A Conjuring of Light

by V. E. Schwab

She didn’t want to see what happened next, didn’t want to see the king’s knight die a second time, didn’t want to see the last of Holland’s guard fall to a ghost, so she crouched, squeezed her eyes shut, and pressed her hands over her ears. The way she used to when things got bad in the castle. When Athos Dane played with people until they broke.

  But even through her hands, she heard the voice that came from Ojka’s throat—not Ojka’s at all, but someone else’s, hollow and echoing and rich—and the guards must have been afraid of ghosts and monsters too, because when Nasi finally opened her eyes, there was no sign of Ojka or the men.

  The room was empty.

  She was all alone.

  IV

  The Ghost was almost back to Tanek when Lila felt the vessel drag to a sudden stop.

  Not the smooth coasting of a ship losing current, but a jarring halt, unnatural at sea.

  She and Kell were in their cabin when it happened, packing up their few belongings, Lila’s hand drifting repeatedly to her pocket—the absence of her watch its own strange weight—while Kell’s kept going to his chest.

  “Does it still hurt?” she’d asked, and Kell had started to answer when the ship stuttered harshly, the groan of wood and sail cut off by Alucard calling them up. His voice had the peculiar lightness it took on when he was either drunk or nervous, and she was pretty sure he hadn’t been drinking at the ship’s wheel (though it wouldn’t surprise her if he had).

  It was a grey day above, mist clouding the world beyond the boat. Holland was already on deck, staring out into the fog.

  “Why have you stopped?” demanded Kell, a crease between his brows.

  “Because we have a problem,” said Alucard, nodding ahead.

  Lila scanned the horizon. The fog was heavier than it should have been given the hour, sitting like a second skin above the water. “I can’t see anything.”

  “That’s the idea,” said Alucard. His hands splayed, his lips moved, and the mist he’d conjured thinned a little before them.

  Lila squinted, and at first she saw nothing but sea, and then—

  She went still.

  It wasn’t land ahead.

  It was a line of ships.

  Ten hulking vessels with pale wood bodies and emerald flags that cut the fog like knives.

  A Veskan fleet.

  “Well,” said Lila slowly. “I guess that answers the question of who paid Jasta to kill us.”

  “And Rhy,” added Kell.

  “How far to land?” asked Holland.

  Alucard shook his head. “Not far, but they’re standing directly between us and Tanek. The nearest coast is an hour’s sail to either side.”

  “Then we go around.”

  Alucard shot Kell a look. “Not in this,” he said, gesturing at the Ghost, and Lila understood. The captain had maneuvered the ship so that its narrow prow faced the fleet’s spine. As long as the fog lingered, as long as the Ghost held still, it might go unnoticed, but the moment it moved closer, it would be a target. The Ghost wasn’t flying flags, but neither were the three small vessels bobbing like buoys beside the fleet, each running the white banner of a captured boat. The Veskans were clearly holding the pass.

  “Should we attack?” asked Lila.

  That drew looks from Kell, Alucard, and Holland.

  “What?” she said.

  Alucard shook his head, dismayed. “There are probably hundreds aboard those ships, Bard.”

  “And we’re Antari.”

  “Antari, not immortal,” said Kell.

  “We don’t have time to battle a fleet,” said Holland. “We need to get to land.”

  Alucard’s gaze shifted back to the line of ships. “Oh, you can make it to the coast,” he said, “but you’ll have to row.”

  Lila thought Alucard must be joking.

  He wasn’t.

  V

  Rhy Maresh kept his eyes on the light.

  He stood at the edge of the spell circle where Tieren lay, and focused on the candle cradled in the priest’s hands with its steady, unwavering flame.

  He wanted to wake the Aven Essen from his trance, wanted to bury his head in the old man’s shoulder and sob. Wanted to feel the calm of his magic.

  In the last few months, he had become intimately acquainted with pain, and with death, but grief was new. Pain was bright, and death was dark, but grief was grey. A slab of stone resting on his chest. A toxic cloud stripping him of breath.

  I can’t do this alone, he thought.

