Ether-Touched (The Breaking Stone Trilogy Book 1)

by L. M. Coulson

  Thyrian’s lips twitched. “Speaking from experience?”

  “Always,” Vylaena replied. She shifted her weight onto the other hip. “You still need to send a letter or would you rather stand around here all day?”

  “Lead on,” Thyrian sighed.

  ✽✽✽

  In better times, messages could be sent directly through the two-way mirrors that had once been kept in a series of private chambers in the southeast wing. But they’d faded with the disappearance of the Royal Ethersmith, leaving the two more mundane options for sending and receiving mail: postlarks and land carrier.

  Hundreds of years of breeding and etherial experimentation had created a species of bird commonly referred to as the postlark—a sort of enhanced homing pigeon with the ability to recall two points in the world with almost one hundred percent accuracy. Enserion’s postlarks weren't as advanced as some of the other nations, since the kingdom’s distrust of ether limited the birds’ evolution, but they could still deliver messages from one point and back with minimal issue. Usually.

  The palace kept three postlarks, since it had the resources and reason to keep them alive and well: one for the court at Ieda, one for Galiff, and one for Terolyn. Estryn’s bird, unfortunately, had perished in a hard winter storm half a decade prior. No one had considered it necessary to replace the creature. It wasn’t as if Estryn’s merchant ships ever deigned to stop at Enserion’s ports—if they could even be called ports nowadays.

  Vylaena led Thyrian to the post room at the top of the eastern tower, a squarish room lined with wooden railings for the postlarks to rest upon, and strewn with dirty rushes. It smelled of bird shit and mold.

  Vylaena rested against one wall as Thyrian navigated to one of the wooden posts, where a bird the size of a small owl watched him, its leg bearing a tiny green tube—green for Galiff. He pursed his lips, inserting a rolled-up piece of parchment into the tube, then detached the bird’s tether from its hook on the wall. Immediately, the bird flapped its wings, giving a shrill squawk, and took off out a nearby window, open to the city below.

  Thyrian watched the bird glide over the rooftops and beyond, until it was little more than a black speck on the horizon. Go safely, he thought, wishing the bird speed. His last letter home had been more than two weeks ago; he was well past due checking in.

  “Why Enserion?” Vylaena spoke up while he still had his back to her. He turned his head, surprised at the question—he hadn’t expected her to start a conversation.

  Vylaena still rested against the wall, her arms crossed in the picture of boredom, but there was an inquiry in her eyes that broke the pretense.

  “This kingdom is a shit hole,” she continued. “What kind of allies were you hoping for? A dozen gang bosses and their underlings? Troops of starving peasants?”

  Thyrian turned to face the woman fully. “To be perfectly honest,” he replied, “I care very little if Enserion can offer my kingdom soldiers.”

  Vylaena’s lips tightened; he wondered if perhaps he’d surprised her.

  “So . . . what, then?”

  Thyrian raised an eyebrow. “Curious again, Shadowheart?”

  The woman took a shallow, scoffing breath. “Suspicious, maybe.”

  Another surprise. “Why?”

  “Because Enserion offers you nothing. Why are you here, Thyrian? To scope out the weaknesses of the monarchy? To decide whether it’s worth overthrowing? What?”

  A bubble of hilarity rose in Thyrian’s throat, and he let it loose, laughing with incredulous amusement. “You think I want Alaric’s throne?”

  She just stared at him.

  “Ether, no,” Thyrian said. “Goddesses, no.”

  “What, then?”

  Thyrian’s laughter died on his tongue as he realized the reason she’d asked. To her, it probably did seem like the perfect explanation. To her, the idea of him selecting Enserion as an ally was preposterous. Because . . .

  “Have you ever fought in a group? A pair, even? Side by side, I mean. On the same team.”

  Vylaena’s bottom lip dropped slightly before she reeled it in. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Well, at least he had his answer. He shrugged. “An ally like Enserion provides a united front—even if there’s little behind it but a few words and a sheet of parchment. The kingdom’s a shit hole, yes, but it’s also the second most populated next to Galiff. By allying with Enserion, we effectively double our population—we double the amount of people standing against the Desert Kingdoms.

