When Zahir didn’t answer, Elissan said, “Here is my proposal. Very soon, the Seer Valanir Ocune will approach you for help in unlocking the enchantments of Eivar. Perhaps he already has. I see in your face that the latter is most likely the case. All I ask is that you continue to help him. Not difficult, is it? But know this—in helping him, you cement your own plan. It is only with combined powers—yours, and ours—that we might bring about the fall of House Evrayad.”
“And what is that to you?”
“I have plans of my own, for Eivar,” said Elissan. “You have plans here. You see what I am suggesting? That in time, we may work together towards common goals. Your magic, joined to mine.”
* * *
LIN was crouched in the grass. Her head in her hands. When she looked up, she saw the girl stood over her so that now, at least, she appeared the taller. Her mark of the Seer radiated by light of the moon. The peaks of the northern mountains outlined silver.
Beside her, undisturbed, Zahir slumbered on.
Lin stared at him, then back to the girl. “Who are you?”
“I am Julien Imara,” said the girl. She reached out a hand. “I am nothing like you, Court Poet. I am no one. But we share a maker in Valanir Ocune. I’m here as his messenger. His gift to you beyond death.”
Lin reached out her hand, joined her fingers with that of the girl. “Don’t say you are no one,” she said. “Never say that, Julien Imara. You’ve done important work today. I expect you will again. Keep yourself safe.”
The girl bowed her head. The next instant she was gone. Lin was alone with Zahir on the hill. Faced now, for the first time in what seemed a while, with a clear task.
She crept like a shadow, like an Amaristoth. She hunkered astride the Magician’s waist, set her blade to his throat. Said, “Wake up.” His eyes fluttered open instantly. He appeared unsurprised. As if he’d expected this. It unnerved her, though not enough to make her withdraw the blade. “Tell me the truth,” she said, “or I’ll carve out your eyes.” Her vision blurred; she blinked violently. “Tell me what you did,” she commanded. “All of it.”
His eyes were like the mountain pools by which once she’d hunted, glass-still and calm. “I killed Valanir,” he said. “You already know.”
CHAPTER
26
“THIS was all your plan.”
“No,” he said. “Not all. I didn’t expect a lot of things.”
He was looking up at her. Her knife still poised at his throat. His neck bare and smooth. It would be easy to finish him, right here. He seemed to intend no resistance. Did not even seem to feel fear. There was no increase in heartbeat that she could detect, no speeding of the pulse. They were so close she could feel his breath on her face. She would have felt a change in his heart.
“What didn’t you expect?” she said at last.
“First, there was Eldakar,” he said. “It began as you’d think. I was using him, and it was easy. Until it became more, and then I knew I had to let him go. For his sake. He reached my heart at the end. The first time anyone had. I had come to the Zahra with so much hate in me, particularly for all things Evrayad. Hate fueled me from childhood, through my university days, through everything. Even in the midst of parties, when I made jests to make people laugh—secretly I hated those people. And then I met this man who loved music and wanted nothing more than to make a better world. Eldakar became my weakness. Until then, I thought goodness could not truly exist. That it was a sham, a ploy people used to get what they want. And maybe that is often true … but it is not always true. He taught me that. When I killed Tarik Ibn-Mor during Nitzan, it was one last gift to Eldakar. I knew Tarik worked against him.”
“Eldakar will be killed. Because of you.”
“No.” The first trace of emotion so far. “He can escape. Even if the palace falls. Yusuf was wily in that, as he was in all things. Under the palace is an elaborate system of tunnels, for irrigation. One of these tunnels, cleverly concealed, is unlike the rest. It leads outside the city walls. Yusuf was nearly assassinated in his youth and was not about to let it happen again. He’d prepared for every eventuality.”
“Did Yusuf ever find out who you are?”
“No. I grieved when he died. Truly grieved. Because I would never have the chance to make him suffer. The damned magic was too impenetrable, politics too slow-moving towards my goal.”
