with a summons, beyond the chance to know you better and earn your friendship. He is young and presumptuous, but not duplicitous.”
“Our purpose in accepting is much of the same reason,” said Ria. “Many events are in motion within Veridan’s Curve, developments which are not as isolated as they may seem to you here in Yvvestrosai.”
“You speak of more than just the colonizers, I suspect,” said Ayisa. “The Venmalani.”
Damon kept his own reaction contained as he searched Ayisa’s expressions, and what little he could see of the Athlatak’s, for clues. It wasn’t as hard for him to imagine one of the Forsaken being as young as Lassus was after his encounter with Lascivious, Seffi, the shy teenager who still lived in her hometown with her parents.
The situation was balanced on a knife’s edge. Damon didn’t dare take the obvious approach of simply asking Lassus directly if he was one of the Forsaken. He also suspected that admitting his own association to Wrath would be dangerous, perhaps to the degree of ending up back in a cage or even executed on the spot.
“The Venmalani are a factor, yes,” said Ria carefully. “Many have been sighted along Veridan’s Curve in recent months. Damon and I were even present for an encounter between Avarice and Wrath during the Honorshade Tournament in Avaricia. We witnessed their power firsthand, the destruction of Avarice’s own keep, no less.”
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