  “They won’t all go to battle if it comes to that, of course. But just knowing that two such kingdoms are united . . . all the added resources at our disposal . . . it’s certainly going to make Kyshiin think twice about any aggression.

  “Besides,” Thyrian continued in a softer tone, “Alaric is my friend. He needs this just as much as Galiff does. I could not leave him so open to attack, even if he has little to offer my kingdom but raw, untrained numbers and crumbling infrastructure. At least if we are united, we can share each other’s strengths.”

  Vylaena made a noise of disbelief. “And Kyshiin won’t simply see the alliance for what it is—a desperate, feeble attempt to project dominance? If the alliance was in place, and he attacked Galiff, do you really expect Enserion to come assist?”

  “I can hope. I have faith in Alaric.”

  Vylaena let out a hiccup of choked laughter. “Alaric couldn’t make the Guard march down to the river docks, much less to war with the Desert Kingdoms.”

  “I think he could if his people were being killed. They would demand it. And the Guard would feel honor bound to—”

  “No,” Vylaena pressed, her voice going cold, “they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t give an ether-forged shit until the day their own necks were on the line. And even then, they’d run.”

  A heavy silence fell over the room, and Thyrian held Vylaena’s gaze with quiet contemplation. Was it just her upbringing that made her so pessimistic? No; he didn’t think so. The Shadowheart were viciously serious but not innately cynical. And there was definite bitterness in her tone. Someone—someones, perhaps—had hurt her. Someone had hurt her so badly she’d lost all faith in humanity. He could see it in her eyes as she glanced away, staring out the window, the grey of her irises drowning in shadow.

  “And why are you here, Vylaena?” Thyrian replied, taking a step around the skeletal iron grate at the center of the room. The room wasn’t large; as he stepped in front of her she was forced to acknowledge the question and look at him.

  She glanced up, though the ice in her gaze stopped him from drawing any closer. “You were there. You heard the king’s ultimatum. I prefer that my head remain attached to my body.”

  Thyrian stared down at her, unimpressed. “You know what I mean. Why the cottage in the Elderwood, why the partnership with Alaric, why hide from those wights in Cyair, of all places? If Enserion is so distasteful to you, then why are you here?”

  “Because at least here I’m less broken than everyone else,” Vylaena snapped, drawing so close he could smell the castle-issue soap in her hair. It was peculiar; a too-soft, too-warm smell so at odds with the sharp-faced woman who bore it.

  Vylaena’s eyes flashed silver; her voice was dry as bone. “And I did want to leave. I was ready to pack up and go. But someone decided that they’d instead have me arrested and force me to stay in this rutting city. Don’t scoff at what you perceive are choices I made. Because they likely weren’t.”

  The post-room door swung open, startling Thyrian so thoroughly that he went for his sword. But he stopped, midturn, as he recognized Alaric striding through the door.

  “Oh, good,” Alaric said, taking them both in. “At least we’re all in bad moods today.”

  Thyrian relaxed his stance. “How’d it go?”

  “Abysmally, as expected,” Alaric sighed, walking past him and Vylaena to rest his elbows on the far windowsill. He frowned at the city below. “Either I’m truly incapable of doing anyt
hing useful or my father is so blind it doesn’t matter. Likely both.”

  “Is there no one you could turn to our cause that he would listen to? An advisor? A favored courtier?”

  Alaric let out a grim laugh. “Oh, I wish. But that’s the thing about royalty, isn’t it? It takes followers—believers—to make the word mean anything. It doesn’t matter the prestige of my blood, if everyone can merely ignore it. I have no power, no sway. None. Not to the council. Not even to my own father.”

  Alaric shook his head. “Now I understand how Eyren feels. To them I am little more than an annoying child, kept watered and fed for the day I finally become of use to them. Though, in his case, that day is not likely to ever arrive . . .”

