A Conjuring of Light

by V. E. Schwab

  By the time he reached Holland, the man was on his knees on the river floor, his lips moving faintly, soundlessly, his body weighed down by the shackles at his wrists and the steel chains around his waist and legs. The Antari struggled to his feet but couldn’t manage any further. After a brief struggle he lost his battle with gravity and sank back to his knees, driving up a cloud of silt as the irons hit the riverbed.

  Kell hovered in front of him, his own coat heavy with water, its weight enough to keep him under. He drew his dagger, slicing skin before he realized the futility—the instant the blood welled, it vanished, dissipated by the current. Kell swore, sacrificing a thin stream of air as Holland struggled to hold on to the last of his own. Holland’s black hair floated in the water around his face, his eyes closed, a resignation to his posture, as if he would rather drown than return to the world above.

  As if he meant to end his life here, at the bottom of the river.

  But Kell couldn’t let him do that.

  Holland’s eyes flashed open as Kell took hold of his shoulders, crouching to reach his wrists where they were weighted to the river floor. The Antari shook his head minutely, but Kell didn’t let go. His whole body ached from the cold and the lack of air, and he could see Holland’s chest stuttering as he fought the urge to breathe in.

  Kell wrapped his hands around the iron shackles and pulled, not with muscle but with magic. Iron was a mineral, somewhere between stone and earth on the spectrum of elements. He couldn’t unmake it, but he could—with enough effort—change its shape.

  Transmuting an element was no small feat, even in a workroom with ample time and focus; doing it underwater surrounded by dark magic while his chest screamed and Holland slowly drowned was something else entirely.

  Focus, Master Tieren chided in his head. Unfocus.

  Kell squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember Tieren’s instructions.

  Elements are not whole unto themselves, the Aven Essen had said, but parts, each a knot on the same, ever-circling rope, one giving way onto the next and the next. There is a natural pause, but no seam.

  It had been years since he’d learned to do this; ages since he’d stood in the head priest’s study with a glass in each hand, following the lines of the element spectrum as he poured the contents back and forth, turning a cup of water into sand, sand into rock, rock into fire, fire into air, air into water. On and on, slowly, painstakingly, the action never as natural as the theory. The priests could do it—they were so attuned to the subtleties of magic, the boundaries between elements porous in their hands—but Kell’s magic was too loud, too bright, and half the time he faltered, shattering the glass or spilling contents that were now half rock, half glass.

  Focus.

  Unfocus.

  The iron was cold under his hands.

  Unyielding.

  Knots on a rope.

  Holland was dying.

  The watery world swirled darkly.

  Focus.

  Unfocus.

  Kell’s eyes flashed open. He met Holland’s gaze, and as the metal began to soften in his hands, something flashed across the magician’s face, and Kell realized suddenly that Holland’s resignation had been a mask, veiling the panic beneath. The cuffs gave way beneath Kell’s desperate fingers, turning from iron to sand, silt that formed a cloud and then dissolved in the river’s current.

  Holland lurched forward in the sudden absence of chains. He rose up, the need for air propelling him toward the surface.

  Kell pushed off the river floor to follow.

  Or tried to.

  He lifted a few feet, only to be wrenched back down, held fast by a sudden, unseen force. The last of Kell’s air escaped in a violent stream as he fought the water’s hold. The force tightened around his legs, tried to crush the strength from his limbs, his chest, dragging his arms out to his sides in a gruesome echo of the steel frame in the White London castle.

  The water before Kell shifted and swirled, the current bending around the outlines of a man.

  Hello again, Antari.

  Too late, Kell understood. That last moment on the balcony, when Osaron had looked not at Holland, but at him. Pushing Holland into the river, knowing Kell would save him. They’d set a trap for the shadow king, and he’d set one for them. For him.

  After all, Kell was the one who’d resisted, the one who’d refused to yield.

  Now will you kneel?

  The invisible bonds forced Kell to the river floor. His lungs flamed as he tried to push back against the river. Tried, and failed. Panic tore through him.