  I can’t do this—

  I can’t—

  Whatever his father had been trying to achieve, it hadn’t worked.

  Rhy had seen the river lighten, the shadows begin to withdraw, had glimpsed his city of red and gold like a specter through the fog.

  But it hadn’t lasted.

  Within minutes, the darkness had returned.

  He’d lost his father for what?

  A moment?

  A breath?

  They’d recovered the king’s body from the base of the palace steps.

  His father, lying in a pool of cooling blood.

  His father, now laid out beside his mother, a pair of sculptures, shells, their eyes closed, their bodies suddenly aged by death. When had his mother’s cheeks grown hollow? When had his father’s temples gone grey? They were impostors, gross imitations of the people they’d been in life. The people Rhy had loved. The sight of them—what was left of them—made him ill, and so he’d fled to the only place he could. The only person.

  To Tieren.

  Tieren, who slept with a stillness that might have passed for death if Rhy hadn’t just seen it, hadn’t pressed hands to his father’s unmoving ribs, hadn’t clutched his mother’s stiffened shoulder.

  Come back—

  Come back—

  Come back—

  He did not say the words aloud, for fear of rousing the priest, some deep feeling that no matter how softly he might speak, the sadness would still be loud. The other priests knelt, their heads bowed, as if themselves in a trance, brows furrowed in concentration while Tieren’s face bore the same smooth pallor of the men and women sleeping in the streets. Rhy would have given anything to hear the Aven Essen’s voice, to feel the weight of arms around his shoulders, to see the understanding in his eyes.

  He was so close.

  He was so far.

  Tears burned Rhy’s eyes, threatened to spill over, and when they did, they hit the floor an inch from the ashen edge of the binding circle. His fingers ached from where he’d struck Isra, shoulder throbbing where he’d twisted free of Sol-in-Ar’s grip. But these pains were little more than memory, shallow wounds compared to the tearing in his chest, the absence where two people had been carved out, torn away.

  His arms hung heavy at his sides.

  In one hand, his own crown, the circle of gold he’d worn since he was a boy, and in the other, the royal pin capable of reaching Kell.

  He had thought of summoning his brother, of course. Gripped the pin until the emblem of the chalice and sun had cut into his palm, even though Kell said blood wasn’t necessary. Kell was wrong. Blood was always necessary.

  One word, and his brother would come.

  One word, and he wouldn’t be alone.

  One word—but Rhy Maresh couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  He had failed himself so many times. He wouldn’t fail Kell, too.

  Someone cleared their throat behind him. “Your Majesty.”

  Rhy let out a shuddering breath and stepped back from the edge of Tieren’s spell. Turning, he found the captain of his father’s city guard, a bruise blossoming along Isra’s jaw, her own eyes lidded with grief.

  He followed her out of the silent chamber and into the hall where a messenger stood waiting, breathless, his clothing slick with sweat and mud, as if he’d ridden hard. This was one of his father’s scouts, sent to monitor the spread of Osaron’s magic beyond the city, and for an instant, Rhy’s tired mind couldn’t process why the messenger
had come to him. Then he remembered: there was no one else—and there it was again, worse than a knife, the sudden assault of memory, a raw wound reopened.

  “What is it?” asked Rhy, his voice hoarse.

  “I bring word from Tanek,” said the messenger.

  Rhy felt ill. “The fog has reached that far?”

  The messenger shook his head. “No, sir, not yet, but I met a rider on the road. He spotted a fleet at the mouth of the Isle. Ten ships. They fly the silver-and-green banners of Vesk.”

  Isra swore beneath her breath.

  Rhy closed his eyes. What was it his father said, that politics was a dance? Vesk was trying to set the tempo. It was time for Rhy to take the lead. To show that he was king.

  “Your Majesty?” prompted the messenger.

  Rhy opened his eyes.

  “Bring me two of their magicians.”

  * * *

  He met them in the map room.

  Rhy would have preferred the Rose Hall, with its vaulted stone ceilings, its dais, its throne. But the king and queen were laid out there, so this would have to do.