  Thyrian glanced at Vylaena, who had withdrawn, staring out a nearby window and studiously ignoring them. He pursed his lips, abandoning her in favor of his friend. He rounded Alaric’s side, sharing the view.

  “We’ll figure something out. We’ve come this far already. And he can’t ignore this threat forever. If Terolyn falls . . .”

  “I know,” Alaric replied in a deflated tone. “I know.”

  18 | The Teacher

  Flinx glanced at the tiny shuttered window and noticed that the slats—which were not normally enough to block out the full brunt of the summer sun—had gone dark.

  “By the Three,” she said, closing the thin book she held open atop her skirts, “where has the time gone?”

  “But Miss Flinx,” protested a tiny, dark-haired girl in a wrinkled blue shift curled around one of Flinx’s ankles, “you’re not finished!”

  Flinx smiled as the girl let out a tremendous yawn. “Story time is a treat, and you lot needed almost an hour to complete your spelling lists. Study a little harder this week and maybe we’ll have time to finish.”

  The assortment of children at Flinx’s feet gave varying noises of displeasure as the librarian rose from the dusty floor and slipped her book back into the small leather pack she carried with her to the city.

  “But I won’t leave without presents,” she added, pulling from the bag a collection of charcoal pencils and bound pads of parchment. Goddesses bless Vylaena for her generosity, Flinx thought. Her fund for school supplies had been running low until the mercenary’s latest payment.

  Small, eager hands pressed forward, and Flinx unloaded her haul, giving out smiles and hugs along with the supplies. “Work on your letters, Lyra. I know they’re hard at first, but you’re a smart girl—you’ll get them. Do you have a place to sleep tonight, Faeryn? With the Dourands? Good. Saura, how’s your mother doing? Can I bring her another poultice?”

  The two adult students, Ouric and Vynessa, were last, accepting their gifts with quiet nods of thanks. They were brother and sister, and fast learners—they’d started a month prior, completely illiterate. Now, they were already writing simple sentences.

  “Don’ wanna be like our Da,” Vynessa had told her when the twins had shown up at the abandoned bakery, curious and wide-eyed at the neat rows of children sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor, heads bent over homemade workbooks.

  Flinx hadn’t asked any more than that, but it was a phrase she’d heard many times before. Or, in the reverse: “Don’t want my baby to end up like me.”

  Her inventory and her pupils both gone, Flinx slipped the much-lighter pack over her shoulders and stepped into the balmy summer night. It was darker than it should have been, but this part of town lacked the means to install street lamps. Flinx was no stranger to shadowed streets, but familiarity did not always equate to easiness. She set her feet toward home and did not linger.

  Education was not compulsory in Enserion. There were a few private schools in Cyair, but the only free one was too exclusive to allow any “street urchins” beyond its walls, and catered mostly to skilled tradesmen’s get. Flinx had tried propositioning the library to open a public school of its own—it hardly lacked the resources, and had a generous supply of qualified teachers—but her request had never gained traction.

  So she’d done it herself, with her own lynd. It didn’t take too much; the bakery was technically owned by Librarian Falyssre, who had inherited it from her late father but lacked the desire to keep it running. “Do with it what you want,” Falyssre had said when Flinx had approached her about repurposing it.

  So Flinx had. She taught once a week to a revolving set of students that ran the gamut from toddler to grey-haired, though most were below the age of ten. She wasn’t the greatest instructor, but she did her best; she felt an obligation to these children, who reminded her so much of herself as a child: eager but world-weary. Grasping at anything that might help them break out of the cycle of decay that seemed so inevitable in a city like Cyair.

  The trek back to the library was long, and the city bells were halfway through the eleventh toll before Flinx reached the back entrance that was reserved for library staff. The gate was guarded by two men in silver plate; they nodded at her as she hurried beneath the stone archway, having long grown used to Flinx’s weekly excursions into the city.

  She’d made it just in time; the gate was closed and locked from eleven to six, and it had taken only one harrowing night spent on the streets for Flinx to decide that was an experience she would never endure again.