  Now will you beg?

  He closed his eyes and tried to fight against the need for air that screamed through his chest, drowning his senses. His vision flickered with spots of white light and hollow black.

  Now will you let me in?

  IV

  Lila saw Kell vanish over the balcony’s edge.

  At first, she thought he must have been knocked over, that surely he wouldn’t have willingly jumped into the black water, not for Holland, but then she remembered his words—it could have been me—and she realized, with icy clarity, that Kell hadn’t told her the truth. The execution was a farce. Holland was never supposed to die.

  It had all been a trap, and Osaron hadn’t taken the bait, and now Holland was sinking to the bottom of the Isle, and Kell was going with him.

  “Fucking hell,” muttered Lila, shrugging out of her coat.

  On the balcony, Jinnar had collapsed, body crumbling to muddy ash, while those who’d fallen to Osaron’s spell were being subdued. A pair of silver-scarred guards fought to regain order while a third fought the fever raging through him. The king shoved past his own guard, scouring the balcony, while Alucard shielded Rhy, who had one hand to his chest as if he couldn’t breathe.

  Because, of course, he couldn’t breathe. Kell wasn’t the only one drowning.

  Lila turned, mounted the balcony edge, and jumped.

  The water cut like knives. She sputtered, shocked by the pain and the cold, and she was going to kill someone when this was over.

  Without the weight of her coat, her body rebelled, trying with every stride to lift her toward the surface, toward air, toward life. Instead she swam down, lungs burning, icy water stinging her open eyes, toward the shape on the river floor. She expected it to be Holland, weighed down by chains. But the figure was thrashing freely, his hair a tangled cloud.

  Kell.

  Lila kicked toward him when a hand caught her arm. She twisted around behind her to see Holland, now free of chains.

  She brought up her boot to kick him away, but the water gripped it and his fingers tightened as he forced her back around to face the struggling figure on the river floor.

  For a sick, frozen moment she thought he wanted her to watch Kell die.

  But then she saw it, the faint outline of something—someone—hovering in the water before him.

  Osaron.

  Holland pointed at himself and then the shadow king. He pointed at her and then Kell. And then he let go, and she understood.

  They dove as one, but Holland reached the bottom first, landing in a plume of silt that caught the edges of the shadow king like dust catching light.

  Lila reached Kell’s side in the cover of the clouded water and tried to pull him up, pull him free, but Osaron’s will held firm. She flung a desperate hand toward Holland, a speechless plea, and the magician spread his arms and shoved.

  The river recoiled, flung away in every direction, carving out a column of air with Kell and Lila at its center. Kell and Lila, but not Holland.

  Lila drew in a deep breath, lungs aching, while Kell collapsed to the river floor, gasping and heaving up water.

  Get him out, mouthed Holland, hands trembling from the force of holding the river—and Osaron—at bay.

  With what? Lila wanted to say. They might be able to breathe, but they were still standing at the bottom of the river, Kell only half conscious and Lila with all her strength but n
one of his skill. She couldn’t craft wings of air, couldn’t sculpt a set of stairs from ice. Her gaze went to the silt floor.

  The column of air swayed around them.

  Holland was losing his hold.

  Shadows grew, curling in the water around the faltering Antari, like roaming limbs, fingers, mouths.

  She wanted to leave him, but Kell had brought them here, to this point, all for Holland’s bloody life. Leave him. Save him. Damn him. Lila snarled and, keeping one hand on Kell’s sleeve, thrust the other out toward the column, widening the circle until Holland staggered forward, safely within.

  Safe being a relative thing.

  Holland drew in ragged breaths, and Kell, finally recovering his senses, pressed his palms to the damp river floor. It began to rise, a disk of earth beneath their feet surging toward the surface as the column collapsed below.

  They broke the surface and scrambled onto the riverbank beneath the palace, dropping to the ground soaked and half frozen, but alive.

