Ether-Touched (The Breaking Stone Trilogy Book 1)

by L. M. Coulson

  But when Vylaena awoke at twilight, sheets tangled around her legs and pillows scattered across the mattress, she didn’t feel like returning to the Deeps. There was something still and quiet about dusk that gave her pause; she stared out the window into the alley and, for once, stopped to examine the wispy shadows that chased each other around her ribcage.

  Contrary to popular belief, emotions were not forbidden among the Shadowheart. Feeling was vital to life—it gave one’s life purpose, and color. But when pain was your constant companion, it was imperative that certain limitations be put into place.

  Emotional pain was tricky; it had the potential to sour the heart and mind in ways physical trauma could never quite match. It was the kind of thing that could permeate the whole Shadowheart clan and eat at its underbelly, becoming a cancer too convoluted and overwhelming to escape from. And so all Shadowheart strove to cut such cancers at their sources, avoiding certain states that might compromise themselves . . . and those around them. Heartbreak, grief, betrayal: these were to be eluded at all cost. And so their corresponding causes—love, family, friendship—were shunned.

  A shadow flickered over the threshold and Vylaena caught a glimpse of furry black tail. But she didn’t move to get up; she knew what it was. And though her heart ached mercilessly she did not want to give Ikna the satisfaction of watching her give up.

  “I live because I must,” she whispered to the dying sun, its golden fingers soft and oddly comforting upon her brow. “I live . . . because I must.”

  Vylaena’s meeting with Ikna that morning had hardly been a gentle experience, but it had given her hope. If she could lift the Curse herself . . .

  No more pain clouding her mind, no more careful self-policing, no more sitting alone in darkened rooms wondering about things she could never have. The possibilities left her energized.

  She sat up as a sudden thought took hold. Flinx and her books had been providing valuable information for months, but perhaps there was a more direct route.

  Vylaena sprung out of bed and bounced to the hanging mirror, braiding her long locks and winding them around the crown of her head. Once she was dressed and night had fully fallen, she shimmied down the drainpipe and crept into the sewer, intent on locating Kaern Westley.

  Kaern was one of the star-born and—rarer yet—a star-born who possessed a rather useful Knack. While others were good at cards or wove flawless silk or sang perfectly in tune, Kaern’s Knack was finding things. Anything. Lost items, cures for diseases, the liar amongst a group of suspects. He’d made a killing in Cyair doling out his services for coin.

  If anyone could find a way for Vylaena to lift her Curse—or even just to steer her in the right direction—it was Kaern.

  Kaern normally kept a stall at the market, which he visited twice a week to take on common folk’s business, but he regularly accepted wealthier—or, in Vylaena’s case, more notorious—patrons at his home in the residential district. She’d met the man only once in passing, at a nobleman’s ball she’d been hired to attend as part of a security detail, but she knew he would recognize her name. The great players of Cyair society made a point to know the important figures of their city. And though Vylaena was more furtive and mysterious than most, she was still a woman of some importance—she was Shadowheart, after all.

  Kaern’s home was dark when she approached, cloaked and hooded beneath the cloud-diffused moonlight. She moved through the iron gate and up the neat stone path to the door, knocking upon the smooth oak planks with a commanding knuckle.

  The door creaked inwards.

  It was dark inside; perhaps Kaern was out and had forgotten to lock the door—or to close it properly, telling by how easily it had opened beneath her fist.

  But then Vylaena looked down and saw a long tendril of rogue ether seeping out of the cracked doorway, winding around her ankles before floating into the night. She grimaced, lifting her head.

  Lovely. Just what I needed.

  She pushed the door open, stepping inside with heightened caution. There was more ether here, creeping along the walls and sliding across the floor. It pushed its way out around her, eager for freedom. Wherever Kaern was, he’d not been here in some time. And he’d neglected to hire an ethersmith to maintain his ether-forged relics while he was gone. No doubt that was the cause of all this loose stuff hovering about. It was a miracle the ether hadn’t gone and started some mischief while the master of the house was gone, cooped up as it was.

  Still, there was something wrong in the silence that lay heavy upon the house—like the dark quiet of a newly built crypt. She’d already drawn one of her daggers without realizing.

