The Darkest Bloom

by P. M. Freestone

  “If I can manage to not cut myself on my swords, I think I’ll be able to handle them.”

  “Ha ha. Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  This time, with both hands submerged in water that I’m at pains not to disturb, I can’t lunge for the object hurtling towards me. The air moves over my shoulder and the plink of metal against rock sounds one, two, three times behind me. The tools have come to rest somewhere off to my left.

  The plant beneath the jar is already black and decaying, the once ethereal branch now sludge against the bedrock. I figure I’m not going to cause any further damage, so I lower the vial and let it rest on the bottom of the pool. Moving a finger-width each heartbeat, I time the retraction of my hands from the water. Only the one plant seems to have died in the near vicinity, though the death from the other side of the pool is rolling ever closer.

  I crawl along the rock ledge. My scrabbling fingers find sharp metal and I withdraw them with a hiss, sticking my finger in my mouth and tasting copper.

  “Ash? What’s taking so long?”

  “Lay off, would you?”

  I reach out over the water again. Darkness rushes towards me, dread clawing up from the pit of my stomach in its wake.

  I clench my jaw. Careful, so painfully careful, I submerge my hands again. One picks up the vial, the other poises Rakel’s dagger-sharp pincers between thumb and forefinger.

  The cloud of die-off has reached me now. The final plants are about to wink out, Nisai’s only hope with them. I draw a breath, holding it in to hold myself together.

  Somehow, I get one of the last blue branches into the vial. The pincers sever the stalk. I bring both to the surface, free the stopper from my teeth. The vessel is safely sealed.

  I wait. One. Two. Three thumping heartbeats.

  The chamber around me is completely black.

  But inside the vial, cradled in my hands, the glow shines on.

  “I have it!”

  I have it.

  Rakel’s whoop of victory brightens the pitch-black cave. Then there’s splashing and cursing as she makes her way towards me. The first thing that swims into view is her grin. She grabs my arm to steady herself, her hand warm on my skin where before there was the chill of the cave.

  She draws close to peer at the precious vial in my hands, her smile softening to something resembling reverence as the last of Azered’s bones defiantly continues to shine. The way the blue glow illuminates her features makes her seem like she could be from the stars, as alluring and distant as Azered herself.

  “I thought for a second there it was over,” she says. “That they were all gone.”

  “They almost were,” I admit.

  She gives my arm a squeeze then steps away, inhaling deeply. “Ah, the sweet smell of success. Well, of damp cave more to the point, but who’s splitting hairs.”

  Her words set off a sensation I’d been trying to control since we stepped foot into the cave. That smell. Of damp, underground places walled in stone. Of being trapped, held prisoner.

  With the adrenaline seeping away, the darkness comes crushing in. My hands begin to shake.

  I fumble.

  The vial falls from my fingers.

  CHAPTER 29

  Rakel

  When Azered’s bones danced in the breath of blight

  Time stretches like tar.

  One moment Ash is standing there with the glowing vial, awe and wonder and victory playing across his usually stern features. The next, he’s looking troubled, stricken, almost panicked. He gasps for breath. The vial and the precious ingredient it holds drops towards the ground.

  I lunge, twisting so that my shoulder hits the stone of the cave floor. A hiss of pain escapes my lips. But I get both my good and injured hand under my target.

  Safe. The vial is safe.

  “What’s got into you?” I demand, scrabbling to my feet. “Ash? Ash, answer me.”

  The only reply is rapid, shallow breathing.

  I know that sound. Remember it from when I was younger and it was loud in my own ears. Back when I hadn’t learned to deal with the overwhelming rush of sweet and foul scents in the city. When the sense of myself and my own body separated, and I felt like I would drown in open air.

  Something clicks into place. Now that the adrenaline, the urgency of what Ash calls “the mission” has abated, we’re left in the dark. Before we entered the caves, it wasn’t the traces of the long-gone bear he was hesitant about. It was this. The pitch black.

  “Ash?”

  No reply.

  “Ash!”

