Dark Rise: Dark Rise 1

by C. S. Pacat

  ‘I want to know the name of the man who killed my mother.’

  He’d surprised James again; that strange flickering look was back in his eyes.

  ‘What makes you think I’d tell you?’

  Will stayed where he was, the cool obsidian wall at his back; it was stifling, an oppressive magic under its shiny surface. James felt it; they both felt it.

  ‘I keep my word. I’m loyal to my friends. I don’t forget when people help me.’

  ‘Didn’t my father warn you not to bargain with the Betrayer?’ James’s eyes had gone very dark.

  The Betrayer. It struck him afresh that James was a part of the old world, like the obsidian walls, but James was new as well, not only of that world but also now of this one.

  ‘I think what people were is less important than what they are. And what people are is less important than what they could be.’

  James let out a strange breath, and Will saw that he had not only James’s surprise, but underneath it, something else. ‘You’re not what I expected.’

  ‘Aren’t I?’

  ‘No. I don’t know what I’d thought the Blood of the Lady would be like. A golden hero, full of righteousness like Cyprian. Or a hapless boy unready for the fight. But you’re altogether more—’

  ‘More what?’

  ‘Effective,’ said James.

  ‘Tell me who killed my mother,’ said Will.

  James gazed back at him. In the Hall above, the Stewards were in disarray. They were arguing over James’s words – over whether to attack, how to fight – but also over their very nature. The Stewards of the Cup were the elite inner circle, but with the dark price of their powers exposed, the novitiates and janissaries were in revolt. Yet down here, in this buried cell, priorities felt very different.

  Just as Will began to doubt that he would speak, James said: ‘The one who struck the blow was Daniel Chadwick. But the one who gave the order was Simon’s father. Edmund, the Earl.’

  Will felt his pulse race at hearing it, but there was one part that didn’t make any sense. ‘Simon’s father? Not Simon himself? But Simon’s the one trying to return the Dark King.’

  ‘Fathers hold a lot of sway over their sons,’ James said, his voice faintly mocking. Upstairs, of course, the High Janissary was deciding James’s fate.

  ‘Now you answer a question,’ said James, as though they were in casual conversation.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Did you like holding the horn?’

  He had returned to the warm, dangerous tone from earlier. It conjured up the moment when they’d been locked together upstairs, as if violence was a temptation. Will almost felt the horn in his hand again, and the slow, steady thrum of James’s blood.

  Will said, ‘I think the Stewards asked you the wrong questions.’

  ‘What would you have asked?’

  The provocative words were certainly a ploy. It suited James to keep him here, Will thought. And James was good at holding attention. Was it a natural skill or a learned one? Something from his other life or from this one? James was like the locked door to a world of secrets, unattainable and alluring.

  ‘Do you remember him?’ Will said.

  He felt the shift – as if the past were here with them – an aching enmity – a war almost lost – James in princely red, with rubies around his throat. And a dark presence that he’d summoned without even speaking its name, growing, gathering its forces, becoming ever stronger—

  ‘No one else has ever asked me that.’ James’s voice was a little shaken. You feel it too, Will almost said. Instead of answering Will’s question, James said, ‘Do you remember her? The Lady?’

  ‘No,’ said Will, feeling unsteady. He made himself say, ‘But I’m a descendant. You’re a Reborn. You were there.’

  They were staring at one another. The cell was quiet, heavy stone silencing any sound from upstairs, so that you could almost imagine that you heard the flaming of the torch in its sconce.

  ‘I don’t remember that life,’ James said. ‘I don’t remember who I was, or what I’ve done. The names, the faces … I only know them from Steward stories and Simon’s excavations. But there’s one thing I do know so well that it’s part of me. Him. The fact of him. The feel of him. It’s deeper than memory, deeper than self, carved into my bones. And I can tell you this.

  ‘Simon isn’t a tenth of him. Simon’s plans, his power, his ambitions are nothing … Simon can’t comprehend him, as the warmth of a single day can’t comprehend a night that lasts for ten thousand years.’