  Holland was the first to recover, but before he was even halfway to his feet, Lila had a knife against his throat.

  “Steady now,” she said, her own limbs shaking.

  “Wait—” Kell began to speak, but the king and his men were already on them, the guards forcing Holland back to his knees on the icy bank. When they realized he was no longer chained, half of them lunged forward, blades drawn, the other half away. But Holland made no move to strike. Lila kept her knife out all the same until the king’s men had hauled their prisoner back toward the cells. In their wake, Rhy came storming down the riverbank. The prince’s jaw was set, his cheeks red, as if he’d almost drowned. Because, of course, he had.

  Kell saw him coming.

  “Rhy—”

  The prince slammed his fist into his brother’s face.

  Kell staggered backward to the ground, and the prince reeled back in mirrored pain, cradling his own cheek.

  Rhy grabbed Kell by the soaking collar of his coat. “I’ve made my peace with death,” he said, jabbing a finger at Holland’s retreating form. “But I refuse to die for him.”

  With that, Rhy shoved his brother away again. Kell’s mouth opened and closed, a fleck of blood at the corner of his lip, but the prince turned and marched back toward the palace.

  Lila brushed herself off.

  “You had that coming,” she said before leaving Kell on the bank, soaked and shivering and alone.

  V

  “Gods don’t need bodies, but kings do.”

  Osaron seethed at the words echoing through his mind. Weeds to be torn out at the root. After all, he was a god. And a god did not need a body. A shell. A cage. A god was everywhere.

  The river rippled, and from it rose a drop, a shimmering black bead that stretched and lengthened until it had a form, limbs, fingers, a face. Osaron stood on the surface of the water.

  Holland was wrong.

  A body was merely a tool, a thing to be used, discarded, but it was never needed.

  Osaron had wanted to kill Holland slowly, to tear out his mortal heart—a heart he knew, a heart he’d listened to for months.

  He had given Holland so much—a second chance, a city reborn—and all he’d asked for in return was cooperation.

  They’d made a deal.

  And Holland would pay for breaking it.

  The insolence of these Antari.

  As for the other two—

  He hadn’t decided yet how to use them.

  Kell was a temptation.

  A gift given, and then lost, a body to break in—or simply break.

  And the girl. Delilah. Strong and sharp. So much fight. So much promise. So much more that she could be.

  He wanted—

  No.

  But then—

  It was a different thing, for a god to want, and a human to need.

  He didn’t need these playthings, these shells.

  Did not need to be confined.

  He was everywhere.

  (It was enough.)

  It was—

  Osaron looked down at his form sculpted of dark water, and was reminded of another body, another world.

  Missing—

  No.

  But something was missing.

  He drifted up from the surface of the water, rose into the air to survey the city that would become his city, and frowned. It was midday, and yet London sulked in shadow. The mists of his power shimmered, twisted, coiled, but beneath their blanket, the city looked dull.

  The world—his world—should be beautiful, bright, filled with the light of magic, the song of power.

  It would be, once the city stopped fighting. Once they all bowed, all kneeled, all recognized him as king, then he could make the city what it would be, what it should be. Progress was a process, change took time, a winter before every spring.

  But in the meantime—

  Missing—

  What was missing—

  He spun in place, and there it was.

  The royal palace.

  Somewhere inside, the defiant huddled, hiding behind their wards as if wards would outlast him. And they would fall, in time, but it was the palace itself that shone in his gaze, rising above the blackened river like a second sun, casting its spokes of reddish light into the sky even now, its echo dancing on the mirror-dark surface of the river.

  Every ruler needed a palace.

  He’d had one once, of course, at the center of his first city. A beautiful thing sculpted from want and will and sheer potential. Osaron had told himself he would not repeat that place, would not make the same mistakes—

  But that was the wrong word.

  He’d been young, learning, and though the city had fallen, it wasn’t the palace’s doing. Wasn’t his doing. It was theirs, the people’s, with their flawed minds, their brittle shapes—and yes, he’d given them the power, but he knew better now, knew the power must be his and his alone, and it had been such a splendid palace. The dark heart of his kingdom.