  I hold the glowing vial out in front of me. It’s a pitiful torch, but it’s enough. Ash is crouched on his haunches, hugging his knees. He’s murmuring so quietly I can barely make out the words. I lean closer.

  “Don’t-let-him-see-you, don’t-let-them-see-you, don’t-let-anyone-see.”

  “Ash, there’s nobody here but us.”

  It’s as if he doesn’t register my presence. I crouch beside him and rest my uninjured hand on his shoulder, holding up the vial and its soft light between us. “Look at me. I’m here, you see? I don’t know where you’ve gone, but I’m here.” I give his shoulder a squeeze.

  He blinks at me.

  Good sign.

  “We’re going to get you outside. Try to focus on your breathing. It helps me when I’m overwhelmed. Deep breath in … count to five … and out.” I breathe slow and deep, each inhale and exhale deliberate and audible.

  Somehow, I manage to pry one of Ash’s arms from around him and get it over my shoulders, taking as much of his weight as I can. From the dim light of the vial, I guide us back the way we came. He’s so much bigger than me, and though his feet are under him, sweat begins to sheen my brow, even in the cool of the cavern.

  It’s a struggle when the path narrows. We can’t go through two abreast, so I turn us side-on and lead. The arm supporting Ash scrapes against the rock and I bite back a curse. He’s gasping for air, now. I remember what that’s like. I’ve got to move quickly, or he’s going to faint.

  As we near the entrance, the air brings promises of light and warmth and fields of fruit and herbs. Ash starts to straighten, his breathing still ragged, but slowly becoming more regular.

  Outside the cave’s mouth, I tilt my face to the sun, relief washing through me. “I thought for a second there it was all over. That they’d all die off before we could take any. But we did it.”

  Ash reaches out to steady himself against a boulder, and I ease out from under his arm. He’s staring intently at the ground like he’s deliberately avoiding my gaze. “They almost did all die. One stupid stumble and—”

  “Stop,” I say, squeezing his arm. “That isn’t the important part.”

  He peers at me as if he’s searching my face for any sign of judgement. He won’t find any.

  I open my satchel and nestle the glowing vial in a jar of dried saltwort so it’s cushioned and hidden from excess sun, then replace the lid. Better to be safe than sorry.

  I look to Ash. He’s still wild about the eyes. Back when I was a child and used to get overwhelmed by scents, the best thing to do was to put as much distance as possible between me and the source of panic until I calmed. “Want to get out of here?”

  He nods.

  We set out, taking it slowly at first. The late afternoon sun turns everything before us golden as we head southwest towards Edurshai Province. I decide to walk for the time being and lead Lil. It seems only right, given what we’ve just been through. And it seems only right to be on the same level when I start asking questions.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened in there?”

  “Would you mind if we didn’t?”

  I don’t want to push. But I still know so little about him. I try something else. “You’re not from Ekasya?”

  “Does it matter? Unless we’re successful I’ll never be able to go back.” He glances at me, sidelong. “What makes you think I’m not?”

&
nbsp; “I heard the way you were cursing in there. That was as colourful as you’d hear in an Aphorain market.”

  He sighs. “I’m not from the imperial city. Not originally. When Nisai found me, I was province-less. I spent my childhood in the shadow of Ekasya Mountain.”

  I never would have guessed he’s come from a harder background than I have. Even in Aphorai we’ve heard of the slums around the capital. “Then how did you end up in the palace?”

  He considers that silently as we pick up the lane where it enters a field of lavender. Ash snaps a stem from the nearest plant and begins to pluck the leaves one-by-one. I used to find the scent calming, but the last time I smelled it so strongly was back in Aphorai when Zakkurus was about to turn my life upside down.

  “I was about seven or eight turns old,” Ash begins. “There was a royal entourage heading from the city to the river docks. Nisai hadn’t yet been named heir, but he was already led by his curiosity. He strayed into my … ‘neighbourhood’ makes it sound more pleasant than it was. I’d fallen in with some older boys – older boys who were trying to find an out-of-sight place to light up some dreamsmoke.”