  He stood in his father’s place behind the table, hands braced on the lip of the wood, and it must have been a trick of the senses, but Rhy thought he could feel the grooves where Maxim Maresh’s fingers had pressed into the table’s edge, the wood still lingering with warmth.

  Lord Sol-in-Ar stood against the wall to his left, flanked on either side by a member of his retinue.

  Isra and two members of the guard lined the wall to his right.

  The Veskan magicians came, Otto and Rul, massive men led in by a pair of armored guards. On Rhy’s orders, their manacles had been removed. He wanted them to realize that they weren’t being punished for the actions of their crown.

  Not yet.

  In the tournament ring, Rul “the Wolf” had howled before every match.

  Otto “the Bear” had beaten his chest.

  Now, the two stood silent as pillars. He could tell by their faces that they knew of their rulers’ treason, of the queen’s murder, the king’s sacrifice.

  “We are sorry for your loss,” said Rul.

  “Are you?” asked Rhy, masking his sorrow with disdain.

  While Kell had spent his childhood studying magic, Rhy had studied people, learned everything he could about his kingdom, from vestra and ostra down to commoner and criminal, and then he’d moved on to Faro and Vesk. And while he knew that a world couldn’t truly be learned from a book, it would have to be a start.

  After all, knowledge was a kind of power, a breed of strength. And Veskans, he’d been taught, respected anger and joy, even envy, but not grief.

  Rhy gestured at the map. “What do you see?”

  “A city, sir,” answered Otto.

  Rhy nodded at the line of figurines he’d placed at the mouth of Arnes. Small stone ships stained emerald green and flying grey banners. “And there?”

  Rul frowned at the row. “A fleet?”

  “A Veskan fleet,” clarified Rhy. “Before your prince and princess attacked my king and queen, they sent word to Vesk and summoned a fleet of ten warships.” He looked to Otto, who had stiffened at the news—not in guilt, he thought, but shock. “Has your kingdom grown so tired of our peace? Does it wish for war?”

  “I … I am only a magician,” said Otto. “I do not know my queen’s heart.”

  “But you know your empire. Are you not a part of it? What does your heart say?”

  The Veskans, Rhy knew, were a proud and stubborn people, but they were not fools. They savored a good fight, but did not go looking for war.

  “We do not—”

  “Arnes may be the battlefield,” cut in Sol-in-Ar, “but if Vesk covets war, they will find it with Faro, too. Say the word, Your Majesty, and I will bring a hundred thousand soldiers to meet your own.”

  Rul had gone red as embers, Otto white as chalk.

  “We did not do this,” growled Rul.

  “We knew nothing of this deceit,” added Otto tightly. “We do not want—”

  “Want?” snarled Rhy. “What does want have to do with it? Do I want my people to suffer? Do I want to see my kingdom plunged into war? The masses pay for the choices of a few, and if your royals had come to you and asked for your aid, can you say you would not have given it?”

  “But they did not,” said Otto coldly. “With respect, Your Majesty, a ruler does not follow her people, but a people must follow her rule. You are right, many pay for the choices of a few. But royals are the ones who choose, and we are the ones who pay for it.”

  Rhy fought the urge to cringe in the face of the words. Fought the urge to look to Isra or Sol-in-Ar.

  “But you ask my heart,” continued Otto, “and my heart has a family. My heart has a life and a home. My heart enjoys the fields of play, not war.”

  Rhy swallowed and took up one of the ships.

  “You will write two letters,” he said, weighing the marker in his palm. “One to the fleet, and one to the crown. You will tell them of the prince and princess’s cold-blooded treason. You will tell them that they can withdraw now and we will take the actions of two royals to be their own. They can withdraw, and spare their country a war. But if they advance even a measure toward this city, they do so knowing they face a king who is very much alive, and an empire allied against them. If they advance, they will have signed the deaths of thousands.”

  His voice slipped lower as he spoke, the way his father’s always had, the words humming like fresh-drawn steel.

  “Kings need not raise their voices to be heard.”

  One of Maxim’s many lessons.

