A Conjuring of Light

by V. E. Schwab

  Berras, who had followed him to the palace.

  Berras, who knew.

  Alucard had tried to play it off, feigning drunkenness, letting himself tip casually back against the wall as he rattled off the taverns he’d been to, the fun he’d had, the trouble he’d gotten himself into over the course of that long night.

  It didn’t work.

  Berras’s disgust had hardened into stone. So had his fists.

  Alucard didn’t want to fight his brother, had even dodged the first blow, and the second, only to be caught upside the head by something sharp and silver.

  He went down, world ringing. Blood dripped into his eyes.

  His father was standing over him, his cane glinting in his grip.

  Back in the Rose Hall, Alucard closed his eyes, but the images played on in his mind, scorched into memory. His fingers tightened on the mirror, but he didn’t let go, not when his brother called him a disgrace, a fool, a whore. Not when he heard the snap of bone, his own muffled scream, silence, and then the sickening slosh of a ship.

  Alucard would have let the memory play on, let it run through those first horrific nights at sea, and his escape, all the way to the prison and the iron cuffs and the heated rod, his forced return to London and the warning in his brother’s eyes, the hurt in the prince’s, the hatred in Kell’s.

  He would have let it play on as long as Rhy wanted, but something weighed suddenly against the mirror’s surface, and he opened his eyes to see the young king standing very close, one hand splayed across the glass as if to block out the images, the sounds, the memories.

  Rhy’s amber eyes were bright, his brow knitted with anger and sadness.

  “Enough,” he said, voice trembling.

  Alucard wanted to speak, tried to find the words, but Rhy was already letting go—too soon—turning away—too soon—and retaking his throne.

  “I have seen enough.”

  Alucard let the mirror fall back to his side, the world around him dragging into focus. The room around him had gone still.

  The young king gripped the edges of his throne and spoke in hushed tones with his brother, whose expression flickered between surprise and annoyance before finally settling into something more resigned. Kell nodded, and when Rhy turned toward the room and spoke again, his voice was even.

  “Alucard Emery,” he said, his tone soft, but stern. “The crown appreciates your honesty. I appreciate it.” He looked to Kell one last time before continuing. “As of right now, you have been stripped of your title as privateer.”

  Alucard nearly folded under the sentence. “Rhy…” The name was out before he realized his error. The impropriety. “Your Majesty…”

  “You will no longer sail for the crown on the Night Spire, or any vessel.”

  “I do not—”

  The king’s hand came up in a single silencing gesture.

  “My brother wishes to travel, and I have granted him permission.” Kell’s expression soured at the word, but did not interrupt. “As such,” continued Rhy, “I require an ally. A proven friend. A powerful magician. I require you here in London, Master Emery. With me.”

  Alucard stiffened. The words were a blow, sudden, but not hard. They teased the line between pleasure and pain, fear that he’d misheard and hope that he hadn’t.

  “That is the first reason,” continued Rhy evenly. “The second is more personal. I have lost my mother, and my father. I have lost friends, and strangers who might one day have been friends. I have lost too many of my people to count. And I will not suffer losing you.”

  Alucard’s gaze cut to Kell. The Antari met his eyes, and he found a warning in them, but nothing more.

  “Will you obey the will of the crown?” asked Rhy.

  It took Alucard several stunned seconds to summon his faculties enough to bow, enough to form the three simple words.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  * * *

  The king came to Alucard’s room that night.

  It was an elegant chamber in the western wing of the palace, fit for a noble. A royal. There were no hidden doors to be found. Only the broad entrance with its inlaid wood, its golden trim.

  Alucard was perched on the edge of the sofa, rolling a glass between his hands, when the knock came. He had hoped, and he had not dared to hope.

  Rhy Maresh entered the room alone. His collar was unbuttoned, his crown hanging from his fingers. He looked tired and sad and lovely and lost, but at the sight of Alucard, something in him brightened. Not a light Alucard could see in the molten threads that coiled around him, but a light behind his eyes. It was the strangest thing, but Rhy seemed to become real then, solid in a way he hadn’t been before.