  I scowl. When I was a child, Father used to tell me terrifying tales about the drug and the monsters it makes of long-term users. As I grew up, I realized half of them are true.

  “We ended up in abandoned warehouse – that’s when the others noticed Nisai trailing us. They made him turn out his pockets, and when that didn’t yield much, they started roughing him up. It was when they made him give up his shoes – they’d fetch a good price in the Scuttler’s Market – that I stepped between them. Nisai was clearly rich, but he wasn’t going to be able to give them what they wanted. The others backed off. Then ran. But it wasn’t from my stand. They’d seen the Blazers come in behind us.”

  “Blazers?”

  “Brotherhood of the Blazing Sun. Ever heard stories of Lost God worshippers snatching children off the streets?”

  In some of those stories they disappear for ever. In others, they appear moons later after their families meet rich ransom demands. They must have thought all their Flower Moons had come at once to stumble upon a Prince.

  Ash reads my grimace as acknowledgement. “The stories aren’t unfounded. And there’s plenty of theories about what they do to the poor wretches. All I knew back then was that anyone the Blazers took from where I lived never returned.”

  “You got away?”

  He looks back to the cave mouth. “You learn a few things growing up in the shadow of Ekasya Mountain. Nisai was so grateful I got us out of the scrape, he petitioned his mother, Councillor Shari, and they took me back to the palace, where I began training to earn my keep. I’ve been by the Prince’s side, in one way or another, ever since.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “With me gone?” He shrugs. “One less mouth to feed.”

  There’s pain there, but it’s buried deep. It would be cruel to prod any further. Instead, I rummage in my satchel and pull out a bottle I’d been carrying since Luz returned my things to me in Aphorai. Its uses are many – migraines, aiding sleep, settling the nerves, and, importantly, helping to stave off the panic Ash lost himself in back at the caves.

  “Linod’s Elixir,” I say, giving it a shake.

  Ash frowns at the bottle.

  Many would frown. But I relied on the stuff when I was young and learning to deal with my sensitivity, albeit using a weak dilution. Fiercely addictive, its long-term users often develop resistance, requiring a higher and higher dose until the treatment becomes more dangerous than the problem.

  But if I’ve learned anything about Ash, he’s disciplined. He’d keep it in hand.

  “Rakel, I don’t know what to…” He averts his eyes again.

  “We don’t have to talk about this either.” I hold the bottle towards him. “It’s what you’ve been dosing yourself with, isn’t it? And judging by what happened in there, you’ve run out.”

  He reaches to take it, his fingers brushing mine. They’re warm, but somehow send a shiver through me.

  “This means … a lot,” he says, finally raising his gaze to meet mine.

  Our eyes lock. I’m acutely aware our hands are still touching, that I’m standing and staring and not so much as blinking. A flush creeps up my neck but I can’t move away. I don’t want to move away.

  Ash takes a step closer, his other hand wrapping around the bottle so my own is caught between his larger palms, his calloused skin rough against mine. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he says. “Something I wasn’t entirely honest about.”

  I snatch my hand back. Whatever comes next, I’ve got a hunch I’m not going to like it. Nor will my stomach, judging by its churning.

  He heaves a breath, gathering himself. “I need you to know that I wanted to tell you before, up in the mountains. I didn’t want you to think I was… I didn’t want you to think I would lie to you. But I wasn’t yet sure.”

  “What makes you sure now?”

  “Please, Rakel, what I’m about to say puts my life in your hands.”

  “I hardly doubt your life is in my—”

  “Until Nisai is healed, our futures are inseparable.” He opens his pack and holds out the Prince’s journal. “And if you found the right sort of person to give this to, you’d have enough to denounce me.”

  I ignore the book – it’s not like I have a clue how to interpret what I’ve seen in there – and start walking again, moving to the other side of Lil so my thoughts remain my own. “Spit it out then.”

  “That day in the slums, when Nisai and I first met.”

  “Go on.”

  “We didn’t escape the Blazers, as such.”

  The world grows quiet around me, making the buzz of bees flitting about the lavender seem loud.

  “I killed them.”