  Will felt the dark and cold of the shadows in the obsidian cell close in around him. ‘You think he’s coming for you.’

  James leaned his head back against the wall and smiled. ‘He’s coming for all of us.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ‘YOU ARE NOT in danger!’ Jannick was trying to make himself heard over the din in the Hall. ‘Your companions are not your enemy! No Steward has turned in all the thousands of years of the Hall!’

  On the dais next to him, Violet looked out at the chaos, her stomach twisting. Shadows. The Stewards are shadows. Jannick was trying to hold the Order together, but there was a jagged rent between the Stewards, who had all drunk from the Cup, and the novitiates and janissaries who hadn’t, and who were frightened, shocked and angry.

  ‘Not in danger?’ she heard Beatrix call. ‘The Dark King’s shadows are inside our Hall!’

  ‘How many?’ It was Sarah, one of the janissaries who had shown Violet to her rooms on her first night in the Hall. ‘How many of you are there?’

  Beatrix said, ‘Every single Steward is a shadow – or will be!’

  ‘You’re right.’ A familiar voice from the doorway cut through the ruckus. The Hall fell silent, so that the only sound was the rhythmic clink of a staff against stone as the Elder Steward made her way to the front of the Hall. ‘Those who have drunk from the Cup will all become shadows. Including me.’

  Violet stepped back with the others to let the Elder Steward pass. There was something different about the way the hushed Stewards looked at her, a new, fearful awe. Her age … the only Steward with white hair, the only Steward with rheumy eyes and wrinkled skin. With a shiver, Violet understood that the Elder Steward’s age was a sign of her power: she had held her shadow back longer than any other Steward.

  ‘Now you know what the Stewards face,’ she said. ‘We fight on every front, without and within. We cannot ever abandon our duty. We cannot ever relax our guard. For what stands between us and the Dark is only our training, and the vow that we have taken to die before we turn.’

  It was Justice who Violet looked at. His gifts would have marked him as a candidate for the Cup early. He would have spent his youth training for it. A childhood of ascetic self-denial: no child’s mischief, no teen’s rebellion, no flush of adulthood and first lover. He had sublimated all his body’s desires into mastery and control, without knowing what he was training for. The Cup will make you strong. The Cup will give you power. That’s what the novitiates were told.

  When did they learn the cost of that power?

  No one could agree to drink if they really knew the price, she thought – or would have thought, except that she could see the faces of the novitiates. Beatrix had straightened her shoulders. Emery had lifted his chin. They knew the price now. And they were deciding right before her eyes that they would drink. Just as Carver had drunk.

  They had already been ready to give up their lives for the cause. The Cup was just one more step.

  Was this how it happened? They trained for it, they learned the price, and then they drank? And then they watched in pairs for any sign, ready to kill their shieldmate, while their shieldmate watched, ready to kill them?

  And if their training slipped even for one second—?

  Violet drew in an unsteady breath. ‘What happens when you turn?’

  The Elder Steward’s eyes were grave. ‘Bound to the Dark King, a shadow has no will of its own, but only foll
ows the orders of its master. Barely resembling the man or woman it once was, it is an incorporeal horror that can pass through any door or gate or wall. And it cannot be fought. No mortal can touch its shadowy form. It kills and maims and rends, and all the while stays invulnerable.’

  ‘And that’s what will happen to Marcus?’ said Violet.

  The Elder Steward nodded. ‘If Marcus turns, it is unlikely that anyone here can stop him.’

  Violet felt cold, remembering the Shadow Stone deep in the vault, its darkness so strong she hadn’t even been able to go near it. An ancient terror, one of Sarcean’s greatest weapons, they led his army of shadows on their nightmare steeds. She could feel how much those Shadow Kings wanted to be free to command their armies once again, a legion of shadows that the world had thought had been put to rest.

  ‘But the wards. The wards on the Hall are magic,’ said Violet. ‘They’ve kept out shadow armies before. In the old world. The Undying Star, that’s what this place was called. He can’t get inside the Hall.’