  “Avan,” said the prince who was no longer a prince.

  “Avan,” said the captain who was no longer a captain.

  Rhy looked around the room.

  “Does it suit?” he asked, drawing his hand absently along a curtain, long fingers tangling in red and gold.

  Alucard’s smile tilted. “I suppose it will do.”

  Rhy let the crown fall to the sofa as he came forward, and his fingers, now freed from their burden, traced Alucard’s jaw, as if assuring himself that Alucard was here, was real.

  Alucard’s own heart was racing, even now threatening to run away. But there was no need. Nowhere to go. No place he’d rather be.

  He had dreamed of this, every time the storms raged at sea. Every time a sword was drawn against him. Every time life showed its frailty, its fickleness. He had dreamed of this, as he stood on the bow of the Ghost, facing death in a line of ships.

  Now he reached to draw Rhy in against him, only to be rebuffed.

  “It is not right for you to do that,” he reprimanded softly, “now that I am king.”

  Alucard withdrew, trying to keep hurt and confusion from his face. But then Rhy’s dark lashes sank over his eyes, and his lips slid into a coy smile. “A king should be allowed to lead.”

  Relief flooded through him, followed by a wave of heat as Rhy’s hand tangled in his hair, mussing the silver clasps. Lips brushed his throat, warmth grazed his jaw.

  “Don’t you agree?” breathed the king, nipping at Alucard’s collarbone in a way that stole the air from his chest.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” he managed, and then Rhy was kissing him, long and slow and savoring. The room moved beneath his tripping feet, the buttons of his shirt coming undone. By the time Rhy drew back, Alucard was against the bedpost, his shirt open. He let out a small, dazed laugh, resisting the urge to drag Rhy toward him, to press him down into the sheets.

  The longing left him breathless.

  “Is this how it’s to be now?” he asked. “Am I to be your bedmate as well as your guard?”

  Rhy’s lips split into a dazzling smile. “So you admit it, then,” he said, closing the last of the distance to whisper in Alucard’s ear, “that you are mine.”

  And with that, the king dragged him down onto the bed.

  VII

  Arnesians had a dozen ways to say hello, but no word for good-bye.

  When it came to parting ways, they sometimes said vas ir, which meant in peace, but more often they chose to say anoshe—until another day.

  Anoshe was a word for strangers in the street, and lovers between meetings, for parents and children, friends and family. It softened the blow of leaving. Eased the strain of parting. A careful nod to the certainty of today, the mystery of tomorrow. When a friend left, with little chance of seeing home, they said anoshe. When a loved one was dying, they said anoshe. When corpses were burned, bodies given back to the earth and souls to the stream, those left grieving said anoshe.

  Anoshe brought solace. And hope. And the strength to let go.

  When Kell Maresh and Lila Bard had first parted ways, he’d whispered the word in her wake, beneath his breath, full of the certainty—the hope—they’d meet again. He’d known it wasn’t an end. And this wasn’t an end, either, or if it was, then simply the end of a chapte
r, an interlude between two meetings, the beginning of something new.

  And so Kell made his way up to his brother’s chambers—not the rooms he’d kept beside Kell’s own (though he still insisted on sleeping there), but the ones that had belonged to his mother and father.

  Without Maxim and Emira, there were so few people for Kell to say good-bye to. Not the vestra or the ostra, not the servants or the guards who remained. He would have said farewell to Hastra, but Hastra, too, was dead.

  Kell had already gone to the Basin that morning, and come across the flower the young guard had coaxed to life that day, withering in its pot. He’d carried it up to the orchard, where Tieren stood between the rows of winter and spring.

  “Can you fix it?” asked Kell.

  The priest’s eyes went to the shriveled little flower. “No,” he said gently, but when Kell started to protest, Tieren held up a gnarled hand. “There’s nothing to fix. That is an acina. They aren’t meant to last. They bloom a single time, and then they’re gone.”

