by Carol A Park
Both of those options made him feel like a pit had opened under him. “And what about…?” He bit his lip. “Do I tell Nahua? The Ri?”
Danton’s face took on a curious expression. “I mean, given the current situation, why does it matter? Of all the times and places to become Gifted, this has got to be one of the best circumstances you could find yourself in.”
“I know. That’s not lost on me. But I’m afraid that while I might not lose my job, or they might be…okay with it, any chances of advancement will be gone.” His shoulders slumped. “Should I join the Ichtaca? Do I have to?”
“Nah, you don’t have to. But, if you do, you’ll obviously have to tell Yaotel, and then Nahua and Tanuac will find out. Do you want to join?”
“I don’t know. What does that even mean? Do I have other options?”
Danton scratched at his chin. “There might be other groups like ours out there. Given how secretive we are, it’s hard to say. If Yaotel knows, he keeps the information close to himself. But I can tell you that the Ichtaca, in the past, had been about finding a diplomatic solution to our problems. Yaotel and his non-Gifted allies poured a lot of resources into researching our abilities, researching ways to subtly thwart the Conclave, searching for and gathering together anything left out there about Gifted or the heretic gods, before the Conclave could get to it and destroy it.”
“And that’s changed?” Driskell asked. “Seems to me this was still an attempt at diplomacy on your leader’s part.”
Danton gave him a side eye. “I mean, sure. In theory. If the alternative is gathering an army and attacking Weylyn City. But I don’t know in what history books planning a coup counts as diplomacy.”
Driskell took a deep breath. He had a point. It was hard to see that right now when the only results of their quiet rebellion so far had been a bunch of meetings and some nerve-racking evasion of the Conclave representative.
He’d rather not think about how that might change in the near future. His personal problems were enough for today.
“If you decide you want to explore the idea of officially joining us, Yaotel will put you to use. That’s sort of part of the deal. What can you do?”
Driskell blinked. He hadn’t even thought about it. “I have no idea.”
Danton grinned. “Oh, that’s fun, at least. Wanna find out?”
“How would I know? How do people usually find out?”
“It varies. Some people come to us having no idea. Some people figure it out on their own, by accident—it’s possible, because you don’t need to know what you’re doing to make your powers work. It’s just not efficient—and can be dangerous.”
Driskell swallowed. Dangerous?
Danton seemed not at all concerned. Instead, he rubbed his hands together. “You have your notebook on you?”
Driskell gave him a sheepish smile. “Of course,” he said, drawing it out of his pocket and handing it to Danton.
Danton made a list and handed it back to him.
Driskell read over it. Lightblood. Moonblood. Fireblood. Iceblood. Windblood. Bindblood. Sunblood. Charmblood. Darkblood. Weaveblood. Beastblood. The terms were familiar by now, but there were a couple he didn’t recognize. “Is this a list of all the types of Banebring—sorry—Gifted?”
“It’s not necessarily complete. We’ve discovered new profiles before. But these are the ones we’ve run across in the Ichtaca. I put them in order of the easiest to identify with a few tests and the hardest to identify.” Danton raised a finger. “But first, you need to know how to burn your own aether. It’s not hard, but it takes practice to do efficiently. Fortunately, we don’t need efficiency yet; we just need to find out what profile you are.”
“Aether. The silver stuff,” Driskell said.
“Yes. The silver stuff you’re now bleeding. Did you feel any different when the change happened?”
Driskell thought back to that night a few days ago. “I’m not sure if I could pinpoint when it happened, exactly…”
“Did you see a tear? A bloodbane?”
“Yes. A bloodhawk came through. I thought I was dead.”
Danton nodded. “That’s when it happened. Right around there. What did you feel?”
“Abject terror.”
Danton chuckled. “Fair enough. Anything more?”
“I guess—” Now that he thought about it… “I did feel this sort of cold sweep through me, followed by warmth. I chalked it up to fear.”
“Good. Best as we can tell, that’s what it feels like when your blood changes.” Danton held up a hand. “Don’t ask me why. That’s not my area. But it feels similar when you burn aether—at least, it does at first, before you get used to it. I don’t notice it anymore unless I’m concentrating.”
“I don’t feel anything,” Driskell said. “I feel normal.”
Danton waved his hand. “That’s because you’re not trying to do anything. So, close your eyes…”
“Really?”
“It’s easier this way. Just trust me.”
Driskell sighed and closed his eyes, even though it felt awkward.
“Now, I’m going to give you a list of things to try doing. Think hard about doing those things and tell me if you feel anything like what you did before.”
“All right.”
“Make light.”
Driskell opened his eyes. This was crazy. “I can’t make light!”
Danton snapped his fingers and held out his hand, which was now lined in bright white light. He clenched his fist and it disappeared. “I’m a lightblood. It’s about the most basic thing I can do. You don’t need to worry about succeeding in doing anything right now. Just concentrate on what you feel.”
Driskell sighed and closed his eyes. Right. Make light. He imagined himself making his hand light up like Danton had.
“Still feel normal,” he said.