  ‘The wards open for any of Steward blood,’ said the Elder Steward, the truth of it in her eyes. ‘That will include Marcus.’

  Inside the Hall. She saw Emery look at Beatrix with real fear, and even full Stewards blanch at the idea of facing an enemy that they couldn’t keep out and couldn’t fight.

  The Elder Steward raised her voice to be heard over the murmurs. ‘That is Simon’s path to power. He learned of the Cup in one of his excavations. And he learned he could be master of shadows. He is the Dark King’s descendant. His bloodline is strong enough to make shadows obey him. And if he takes command of a shadow, he will use it to annihilate anything that stands in his way. He will breach our walls, take the Shadow Stone, and release the Shadow Kings. And they will clear a path for their true lord and master, the Dark King, who seeks to return dark magic to the world and rule with it forever from his pale throne. That is why we must put our differences aside and focus with one mind on Marcus.’ There were nods in the hall, agreement forming at her words.

  Cyprian pushed forward to speak. ‘How close is he?’ The Elder Steward was silent, but Cyprian was already shaking his head and answering for himself. ‘He’s strong. He’ll survive. He won’t turn.’

  ‘Cyprian—’ Justice began.

  He was the wrong person to speak. Cyprian rounded on him. ‘You were supposed to be his shieldmate. How could you have let Simon’s men near him?’ The perfect novitiate faced down the perfect Steward. ‘How close are you?’

  Justice looked like he’d been slapped; Cyprian’s words had shocked him breathless. They don’t talk about this openly, Violet realised. Stewards never spoke of their shadow selves, perhaps not even to their shieldmates in forbidden whispers late at night. Am I showing any signs? Do you think I’m changing? These were private matters, painfully exposed.

  ‘Or were you just going to kill him to stop it? It’s all lies, isn’t it? The strength of Stewards, their great destined power … It’s lies to hide what you all have to do. If you cared about my brother at all, you’d never have let him drink from that cup,’ Cyprian said.

  Violet was stepping between them, taking Cyprian by the shoulder to hold him back. ‘Cyprian—’ But Justice’s voice cut across hers.

  ‘Marcus chose.’

  Justice didn’t try to lie or avoid it. He met Cyprian head on.

  ‘The heroes are dead. The old powers are gone. There’s only us. A handful of us.’ Behind him, the vast hall with its cracked stone and faded colours seemed to prove his words, ancient and all but empty. ‘We’re all that’s left, and we’re not enough. What would you do, if there was no one else to hold back the dark? Would you drink from a cup that tarnished you, in order to be able to fight?’

  ‘It’s the Dark King’s bargain.’ Cyprian’s hands were fists. ‘He’s inside this Hall. He’s inside you. You’ve all corrupted yourselves.’

  ‘We pay a terrible price,’ said Justice. ‘We do it because we must. It’s the only way we can fight.’

  ‘You could have fought without it. Any of you could.’ Cyprian’s jaw was set. ‘Maybe you wouldn’t have been as strong. But you would have stayed Stewards.’ He looked around at the Stewards bitterly. ‘That’s my choice. I’ll never drink from the Cup.’

  Violet found her way to the training yard.

  Inside the great hall, Jannick had begun talking of preparations for an attack, while the Elder Steward moved between small knots of novitiates and janissaries like an almoner, offering comfort and wisdom. Violet had looked around for Will, but he had vanished.

  The training yard was now empty of Stewards, as if to say, The time for training is over. The time for battle has come.

  Wanting desperately to achieve the faultless excellence of a Steward, she had spent hours here, practising until her limbs trembled, her breathing ached, and the sweat dripped from her skin.

  But the Steward drive for perfection now looked different. The unwavering rows of sword tips, the absolute control that they strove for was no mere desire to achieve an ideal, but a terrifying necessity. Their self-denial, their turning away from the flesh, their strictly regimented lives, all of it was to hold their shadows back.