  Kell looked down helplessly at the withered white blossom. “What do I do?” he asked, the question so much bigger than the words.

  Tieren smiled a soft, inward smile and shrugged in his usual way. “Leave it be. The blossom will crumble, the stem and leaves, too. That’s what they’re for. Acina strengthen the soil, so that other things can grow.”

  * * *

  Kell reached the top of the stairs, and slowed his step.

  Royal guards lined the hall to the king’s chamber, and Alucard stood outside the doors, leaning back against the wood and flipping through the pages of a book.

  “This is your idea of guarding him?” said Kell.

  The man pointedly turned a page. “Don’t tell me how to do my job.”

  Kell took a steadying breath. “Get out of my way, Emery.”

  Alucard’s storm-dark eyes flicked up from the book. “And what is your business with the king?”

  “Personal.”

  Alucard held up a hand. “Perhaps I should have you searched for weapo—”

  “Touch me and I’ll break your fingers.”

  “Who says I have to touch you?” His hand twitched, and Kell felt the knife on his sleeve shudder before he shoved the man back against the wood.

  “Alucard!” called Rhy through the door. “Let my brother in before I have to find another guard.”

  Alucard smirked, and gave a sweeping bow, and stepped aside.

  “Ass,” muttered Kell as he shoved past him.

  “Bastard,” called the magician in his wake.

  * * *

  Rhy waited on the balcony, leaning his elbows on the rail.

  The air still held a chill, but the sun was warm on his skin, rich with the promise of spring. Kell came storming through the room.

  “You two are getting along well, then?” asked Rhy.

  “Splendidly,” muttered his brother, stepping through the doors and slumping forward over the rail beside him. A reflection of his own pose.

  They stood like that for some time, taking in the day, and Rhy almost forgot that Kell had come to say good-bye, that he was leaving, and then a breeze cut through, sudden and biting, and the darkness whispered from the back of his mind, the sorrow of loss and the guilt of survival and the fear that he would keep outliving those he loved. That this borrowed life would be too long or too short, and there forever was the inevitable cusp, blessing or curse, blessing or curse, and the feeling of leaning forward into a gust of wind as it tried with every step to force him back.

  Rhy’s fingers tightened on the rail.

  And Kell, whose two-toned eyes had always seen right through him, said, “Do you wish I hadn’t done it?”

  He opened his mouth to say Of course not, or Saints no, or any of the other things he should have said, had said a dozen times, with the mindless repetition of someone being asked how he is that day, and answering Fine, thank you, regardless of his true temperament. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. There were so many things Rhy hadn’t said since his return—wouldn’t let himself say—as if giving the words voice meant giving them weight, enough to tip the scale and crush him. But so many things had tried, and here he was, still standing.

  “Rhy,” said Kell, his gaze heavy as stone. “Do you wish I hadn’t brought you back?”

  He took a breath. “I don’t know,” he said. “Ask me in the morning, after I’ve spent hours weighed down by nightmares, drugged beyond reason just to hold back the memories of dying, which was not so bad as coming back, and I’d say yes. I wish you’d let me die.”

  Kell looked ill. “I—”

  “But ask me in the afternoon,” cut in Rhy, “when I’ve felt the sun cutting through the cold, or the warmth of Alucard’s smile, or the steady weight of your arm around my shoulders, and I would tell you it was worth it. It is worth it.”

  Rhy turned his face to the sun. He closed his eyes, relishing the way the light still reached him. “Besides,” he added, managing a smile, “who doesn’t love a man with shadows? Who doesn’t want a king with scars?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Kell dryly. “That’s really the reason I did it. To make you more appealing.”

  Rhy felt his smile slip. “How long will you be gone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Rhy bowed his head, suddenly tired. “I wish I could go with you.”

  “So do I,” said Kell, “but the empire needs its king.”