  Vylaena shut the door, trapping the remaining ether inside. She didn’t want to draw any curious passersby. Not before she’d had a chance to look around.

  Nothing in the front hall appeared amiss, but when Vylaena turned the corner into the sitting room, she stopped. Pale moonlight streaming in from unshuttered windows was only just strong enough to outline the room, but she could tell something had gone wrong here. Broken glass and jagged slivers of porcelain glittered beneath overturned furniture and strewn couch cushions. A splintered cut in the side of the entry archway, as though a swordsman had missed his target, loomed above the mess.

  The signs of struggle continued into the adjoining kitchen, where every pot and pan had been overturned and scattered across the room, the white tiles littered with shattered crockery. Vylaena walked past three kitchen knives buried in the wall and frowned.

  What happened here, Kaern?

  The rest of the house, however, appeared untouched, with no valuables seemingly taken—not even the glossy jewelry box in the upstairs bedroom. Vylaena returned to the front door and shoved her dagger back into its sheath, confused and disappointed. Well, it didn’t appear she’d find any answers here, either for her Curse or for Kaern’s whereabouts.

  It was strange; Kaern was not a discriminating man, and he’d done business with the elite of Cyair just as often as the malefactors who patrolled its sewers. She couldn’t think of anyone who would want to harm him—his gift was just too precious to lose.

  Of course, hoarding his talent for one’s personal, exclusive use was a definite possibility. Telling by the state of his house, it appeared he’d been spirited away—forcefully.

  Vylaena headed straight for the Royal Library, intent on answers. Flinx wasn’t only a valuable scholarly resource, but an ear inside a place where knowledge flew freely. And Vylaena knew enough about Flinx’s after-hours work in a schoolroom in Cyair’s poorest neighborhood to suspect the woman knew city gossip just as well as its factual history.

  Vylaena reached the library several minutes later, ducking inside the servants’ entrance and slipping into the stairwell that would take her to the library basement. It was always bewildering to her that no one paid any attention to who came and went through those doors; perhaps the library had never had a problem with people trying to steal books. Vylaena often wondered if she was one of the only people in this kingdom who placed more value on knowledge than lynd.

  Only a small, carefully curated selection of the library was open to the public, with any further research requiring the skills of a dedicated librarian. When Vylaena had first begun her search for answers about her Curse, she’d been stunned to learn the topic was on the Office of Inquiry’s list of banned subjects, in accordance with the Royal Library’s Code of Study. How something so mundane had ended up banned was beyond Vylaena, but on her way out of the library she’d overheard a young librarian arguing with one of the lorists about just that. It seemed the woman had overheard Vylaena’s request and had taken it upon herself to protest the library’s inability to aid her.

  And thus had begun a very beneficial agreement.

  Vylaena slithered through Flinx’s office door, finding the woman still in residence, even at this late hour. Typical. The librarian was busy scrawling notes in a journal but glanced up at Vylaena’s entrance, oblivious to the dark
smudge of ink on her own cheek.

  “Oh,” Flinx said, weariness dulling her voice. “Hello, Vylaena. You’re here very late.”

  “I have a question,” Vylaena replied, closing the door behind her. “Unfortunately I don’t have any lynd to accompany it.”

  Flinx shrugged, dropping her quill into its holder and leaning back in her seat. The spiral curls of her hair were starting to escape their plait, and she appeared to be wearing the same dress Vylaena had seen her in at their last meeting. Did the woman ever sleep?

  “Well, we can always negotiate an exchange,” Flinx offered. “Your question for one of mine, perhaps?”

  It was an easy enough price to pay. What could Flinx possibly care to ask her? Vylaena nodded her agreement. “Kaern Westley—do you know of him?”

  “Of course,” Flinx replied, sitting up in her chair. “The famous star-born. He’s been missing for almost a year.”

  Vylaena hovered at the closed door, content to stand despite the spare chair in front of the librarian’s desk. “So he was taken.”

  “Taken?” Flinx blinked. There were deep purple half-moons beneath her eyes, almost matching the smudge of ink on her cheek. “I don’t know about that. But no one’s seen him for a long time—not his clients, not his friends. Lorist Rynley used his services to find obscure books, but he stopped watching for Kaern’s return months ago.”