  Justice stood by one of the columns, looking out at the space where he’d spent so long in training. His handsome face was drawn and silent; he didn’t greet her as she came to stand beside him. Following his gaze, Violet looked out at the empty yard, knowing now that she didn’t see the same things that he did in the Stewards and their practice, and never had.

  Everything was different now, of course. In London she had been a naive, unthinking girl when her identity had shattered her world open. Lion. This felt like a similar breaking open, the Stewards forced to face what they were for the first time. She said quietly, ‘Are you all right?’

  Justice gave a small, wry smile. ‘You show me the kind of compassion that I did not show to you.’

  She thought of all the ways that was true. He had lied to her, while refusing to forgive her lies. He had called her a creature of darkness, while he carried darkness within himself.

  But in his world there were no shades of grey. She saw that now. Once you drank from the Cup, you were going to turn. There were no second chances, and the only way out was death.

  ‘You took me in,’ said Violet. ‘You trained me.’ His words to her on her first day in the Hall came back to her. ‘You said everyone should have someone on their side. Someone to look out for them.’

  Justice didn’t answer for a long moment, his eyes on the training yard. Empty now, the wide, silent yard seemed to suggest generations of Stewards who had trained, and drunk from the Cup, and died before their time. ‘We stopped at a roadside inn,’ Justice said eventually. ‘We were returning from a mission in Southampton. We should have come straight back, but he looked so happy, I suggested that we stop … A stolen night out together, no curfew, no duties. It’s against Steward training, but I wanted to give him one night to just be himself. I only left him alone for a moment.’

  He was talking about Marcus. Violet drew in a painful breath, imagining their last moments together. ‘You two were close?’

  ‘We were like brothers. The shieldmate bond is … We did everything together.’ Justice said it holding his body very still. ‘To fall into darkness … it was his greatest fear. And I left him alone with that.’

  In his voice she could hear what he had not allowed himself to show in front of Cyprian. Guilt, greater than that of a man who had simply left a friend alone to be captured. She understood, her chest hollowing.

  ‘He’s turning, isn’t he?’

  Justice gave her the slightest nod, the barest acknowledgement. ‘I saw the first signs in Southampton,’ he said. ‘I thought we had more time.’

  It made everything very real suddenly. The darkness gathering on the horizon. The threat of shadows, Simon’s malevolence dragging the past into the present. And Marcus. His final days spent in terror of what he was about to become. />
  ‘How long?’

  Justice’s eyes were dark. ‘They say that when the three kings drank, they lived a full life of power, and only became shadows after they died natural deaths. But the Blood of Stewards is not as strong as the Blood of Kings. We can only resist the Cup for so long. If an ordinary human were to drink, they would turn to shadow instantly. Even those with weaker Steward blood would turn too fast – a day, a week. That’s why only the strongest of us drink. The stronger your blood, the longer you last. But of course, you can’t know for sure.’

  It was the closest he’d come to admitting the weight of the burden he carried. We do it because we must, he had said. The Elder Steward had said that the only thing that lay between this world and the Dark was Steward training.

  He said, ‘You can ask it.’

  She drew in a difficult breath. ‘Are you turning too?’

  ‘We’re all turning,’ said Justice. ‘It starts the moment you drink, and continues until the shadow has you.’ He spoke with scrupulous honesty. ‘But I’ve shown no symptoms yet.’

  It was enough, she thought. It had to be. For both of them.

  ‘Maybe fighting is knowing there’s darkness in you, and still choosing to do what’s right,’ she said. She wanted to believe it. But it wasn’t as simple as that. The shadow would take Justice over eventually, no matter what he chose. She didn’t want to think about what she would do when that day came. Justice had always seemed so strong, such a steadfast guiding light. She couldn’t imagine facing the dark without him.

  ‘If you mean that darkness is a test, you’re right. How we face it. How we fight it,’ Justice said. ‘How we keep to the light.’

  She nodded, and made to push away and leave, when his voice called her back. ‘Violet.’

  She turned.