  There was a gravel path leading from the gate to the rear doors of the Royal Library, weaving around the outskirts of several castle gardens. Since the library was technically on palace grounds, it wasn’t uncommon to find the occasional courtier strolling about, viewable over the shoulder-high hedge separating the library path from the more royal grounds beyond. But the gardens were empty, even on such a serene summer night as this.

  It was not a long walk; fifty paces and Flinx was at the back door. She skipped up a short flight of stone steps and passed through the set of ornate bronze doors that marked the palace-facing entrance to Enserion’s Royal Library.

  The corridors were deserted. It was not surprising, what with most of the acolytes on a much-needed post-term break and the librarians either celebrating their one off-day a week early or asleep over piles of personal research.

  Flinx stopped at her office to drop off her bag, then headed toward the dormitories. But her feet slowed as she passed the large, golden-brown doors of the inner library, flanked on each side by fluted, shoulder-height stone pillars topped with glowing, rounded braziers. The strong, warm light was like a beacon, drawing her gaze and trapping her attention.

  She wasn’t tired. Not yet. And though her day had been a long one, a thread of guilt slithered in her stomach at the thought of sleep. She might’ve reached a dead end in Vylaena’s research, but couldn’t fathom that truly being the end of it. There had to be a solution—some way to rid the woman of her Curse.

  The library would be empty. What better time than now to investigate the secret alcove of ancient lore she’d discovered from tailing Prince Eyren and Rynley?

  She stretched forward, grasping one of the worn bronze rings that served as doorknobs. The heavy slab of wood acquiesced, swinging open on well-oiled hinges.

  The hidden alcove was in one of the deeper sections of the library, past the more frequently used areas and into the older, more obscure rows. The stacks were dim in this area, for most of the old etherlamps had dissolved and it was too late for passing librarians to attend to the oil lamps. Flinx lifted one from its holder on a wall and lit it with a match she pulled from her skirt pocket; she normally used a special reading light commissioned by a glass-blower in town, but it was currently resting on its shelf in her office. A borrowed light would do.

  It was quiet in the stacks. Flinx breathed in deep as she walked, smiling as the warm scents of ancient paper and worn leather caressed her nose. She’d always felt safe in libraries. Libraries had been her sanctuary when the world outside had been too cold, or too dangerous, or just plain unbearable. There was a comfort, too, in being surrounded by so much raw knowledge—as if one’s problems were somehow automatically solved by mere proxim
ity to the wisdom on these shelves.

  A muffled thonk sounded up ahead, interrupting Flinx’s thoughts. It was a sound she knew as well as her own voice—a large tome snapping shut.

  It was likely a fellow librarian, out on a late-night research mission, just as she was. Flinx might’ve ignored the sound and returned to her daydreaming, except that the noise had come from directly ahead and around a shelf—precisely where she was headed.

  Curious—did someone else know of the secret archive?—she continued forward, lamp held high, noting the glow ahead that rose to meet her. Someone else was definitely around the next shelf, doing some reading of their own.

  Flinx reached the corner and paused, craning her head around the edge of the shelf to the area beyond, where the placement of several bookshelves made a crude sort of alcove, large enough for a study table and four polished wooden chairs. A glass lamp—twin to her own, library standard—sat atop the polished surface, at the elbow of an anonymous blonde man with his back to her, head lowered over an open book.

  Flinx paused, annoyed. The man sat squarely between her and the trick bookshelf that led to the etherlore archive. She had no way of accessing it without giving its secret away.

  Of all the nights, she thought, about to give up the venture. But then, as if she’d spoken the thought aloud, the man at the table turned, fixing her in a royal blue stare.

  “Good evening,” said the Crown Prince of Enserion.

  Flinx gave a light gasp as recognition flared in her gut. Annoyance quickly gave way to unease and anxiety and embarrassment—each roiling in her belly for control. “Your Highness,” was all she could manage to say, stepping fully into the open and sketching a shallow, crude curtsey.

  She’d seen the man only from a distance—and very rarely—across the wide gardens of the palace grounds. Never, in a hundred years, did she expect to stumble upon him here, in the middle of the night, with no escort or guard to speak of.