  “And what about this shadow king?” asked Rul icily. “Shall we write of him as well?”

  Rhy’s fingers tightened around the small stone ship. “My city’s weakness will become yours if those ships cross into London. My people will sleep, but yours will die. For their sakes, I suggest you be as persuasive as possible.” He set the marker back on the table. “Do you understand?” he said, the words more order than question.

  Otto nodded. So did Rul.

  As the doors closed behind them, the strength went out of Rhy’s shoulders. He slumped back against the map room wall.

  “How was that?” he asked.

  Isra bowed her head. “Handled like a king.”

  There was no time to relish it.

  The Sanctuary bells had gone silent with the rest of the city, but here in the palace, a clock began to chime. No one else stirred, because no one else had been counting time, but Rhy straightened.

  Kell had been gone four days.

  “Four days, Rhy. We’ll make it back in that. And then you can get yourself into trouble.…”

  But trouble had come and gone and come again without any sign of his brother. He had promised Kell he would wait, but Rhy had waited long enough. It was only a matter of time before Osaron recovered his strength. Only a matter of time before he turned his sights back on the palace. The city’s last defense. It sheltered every waking body, every silver, every priest, guarded Tieren and the spell that kept the rest asleep. And if it fell, there would be nothing.

  He’d made Kell a promise, but his brother was late, and Rhy could not stay here, entombed with the bodies of his parents.

  He would not hide from the shadows when the shadows could not touch him.

  He had a choice. And he would make it.

  He would face the shadow king himself.

  * * *

  Once again, the captain of the guard barred his path.

  Isra was his father’s age, but where Maxim was—had been—broad, she was lean, wiry. And yet she was the most imposing woman he’d ever met, straight backed and severe, one hand always resting on the hilt of her sword.

  “Stand aside,” instructed Rhy, fastening the red-and-gold cape around his shoulders.

  “Your Majesty,” said the guard. “I was always honest with your father, and I will always be honest with you, so forgive me when I speak freely. How
much blood must we feed this monster?”

  “I will feed him every drop I have,” said Rhy, “if it will sate him. Now, stand aside. That is an order from your king.” The words scorched his throat as he said them, but Isra obeyed, stepping out of the way.

  Rhy’s hand was on the door when the woman spoke again, her voice low, insistent. “When these people wake,” she said, “they will need their king. Who will lead them if you die?”

  Rhy held the woman’s gaze. “Haven’t you heard?” he said, pushing open the door. “I am already dead.”

  VI

  The Ghost had exactly one dinghy, a shallow little thing roped against the ship’s side. It had one seat and two oars, meant to carry a single person between vessels, or perhaps between the vessel and the coast, if it either couldn’t dock, or didn’t want to.

  The dinghy didn’t look like it would hold four, let alone get them all to shore without sinking, but they didn’t have much choice.

  They lowered it to the water, and Holland went down first, steadying the little craft against the side of the Ghost. Kell had one leg over, but when Lila moved to follow, she saw Alucard still in the middle of the deck, attention trained on the distant fleet.

  “Come on, Captain.”

  Alucard shook his head. “I’ll stay.”

  “Now’s not the time for grand acts,” said Lila. “This isn’t even your ship.”

  But for once Alucard’s gaze was hard, unyielding. “I am the victor of the Essen Tasch, Bard, and one of the strongest magicians in the three empires. I cannot stop a fleet of ships, but if they decide to move, I’ll do what I can to slow them down.”

  “And they’ll kill you,” said Kell, swinging his leg back onto deck.

  The captain offered only a dry smile. “I’ve always wanted to die in glory.”

  “Alucard—” started Lila.

  “The mist is my doing,” he said, looking between them. “It should give you cover.”

  Kell nodded, and then after a moment, offered his hand. Alucard looked at it as if it were a hot iron, but he took it.

  “Anoshe,” said Kell.

  Lila’s chest tightened at the word. It was what Arnesians said when they parted. Lila said nothing, because good-byes in any language felt like surrenders, and she wasn’t willing to do that.