“All right, so probably not a lightblood. I’m going to go quick here, so don’t protest again. Just do what I say.”
“I’ll try.”
“Turn invisible.”
Driskell opened his mouth to argue, but he shut it just as fast and wished he were invisible. “Nothing.”
“Make fire.”
“Uh…” He imagined setting something on fire. “No.”
“Freeze the water in your glass.”
“Nothing.”
“Make wind blow.”
“Nothing.”
“You can open your eyes. Assuming you were following my instructions, that rules out lightblood, moonblood, fireblood, iceblood, and windblood.”
Driskell couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. All those powers seemed… Well, if he could set aside the implications of having them, they were sort of incredible.
“Roll up your trouser leg again,” Danton instructed. “Look at that scrape and heal it.”
Once again, Driskell had to bite back a protest as he did what Danton asked. No funny feeling. “Nope.”
Danton sighed. “Ugh. Okay.” He stood up. “Come with me.”
Driskell trailed behind Danton as they left his room and went out into the larger chamber that a dozen rooms connected to. There was no one in it at present. The Banebringers had tried to make the dank stone area more homey by throwing some rugs and cushions on the floor, and someone had even potted a flower and set it on a table.
It was the last that Danton led him to. He folded his arms across his chest. “Make it grow,” he said, nodding toward the flower.
“Er…nothing. What was that?”
“Sunblood. We don’t know that much about them, unfortunately, other than that they seem to have a way with vegetation. The next one is going to be tricky, and the last three nigh-on-impossible to test right now, so let’s hope this does it.” He pointed through the archway back into the main tunnel. “Now listen carefully. We’re going to head to the main chambers. Hopefully, someone will be around. Concentrate on someone—someone other than me—and try to will them into saying or doing s
omething.”
Driskell blinked. “Will them…?”
“You probably won’t be able to. But try anyway.”
Driskell humored him.
In the main chamber, they found Linette, the bindblood healer, talking in the corner to a woman Driskell didn’t know well.
The two women glanced Driskell and Danton’s way as they entered and gave a wave, but then went back to their conversation.
Danton nodded at Driskell.
Driskell focused on Linette. Stop talking, he told her in his mind.
Nothing happened to Linette, but Driskell…
Burning skies. He did feel something. He frowned and tried again. Stop talking, he told Linette again.
There it was again. A peculiar sensation, almost like he could feel his blood moving or maybe bubbling in his veins—but Danton was right. It was warm and cold at the same time, not exactly the same as the night he had been changed, but similar.
Intrigued, he tried one more time.
Linette broke off for a moment. She shook her head and then started the conversation again.
Had he done that?
Driskell looked at Danton and nodded.
They returned silently to Danton’s room—silent until the door closed, at which point Danton turned to him with a huge grin. “Congratulations. You’re a charmblood.”
“Charmblood?” He didn’t think he’d met one of those yet.
“Yes. That means you have the ability to exert influence over people.” He winked. “You know. Charm them.”
Driskell stared at Danton, horrified. “I don’t want to make people do things! That’s just…wrong.”
Danton quirked an eyebrow up. “Well, as I understand it, you can’t make people do things. Not like you’re thinking anyway. It’s more influence or goad them, under the right circumstances. Unfortunately, we don’t have any charmbloods in Marakyn at the moment that I know of, which is too bad for you—you’d be better off having another charmblood to take you through the ins and outs.”
Influencing or goading people didn’t seem much better to Driskell. Maybe even worse. “Why does that matter? Don’t all the powers all work the same?”
Danton ruffled a hand through his hair. “Sure, at a basic level. But as you get better at using your powers, you’ll find that there are certain tricks unique to yours—ways of thinking—that can help give you more control. With my powers, it helps if I imagine the light as something I gather, rather than create, and then do something with. Most simply, of course, I can make that light actual light that you can see, and I don’t even think about that anymore.
“But for something more complicated, like illusions, in my head I’m taking that light and sort of…painting it over the area I’m changing.” He waved his hand across the room as if he were, indeed, painting it with a wide brush. “But that’s nonsense to Thrax, who’s a fireblood. To hear him talk, it’s all raw power—burn this, burn that.” He hesitated. “I’m not sure how a charmblood envisions using their powers.”
This power sounded a little ethically grey to him. What in the abyss was he going to do with it that wouldn’t make him feel wrong inside?
Another thought came to him. “Can you use your powers by accident?”
Danton wiggled his hand back and forth. “Someone like you, maybe. If you’ve had any amount of real practice with your powers, not really.”
Great. So he could be influencing someone and not even know it?
“But now that you know what it feels like to burn aether, you’d know if you were doing it.”
Oh. Well. That was a relief.
Danton clapped him on the shoulder. “I can see you need some time to think about this. Give me a few days. I’ll do some asking around about charmbloods.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I appreciate your help. And, um, maybe this goes without saying, but don’t tell anyone?”
Danton laughed. “You have my word, though I’d like to bring Thrax into the loop, if you don’t mind.” At Driskell’s look, he held up his hand. “Thrax is trustworthy. I promise. It’s not that he’s particularly versed in all the ins and outs of our magic, like maybe some of our researchers are, but among us, he’s probably the one who’s embraced his powers the most.”