  Softly, Rhy said, “The king needs his brother.”

  Kell looked stricken, and Rhy knew he could make him stay, and he knew he couldn’t bear to do it. He let out a long, shuddering sigh and straightened. “It’s about time you did something selfish, Kell. You make the rest of us look bad. Try to shrug that saint’s complex while you’re away.”

  Across the river, the city bells began to ring the hour.

  “Go on,” said Rhy. “The ship is waiting.” Kell took a single step back, hovering in the doorway. “But do us a favor, Kell.”

  “What’s that?” asked his brother.

  “Don’t get yourself killed.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Kell, and then he was going.

  “And come back,” added Rhy.

  Kell paused. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I will. Once I’ve seen it.”

  “Seen what?” asked Rhy.

  Kell smiled. “Everything.”

  VIII

  Delilah Bard made her way toward the docks, a small bag slung over one shoulder. All she had in the world that wasn’t already on the ship. The palace rose behind her, stone and gold and ruddy pink light.

  She didn’t look back. Didn’t even slow.

  Lila had always been good at disappearing.

  Slipping like light between boards.

  Cutting ties as easily as a purse.

  She never said good-bye. Never saw the point. Saying good-bye was like strangling slowly, every word tightening the rope. It was easier to just slip away in the night. Easier.

  But she told herself he would have caught her.

  So in the end, she’d gone to him.

  “Bard.”

  “Captain.”

  And then she’d stalled. Hadn’t known what to say. This was why she hated good-byes. She looked around the palace chamber, taking in the inlaid floor, the gossamer ceiling, the balcony doors, before she ran out of places to look and had to look at Alucard Emery.

  Alucard, who’d given her a place on his ship, who’d taught her the first things about magic, who’d—her throat tightened.

  Bloody good-byes. Such useless things.

  She picked up her pace, heading for the line of ships.

  Alucard had leaned back against the bedpost. “Silver for your thoughts?”

  And Lila had cocked her head. “I was just thinking,” she’d said, “I should have killed you when I had
the chance.”

  He’d raised a brow. “And I should have tossed you in the sea.”

  An easy silence had settled, and she knew she’d miss it, felt herself shrink from the idea of missing before heaving out a breath and letting it fall, settle. There were worse things, she supposed.

  Her boots sounded on the wooden dock.

  “You take care of that ship,” he’d said, and Lila had left with only a wink, just like the ones Alucard had always thrown her way. He’d had a sapphire to catch the light, and all she had was a black glass eye, but she could feel his smile like sun on her back as she strode out and let the door swing shut behind her.

  It wasn’t a good-bye, not really.

  What was the word for parting?

  Anoshe.

  That was it.

  Until another day.

  Delilah Bard knew she’d be back.

  The dock was full of ships, but only one caught her eye. A stunning rig with a polished dark hull and midnight-blue sails. She climbed the ramp to the deck, where the crew were waiting, some old, some new.

  “Welcome to the Night Spire,” she said, flashing a smile like a knife. “You can call me Captain Bard.”

  IX

  Holland stood alone in the Silver Wood.

  He had listened to the sounds of Kell’s departure, those few short strides giving way to silence. He tipped his head back and took a deep breath, squinting into the sun.

  A spot of black streaked through the clouds overhead—a bird, just like in his dream—and his tired heart quickened, but there was only one, and there was no Alox, no Talya, no Vortalis. Voices long silent. Lives long lost.

  With Kell gone, and no one left to see, Holland sagged back against the nearest tree, the icy surface of its side like cold steel against his spine. He let himself sink, lowering his tired body to the dead earth.

  A gentle breeze blew through the barren grove, and Holland closed his eyes and imagined he could almost hear the rustle of leaves, could almost feel the feathery weight of them falling one by one onto his skin. He didn’t open his eyes, didn’t want to lose the image. He just let the leaves fall. Let the wind blow. Let the woods whisper, shapeless sounds that threaded into words.