  “Pff! How did a kid manage that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I duck my head, frowning at him under the sweep of Lil’s neck. “What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’?”

  “I wasn’t conscious.”

  “Hold up. Child-you blacked out, and in doing so killed two full-grown men?”

  “I’m not certain how it went. But when I returned to myself, the Blazers were dead and I was covered in blood. And…”

  “And? There’s an and?”

  “And-Nisai-said-there-were-shadows.” He speaks the sentence so fast the words run together. “Something happened with them. They slowed the Blazers down. One of them started ‘choking on darkness’, Nisai said. Yes. It sounds outlandish. Like I told you, I wasn’t … there. I have to rely on Nisai’s account. Even back then, he was fascinated enough by tales of gods and myths to believe it was some kind of magic. That I was magic.”

  “Ash, I know you’re a believer, but…”

  “A believer. Not a blasphemer. I’ve never told anyone any of this. Though I think Esarik may have guessed at some of it, given the way Nisai has been researching for any information that survived the Shadow Wars. Only Esarik’s much too circumspect to bring it up.” He takes hold of Lil’s bridle as if to steady himself. “I’m not lying.”

  Lil stops still without a whicker. I’m reminded I’ve never seen her allow anyone else to touch her without so much as a nip.

  “I think my parents knew something of it too,” he continues. “I don’t have a single memory of my father looking me in the eye. He used to mutter I was cursed, that he didn’t want me beneath his roof.”

  “Cursed?”

  “He was a devout man. He never missed an offering. Observed every portentous day in every turn of the starwheel and steeped my childhood in prayer. If I set a foot wrong, he would lock me in the cellar without food or water. Say I was tainted by shadow.” His face twists at the last, as if he’s tasted something foul.

  “My mother pleaded for him to let me out. When that didn’t work, she argued. Told him he was losing his mind. He wouldn’t heed her words. They were both metalsmiths, an
d she was almost my father’s match in strength.” His eyes shine, but there’s pride there, too.

  “She wrested free, released me and we fled. But what seemed emancipation soon became a trap. We begged in the streets, but there wasn’t enough food. She fed me and went without. Soon she began to weaken, and when she contracted river fever, it was only a matter of time. My father was right all along. I am a curse.”

  “Your mother’s death is on your father’s head,” I almost spit the words. Then I hear myself laugh, harsh and self-mocking. “I, on the other hand, killed my mother just coming into this world.”

  “She died in childbirth?”

  “Not long after. But it was the injuries of birth that did it. My father almost never spoke of it. Like you said – I guess he wanted to protect me. And himself.”

  Ash grimaces. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll always be sorry.”

  We continue walking, the plagued silence of earlier replaced with something cleaner, more breathable. Still, Ash’s confession echoes in my mind. He really believes this. Believes he’s somehow cursed. But magic? Yes, I’ve seen incredible things I would never have imagined – giant butterflies and bones glowing with life. But magic? That’s a leap of faith I can’t make.

  Eventually, the lane crests a hill. I let Lil graze while Ash and I scramble up a boulder for a better view. A patchwork of crops spreads out below, disappearing into the haze of a flat horizon.

  This land is what people have made of it, but if they stopped tending it, nature would take it back. Sure as the land heaves under Aphorai. Not magic. Not gods. Nature.

  “I don’t believe in curses,” I say. “In Aphorai, people kneel at the shrine to Zir and Tro all day, sniffing water lilies and melissa extract as if it’s going to bring the river back. As if perfumed prayers are going to restore the Twins’ favour. But I’ve seen enough springs to know that water flows where it will. A groundshake moved the river, not a pair of squabbling gods. Not a curse.”

  The breeze flutters my hair, and it takes my mind back to Aphorai again. This time standing at the top of the temple with Sephine. “The temple wants everyone to be a believer. When you believe, you pay the temple to make offerings on your behalf. In exchange, they’re supposed to make sure the gods hear your prayers. But when my mother needed a miracle, did they make sure my father’s prayers were heard? No. So either the priestesses are charlatans, the gods don’t exist, or they’re just plain cruel. You choose.”