“To destroy the Zahra.” She recalled what Elissan Diar had said: Its walls are built on blood.
“The Zahra had to fall, Lin, if I was to free the ten thousand. That is the rule, the first I learned. From childhood I set out to destroy a kingdom. Not knowing, then, what it would make me do. What I’d become.”
She felt cold. “You knew. You knew you’d be a traitor.”
“Perhaps some part of me knew,” he acknowledged. “When I began to plot against Rihab Bet-Sorr, knowing how that would weaken the court from the inside … that was an incredible ugliness. I was betraying the only person in the world who mattered to me. But then when I became complicit in murder, on a monstrous scale … everything that had led up to it seemed a game. The deaths … those posed the great question that kept me awake at nights. If I had foreseen that, would I have ever begun? When I recall my mother’s eyes, my father’s face … Lin, what ought I to have done? I have asked myself this question countless times through the years. What are the souls of thousands of Kahishians weighed against thousands of mine?”
“I don’t know,” she said. The only truth she had.
“You haven’t asked why I killed Valanir,” he said. A flare in the calm of his eyes. “He saw a way to release you from Darien’s spell. That night, he tried to free you. I had to stop him.” A pause, as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “I killed my friend.”
Her eyes were blurring again. “Why?”
Zahir closed his eyes as if her pain was his. “We still have time. Just for this.”
“What?”
“I want to show you.”
The world vanished around Lin. When she tried to cry out, it was soundless. When sensation returned, she saw two things. One was that Zahir was at her side. Another was that they were wrapped in sky, black and bejeweled. Only this time was not like the Tower of Glass. This time, there was no barrier between them and the lowest heaven. They floated free.
When Zahir turned to her, it was with a smile almost sweet. “Fear not, lady,” he said. “This is illusion. In reality, I am at your mercy, still, on that hilltop. You can still kill me.”
“And I will,” she said, thinking of Valanir. She had the image of him, carrying her as if she were a bird, that kept repeating itself in her mind. And now would have nothing more.
So many lost. Darien, Hassen, and now Valanir. Her chest felt it would burst from the hurt.
“Take me away from here,” she said. “This adds insult to what you’ve done.”
“There was something Valanir didn’t know,” said Zahir. His eyes sought hers and she, despite herself, could not look away. “I helped him bring back the enchantments because of a prophecy. That prophecy showed you. From the start … years ago … I saw you.”
“You saw me.” Lin remembered, years ago, Valanir saying the same words. She felt sick.
“Yes. Running through the woods in winter, branches clawing your face. I saw one day you would be a Seer under a curse of death. I saw the one who would save Vesperia. With me. Your ties to the Underworld would help me, with the magic of the Ifreet. Together we would free the souls of my city. Release them to their final rest.”
“So that was your plan,” she said. “To use me.”
“Yes,” he said. “And then to save you. If you came with me to the other side … joined with me in your power … I could purge you of Darien’s spell. My life would still be shortened by the Ifreet, but not yours. You would live—forever, if I had my way.” Again that smile. “I can show you how it would be,” he said. “And believe I do not control these matters. This is only what I have s
een. One possible path.”
In the heavens appeared what seemed a window. It showed the Zahra on its mountain. Lin let out a cry. The palace, the entire mountain, was engulfed in flames. Smoke made a spume of black clouds around and about, and to the sky.
“The price,” said Zahir Alcavar. “One I shall mourn for always. But Eldakar will live. I take comfort from that.” He pointed. “And there we are.” Lin watched, dazed, and saw within that image, on a hill that overlooked Majdara, their two figures, she and Zahir Alcavar. Their hands were joined. She watched as a dark opening appeared in the air before them, these other selves. Watched as they two stepped through. “That is our descent,” he said. “To the Underworld. With Edrien’s help, and yours. We go there and harrow the place to its foundations for the souls trapped there. My parents. My people. They never deserved such a fate.”