  “No one has any idea where he might’ve gone?”

  Flinx shook her head, her brow wrinkling. “You came down here just to ask me about a missing Knacker?”

  “I thought he might find a way to lift my Curse.”

  Flinx blinked rapidly, her face falling. “I’m so sorry, Vylaena. My research has been slow, and I—”

  “I know you’re doing what you can, Flinx.”

  The librarian quieted, avoiding Vylaena’s gaze. The woman held a suppressed, roiling anger in her chest that was slowly eating its way through her flesh—and Vylaena had learned enough about Atremidora Flinx to suspect what had caused it.

  “Your thesis was rejected.”

  Flinx appeared surprised for a moment, her eyes flicking up to meet Vylaena’s. Then she nodded, tension weighing down her lips. “It seems I’m lacking the correct anatomy to ascend the ranks. My brain is wired differently, and I’m unable to keep up with my more evolved male peers.”

  Vylaena’s lips tightened. Ah. “You should give up on this place, if they’re so prejudiced. Surely you have better prospects, a woman of your skill.”

  A clouded look overtook Flinx’s face and her eyes drooped. “Perhaps,” she replied with a small, dry smile. A brief silence fell between them, before Flinx finally lifted her gaze. “Now,” she snapped, “it’s my turn to ask the questions.”

  Flinx folded her arms on her desk. “You’re so eager to lift this Curse, but why? Just to be free of the pain?”

  Vylaena stood very still, digesting Flinx’s words before forming a reply. “The pain is irrelevant. But the limits that come with it . . . that’s my real undertaking. I wish to be free of them.”

  Flinx blinked at Vylaena, long eyelashes fluttering over high cheekbones. “Limitations . . .?”

  “Yes.” If a sun-crowned scholar like Flinx couldn’t figure it out, then Vylaena damn well wasn’t going to explain it.

  “Vylaena, even us regular people are not completely free,” Flinx replied, a smile growing at the corners of her mouth. “To be alive is to be bound by limitations, but also to be allowed to push past those limitations—to own them, to forge them into something else. You don’t need to lift your Curse in order to live—you can do that right now.”

  She didn’t understand; Vylaena hadn’t expected her to. She hadn’t grown up in Aeswic or lived according to the laws of the Shadowheart. Besides, this nonsense about living was just more of the same rubbish she’d heard repeated by mothers and priestesses and schoolteachers all over Aethryl. What they didn’t realize was just how futile it all was. Those words were a bribe—an enticement to be a good daughter, to honor the goddesses, to learn a skill and become a productive worker—in the hopes that you might create for yourself a generally decent life and pay your taxes. But how blind they were! Goodness was ambiguous, honor could be bought, and freedom was an illusion.

  The only solution was to exit the game.

  She’d started that process long ago, but there was one remaining shackle she had yet to break. Flinx could scoff at freedom all she wanted, but she’d never truly been bound. Not as Vylaena had.

  Flinx shifted in her chair, looking uncomfortable. She must have realized she had missed something.

  “If you’re truly set on this quest,” the librarian said, “have a Speaking done. I know you’re reticent to try it, but the priestesses do them all the time, and the results might help you understand more about the circumstances surrounding—”

  “I understand well enough,” Vylaena replied before Flinx could finish. “I’ve—”

  There was a sharp, excited knock on the door, and a girl’s voice said, “Flinx, are you there? You’ll never guess what’s just happened at the palace!”

  Flinx waved Vylaena aside, mouthing for her to be quiet. She sprang to her feet and skipped to the door, pulling it open only wide enough to peer through.

  Vylaena waited on her other side, blocked from view by the door, hoping that whoever was there would share her news and leave.

  “What is it, Ersylla?” Flinx snapped. “I’m elbows-deep in work.”

  “I just heard from Lorist Aegor that there was a survivor of the attack on that caravan last week.”

  Flinx’s eyes flickered to Vylaena’s for half a moment. “Oh?”

  “He only just found his way to the castle—they say he suffered a head wound and was unable to remember anything that had happened to him!”