“All right,” Driskell said. “If you think it’ll help.”
“He’ll be eager to help, anyway. Together, maybe we can come up with a plan to help you take the first steps.”
Driskell didn’t know if he wanted to take the first steps. But he also wanted to feel like he was in control of this, rather than the other way around.
He had been carried along, helpless, by the flow of the events happening around him for far too long. This was his to own.
He wouldn’t be carried along by this as well.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Silver, White, and Blue
Vaughn and Ivana stepped into a paradise.
A verdant plain stretched in front of them in all directions. Far to the right, picturesque, snowcapped mountains graced the horizon.
Vaughn glanced back. Directly behind them was the river, sedate and sparkling, reflecting the cloudless blue of the sky above.
The white fog still swirled, but it had retreated to the opposite bank.
He began to relax, but then he remembered Azaz’s warning that they weren’t completely safe here, either.
There was no sign of their new guide—Thaxchatichan’s xchotli. “Do you think we should wait for a few minutes or start walking?” Vaughn asked Ivana.
“Let’s see if this new xchotli shows up first. It looks pretty, but I…” She glanced back at the fog. “I don’t trust this place, either.”
No sooner had she finished speaking than something odd appeared in the sky. It looked like…a stairway?
He pointed it out to Ivana, and together they watched as the stairway lengthened, stretching out toward the ground. Before it touched the grass, a woman—or, at least, she looked like a woman, aside from the pale, almost luminous skin and disconcerting silver eyes—began walking down the stairs. She wore a shimmering white length of cloth fastened in a high collar around her neck, but it was sleeveless, so it merely draped down the front of her body. A silver cord snugged the loose-fitting fabric to her waist, and from there it hung to slippered feet.
Her hair hung unbound to her waist, glistening white, but her face was young.
She waited a few steps up for the stairway to finish resolving, and then completed her descent to the ground.
She stood in front of them. “Honored guests of Thaxchatichan?”
“Uh. That’s us,” Vaughn said.
“Excellent. Follow me.”
She turned and began walking back up the stairway.
Well. Apparently, her robe was backless. The front was held in place by only two thin crossing strips of fabric, the bottom ends attached to the skirt of her robe, which began at her lower back, and the top ends attaching to the back of the collar around her neck.
All in all, it gave the impression that a wrong move or a catch of the fabric might cause the entire getup to come cascading off her.
“If this is normal attire in Thaxchatichan’s court,” Ivana muttered, “you, at least, won’t be complaining about our visit there.”
He was staring, wasn’t he? He cleared his throat and tried to avert his eyes, but it was rather difficult since they were following the woman up an increasingly high stair with no banister or rail on either side.
“You know,” he said indignantly, “I’ve been exceedingly good. Some might even say unnecessarily good.”
“I see. So you deserve a little fantasy?”
He refrained from telling her that most of his fantasies of late involved her.
They continued to ascend. Vaughn turned to look behind them once and wished he hadn’t: the stair was disappearing a few steps beyond where they had last trod.
Just when he thought they would be climbing for an eternity, the sky began to change. The cris
p blue of a sunny day darkened into midnight blue, and pinpricks of light began to dot the sky above.
Then the palace rose before them. It was a blinding, glowing white against the night sky, with a full moon rising behind it, and the entire thing appeared to float in midair.
The sight was breathtaking. Indeed, the xchotli paused at the top stair and turned slightly to face them, a knowing look on her face, as if to allow them a moment to take it in.
“It’s magnificent,” Vaughn said, feeling as though she were waiting for some sort of praise.
Satisfied, she nodded. “We have reached Thaxchatichan’s palace. I will show you to your room, where you may freshen yourselves. Then, Thaxchatichan will see you both and hear your inquiry.”
That sounded promising.
The woman walked toward the palace across the sky itself.
Vaughn glanced at Ivana. She shrugged and put a foot out—and it held. She took the lead in following the woman.
Vaughn took a deep breath and cringed as he stepped out onto what was, by all appearances, nothing, but his steps fell on a hard surface, and now that he was on it, he saw that it glistened like glass.
He followed the woman and Ivana across the—courtyard?—and to the main door.
Everything about the palace was white and silver, with splashes of blue.
The walls were silver. The floor looked like white marble. Blue crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling.
The gross extravagance made the palace in Cohoxta look like a hovel.
It was breathtaking at first, but after a while, his eyes began to hurt. These gods took their affinities seriously. Did everything have to look like the moon and water? Hopefully, whatever room they were staying in wasn’t decorated the same.
The xchotli led them on through several twists and turns and another two staircases until they reached a white door. She pushed it open with a touch and stood aside.
“This is one of the rooms that was of old reserved for your kind.” Her eyes drifted to Ivana. “Your…companion…may stay with you, of course.” She inclined her head. “If you need anything”—her eyes slid over Vaughn, and he was certain she meant anything—“simply speak it.”