“And after?” she said, despite herself. She was hypnotized by what she was seeing. The two of them, their hands joined as if they belonged thus. Upright as they descended to the dark world. She herself, with a queenly posture and flowing cape, confident that what she did was right. Perhaps she always appeared that way, Lin thought. A lie told by her face to the world, continuously.
“After,” he said, “you would be Court Poet, and I a Magician in your service. I would swear fealty to Tamryllin, and you. My life is shortened, but we would have some time.”
Another image now, and this time she didn’t see herself. This time she was there. She was in a chamber where the stars outside were a furious glow, unreal. A night that was unreal. She was standing at the window, but turned when she heard the door. And what she saw, when she looked at him, was the face of a man who had all his life trekked through a desert and now, at last, found a spring.
“You’d save me?” she murmured. “Or I you?”
“Both,” he said, and was in her arms. “For as long as I live. I will pay for my misdeeds, my love. I loved you so long, from afar. I will give all I can to you before I’m gone.”
And she thought, as she held him and lost her breath to that warmth, that perhaps Valanir would have given her his blessing. That he would understand why such things, such very difficult things, needed to be done. And after all, she further reasoned, before her senses were overpowered, Zahir would pay. He was soon to die, having given his life for the Ifreet’s magic. He would pay. There was justice in this. Wasn’t there?
She was astride him on a bed lit by the moon. They moved together violently, with purpose. She traced his face with her hands as the unbearable surge came, again and again. And didn’t stop. She was weeping, they both were, as if all they had aimed for in life was right here.
“I will never stop loving you,” he said, “whatever you choose.”
They were back on the hilltop with her knife at his throat. Her hand had not stirred in all that time. Nothing was changed. She was breathing hard, that was all. No: she was weeping still.
“You know what I must choose,” she said. “If you love me you must know me, too.”
“We may have hope, past what we know,” he said. But it came out hoarse, and he was pale.
Through her tears she almost laughed. A bitter laugh, that she had let desire obscure, even for a moment, what she knew to be true. “I can’t betray Valanir,” she said. “Nor all those others you killed.”
“Even if it means you will die.”
“Even then.”
“Does the fate of my city not move your heart, Lin?” He was drained, appearing already as if she had killed him.
“You know it does,” she said. It was difficult, now, to hold that knife in place. “But you asked a question. What are the souls of thousands of Kahishians weighed against thousands of yours? The soul of Valanir, against theirs? And for that … I have no answer. I can’t be the one to decide. Certainly not to save myself.”
Zahir lay back on the ground, looking spent. He forced a weak smile. “I should have known better,” he said, “than to argue with an Amaristoth. That is where I went wrong.” The smile faded, and in its place a hard look, one of resolve. “So that is your answer?”
“Yes.”
“Then there is only one thing to be done.”
Her hand tightened on the knife hilt. “What’s that?”
“Elissan Diar is attacking the Zahra tonight,” said Zahir. “Please, Lin. Let me kill him.”
* * *
FOR days Nameir had drilled the men in preparation for the events to come; on a battle to be fought inside the walls. What she did not share with them was her dread. Most of these men had not seen Almyria: she had.
They had moments’ warning, thanks to the Magicians stationed in the Tower of Glass. But without their leaders, the Magicians were severely depleted. Zahir and Tarik had been the glue that held together the Seven. With one away and the other dead, the Tower was in disarray at precisely the time it was needed most. It occurred to Nameir, more than once in the intervening days, to wonder why Zahir Alcavar had left at such an inopportune time, and why the king had permitted it.
In the moments before the attack Mansur was with her. The red scarf around his head hung askew. They stood back-to-back in the throne room, which they’d been alerted would be a focal point of attack. In one hand held a sword, in the other, a dagger. She said, “It’s been an honor, my lord.”
“Shut up, Nameir,” he said.
And then the white-clad ones fell upon them.