  Unable to remember? Smart idea, Alaric. Vylaena cursed herself for not being the one to suggest that. It would certainly help keep any nervous guilty parties at bay.

  “Was he recognized at the castle? Did they take him in?”

  “Oh yes,” Ersylla replied, her voice brimming with excitement. “They say he was traveling to Cyair at the crown prince’s personal request. Can you believe it?”

  “Who is he? A foreign dignitary of some kind?”

  There was a pregnant silence as Ersylla paused, perhaps to grin in the way Vylaena had seen women do when offering up a juicy piece of gossip.

  “Better,” she said finally. “Prince Thyrian Lothar of Galiff.”

  ✽✽✽

  Vylaena was not easily unbalanced, but this news surprised even her. Thyrian was a Galiffan prince? No wonder his caravan had been targeted.

  She walked back through the sewers to her apartment, keeping to the raised sides of the tunnels to avoid the worst of the muck lining the centers. Vylaena didn’t pay much attention to politics, but she knew enough to understand that Thyrian’s presence in Cyair was a big deal. And yet, Enserion and Galiff had never been allies—Enserion had always kept to itself—so Thyrian’s visit raised some questions.

  She let out a hard breath. It wasn’t Vylaena’s concern. She’d done her duty, delivering Thyrian’s message and getting him safely to the castle. What happened behind the closed doors of the palace was of little consequence to her; the noblemen of these realms lived very different lives from common folk like her.

  She ducked into an adjoining tunnel and had only taken five steps before the sounds of rapid splashing sounded behind her. She drew her daggers, whirling around to face the noise, rocking onto the balls of her feet.

  What now?

  A man barreled into view, closely chased by a woman with a tangle of dirty red hair. Vylaena stepped aside to avoid a collision, but the man was not as quick. Surprised to find her in his path, he lost his footing and tripped—tumbling face-first onto the sewer floor.

  “Oy!” the woman yelled, pouncing on him and holding a dagger to his back. “If you just stop squirmin’ I’ll cut you a deal.”

&nb
sp; She whipped her head around to assess Vylaena—who’d lowered her weapons but not stowed them away. “What you lookin’ at, princess?” the woman snapped. “Get lost.”

  The woman wore a soiled yellow armband around one bicep, marking her as one of Mad Oryn’s cronies. Vylaena had had a run-in with a yellow-band when she’d first come to the city, as her apartment was on the border between Oryn’s turf and that of Maestryn Gammon, an old-as-dirt crime boss with more blood on her hands than Vylaena. With one dagger and several precise cuts, Vylaena had communicated that she was to be left out of any disputes; she’d had little trouble with their squabbles since.

  The man sniffling beneath the redhead didn’t appear armed, and he wore the simple tunic and leggings of a common worker. The woman’s knife bit into his skin; Vylaena could feel the sharp prick of steel at her own spine.

  He stared at her with wide, glassy eyes. “Please!” he cried. “Help me, please!”

  Vylaena’s lips tightened.

  “Please!” The man repeated.

  Quietly, Vylaena sheathed her daggers and sidestepped them both. She didn’t reply.

  “Yeah, keep walkin’,” the woman spat at her back.

  In Enserion, the rules were simple: the king made the laws, the Royal Guard attempted to enforce them, local gang bosses created their own rules, and everyone else did their best not to get killed in the ensuing clash. You either kept your head down or learned to maneuver through—by steel or coin.

  It wasn’t Vylaena’s place to interfere, and this was Oryn’s territory. He made the rules here, and if that peasant man was on his hit list, that was none of her concern.

  But for some reason, Vylaena couldn’t get the image of the man’s wide, terrified eyes out of her mind. She navigated the rest of the way home in a daze, only waking from it when she put one hand on the drainpipe ladder to begin the ascent to her apartment. An unsettling feeling twisted in her stomach, as though she’d not eaten in days.

  Guilt? She was feeling guilt?

  She grimaced, raising her foot to scale the pipe. Ridiculous. It was not her fault that lawlessness ran rampant or that Mad Oryn had singled that man out. It was not her fault the world worked the way it did. She’d been young and naive once, thinking she could find better if only she searched hard enough. But she’d been wrong. Life was cruel and death was merciless. And that was all there was.