  It would do better here.

  Right here.

  Then, perhaps, this place would feel like home.

  Home.

  What a strange idea.

  But still. Here. This.

  Osaron had risen high into the air now, far above the shimmering black expanse of the river, the lifeless arenas, hulking skeletons of stone and wood topped with their lions and serpents and birds of prey, their bodies empty, their banners still whipping in the breeze.

  Right here.

  He spread his hands and pulled on the strings of this world, on the threads of power in the stadium stones and the water below, and the massive silhouettes began to draw together, groaning as they came free from their bridges and holds.

  In his mind, the palace took shape, smoke and stone and magic prying loose, rearranging into something else, something more. And, as in his mind, so in the world below. His new palace lengthened like a shadow, rising up instead of out, tendrils of mist climbing the sides like vines, smoothing into polished black stone like new flesh over old bones. Overhead, the stadium banners rose like smoke before hardening into a crown of glossy spires above his creation.

  Osaron smiled.

  It was a start.

  VI

  Kell had always been a fan of silence.

  He craved those too-rare moments when the world calmed and the chaos of life in the palace gave way to easy, comfortable stillness.

  This was not that kind of silence.

  No, this silence was a hollow, sulking thing, a heavy quiet broken only by the drip of river water hitting the polished floor, and the fire crackling in the hearth, and the shuffle of Rhy’s restless steps.

  Kell sat in one of the prince’s chairs, a cup of scalding hot tea in one hand, his bruised jaw in the other, his hair a mess of damp red streaks, beads of river water trickling down his neck. While Tieren tended to his bruised lungs, Kell took stock of the damage—two guards were dead, as well as another Arnesian magician. Holland was back in the c
ells, the queen was in the gallery, and the king stood across the room by the prince’s hearth, his face shadowed, gaunt. Hastra was by the doors, Alucard Emery—a shade Kell seemingly couldn’t be rid of—sat on the couch with a glass of wine, while his shipmate, Lenos, hovered like a shadow at his back. Blood and ash still stained Alucard’s front. Some of it was his, but the rest belonged to Jinnar.

  Jinnar—who’d taken it upon himself to fight, and failed.

  The single best wind worker in Arnes, reduced to a burning puppet, a pile of ash.

  Lila was lounging on the floor, her back against Alucard’s sofa, and the sight of her sitting there—near the damned privateer instead of Kell—stoked the fire in Kell’s aching chest.

  The minutes ticked past, and his damp hair finally began to dry, yet no one spoke. Instead the air hummed with the frustration of things unsaid, of fights gone dormant.

  “Well,” said the prince at last, “I think it’s safe to say that didn’t go as planned.”

  The words broke the seal, and suddenly the room was filled with voices.

  “Jinnar was my friend,” said Alucard, glaring at Kell, “and he’s dead because of you.”

  “Jinnar is dead because of himself,” said Kell, shaking off Tieren’s attentions. “No one forced him onto that balcony. No one told him to attack the shadow king.”

  Lila scowled. “You should have let Holland drown.”

  “Why didn’t you?” interjected Rhy.

  “After all,” she went on, “wasn’t it supposed to be an execution? Or did you have other plans? Ones you didn’t share with us.”

  “Yes, Kell,” chimed Alucard. “Do enlighten us.”

  Kell shot the captain a frigid look. “Why are you here?”

  “Kell,” said the king in a low, stern way. “Tell them.”

  Kell ran a hand through his frizzing hair, frustrated. “Osaron needs permission to take an Antari shell,” he said. “The plan was for Holland to let Osaron in, and for me to then kill Holland.”

  “I knew it,” said Lila.

  “So did Osaron, it seems,” said Rhy.

  “During the execution,” continued Kell, “Holland was trying to draw Osaron in. When Osaron appeared, I assumed it had worked, but then when he pushed Holland into the river … I didn’t think—”