* * *
HE had never asked to be Chosen. This was a recurring thought for Layne Durren all through that spring. As a fourth-year student, he was among the younger ones, so he had even less of a say in what they did than anyone, if you thought about it. If, as was whispered in corners late some nights, their magic was really killing people, not just some warped illusion or game … who were they to disobey an Archmaster? If Elissan Diar ordered it, there had to be some rationale that they, mere novices, could not see.
At nights, as they gathered around and bathed in his melodious voice, Elissan spoke of the importance of what they were doing. The Chosen were warriors, he explained. He spoke of the original poets, before Davyd Dreamweaver had excised the enchantments from Eivar. Before that fatal excision—one that had doomed poets to servitude for centuries—poets had used enchantments to fight the workings of evil. Now that the enchantments had returned, it was time to take up the cause anew. In this case, to engage in battle with a faceless foe in a place beyond. With demons, Elissan said.
Layne knew his body was changing. That he had grown thinner, more susceptible to chills and fever. He woke several times in the night, restless. These changes were, Elissan made clear, the cost of enchantments. But it was to achieve something larger, something that would enrich them all in the future, bring them and the Academy a greater glory.
With great passion Elissan Diar said once, “It is not for us to remain isolated on this Isle. Our powers were given us by Kiara to illuminate the world. This is the way. Those who do not join with us will be left behind.” And those last words, left behind, like a cold draft from a door left open.
There were students who couldn’t bear the strain of the enchantments. Who were sent home. Most recently it was Dorn Arrin, which was strange: unlike the rest who had had to be sent away, Dorn was not among the Chosen. And sometimes in his dreams Layne saw images from the night of Manaia that in daylight he surely could not credit. It was impossible that Archmasters—that he, and the other students—would have thrown someone to the fires. Whatever he saw some nights, of himself and other boys carrying the tall final-year in their arms towards the flames … that had to be the workings of his imagination.
The atmosphere of the Isle these days lent itself to strange imaginings. Boys who ventured into the woods kept getting lost. Some returned with stories and a distant look that never faded. No one knew what to believe. Lingering with them was the memory of the boy who had tried to kill himself in the cook’s storage room.
But these thoughts were not appropriate to the
moment as he and the other Chosen, led by Elissan Diar and his second-in-command Etherell Lyr, stood at the lakeside that night. It was Layne’s task, tonight, to concentrate on their goal, which Archmaster Diar had assured them was their greatest yet. “Tonight,” he’d said in the dining hall, “we will ascend to heights never reached by any generation of Seers. Not even in the time of the enchantments. This will be a new order, lads, and those of you that I’ve chosen will be granted a high seat.”
Beside him stood Etherell Lyr, who every day appeared more like an anointed prince. At his side Sendara Diar, with a smile perpetual and tremulous, as if she were already a bride. Everyone knew that Etherell and the Archmaster’s daughter were as good as promised to one another; the idea of such gratification haunted their adolescent dreams. Her beauty in the past summer had come to full flower, as if to taunt them. Everyone wanted to be Etherell Lyr and in consequence, obeyed him. Though another reason was his eyes. He never used threats as Maric had, but without words conveyed the impression that disobedience would be met with consequences much, much worse.
Layne could barely remember Maric Antrell and his time as Elissan’s second-in-command, as if a fog hung over that time. That fog hung most thickly over the night of Manaia. He had awakened the next morning in his bed without any recollection of how he’d gotten there. He was aching in every limb and shivering with a fever. This was true for all the students. By the time their sickness had dissipated, so had all memory of Manaia been eradicated, though there was evidence—the piles of desiccated wood and ash in the courtyard—that the rite had been carried out.
The night at the lakeside, named the apex of what they aimed to achieve, began like all such nights. The students made a circle, with Elissan Diar at the center. Standing beside him—flanking to either side—High Master Lian and Etherell Lyr. The High Master’s participation was a recent development, one much noted though not discussed. You never knew, after all, who might listen and report. It was better to keep speculation to oneself.
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