Realm of Ruins

by Hannah West

  “The Healer, Glisette,” I whispered. “That’s why we’re here.”

  She’d already used our crisis as an excuse to stray from the plan. I wasn’t going to let her wander far.

  “There’s something you both need to know,” Glisette said. “When Devorian read the incantation, he broke a contract that bound an elicromancer—”

  “I don’t want to talk about Devorian.” Ambrosine cut her off with a dismissive gesture. “Just come home. Uncle is making certain every last detail of the welcoming event is spectacular. He even had the floors of the biggest guest suite replaced with black onyx and pearl glass.”

  “They’re gorgeous,” Perennia said. “I can take the hand mirror so you can see for yourself.”

  “Last I heard, he wasn’t pleased with our frivolous spending,” Glisette said. “He canceled my most recent clothier order before I left. Where are these funds coming from?”

  “Uncle tripled the tolls along both borders,” Ambrosine said. “Better for keeping the fever off our soil anyway.”

  “Tripled?” Glisette echoed in surprise.

  “Don’t Volarians rely on farm produce from Calgoran?” I asked.

  “Yes, and…?” Ambrosine demanded.

  “Volarre has had a dry decade and your soil hasn’t been yielding well since your mother died. Raising the tolls could prompt a famine.”

  “Over a few thesars? It’s hardly an egregious cost for using well-kept roads.”

  “Why don’t you just use those to pay for the ball?” Glisette asked, gesturing at crystal bowls of cut and polished sapphires.

  “That would be untoward, selling gifts from our guest of honor!” Ambrosine shuffled to the wardrobe, her skirts revealing precarious silver shoes with vines climbing up the heel. She selected a flowing midnight-blue gown studded with diamonds and sapphires and returned to the mirror. “This would be striking on you, Glisette.”

  Glisette’s blue eyes went starry as she admired the garment. It looked as if someone had yanked a cloudless night from the sky and sewn it into a dress.

  “Have you heard from Arna or Darmeska?” I interrupted again.

  “No, but I’ve been busy,” Ambrosine said. “Go to Uncle’s study and ask him.”

  “I’ll do it,” Perennia said, hurrying out of the room.

  “Are there cases of the plague in Volarre?” I asked.

  “The fever will die out before it spreads all the way to Arna, Valory,” Ambrosine said, guessing the motive behind my inquiry. “Don’t borrow trouble when you cause enough of your own. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear you started the wave and the fever just by sneezing in the wrong direction.” She laughed like garden chimes in an ominous wind. “But I know what they say about you isn’t true. You don’t have the gall or the wit to take down the Realm Alliance. You’ve stumbled into your misfortunes. You actually believed we sent you to Devorian because we thought you could help him.”

  Sweltering anger filled me. I wished I could torch her room and all its flagrant riches. “A tyrant elicromancer from long ago has returned to Nissera,” I said in a low voice, brushing off her barbs for the sake of brevity. “The blights, the plague, the traps, the intercepted missives, they’re all his doing. If you care about your kingdom, then warn your uncle, have him mobilize the Volarian branch of the Realm Alliance army to Darmeska—”

  “You’re sounding a bit unhinged, Valory, and you look it too.” Ambrosine waved a hand and whisked away the sight of her chamber to show me my reflection again. My muddied green eyes sparked with fury, but despite their depth and seriousness, I was still small of stature and far from intimidating. “Some quiet days in your prison at Darmeska would do you good,” Ambrosine went on in a supercilious tone of mock pity, somehow both blasé and cruel.

  “She’s telling the truth!” Glisette yelled. “We fought off blights just last night. Devorian resurrected the tyrant, but Valory is going to put all this to rights. She’s going to take him down.”

  “We’ve warned them, Glisette,” I said. “It’s not our fault your sisters won’t listen. Kadri needs us.”

  “We can send guards to escort you home, Glisette,” Ambrosine said. She held the gown she’d offered against her own collar and let it flood around her ankles. “I know it’s not safe on the road, but we can ensure that you arrive without harm.” She somehow made everything fade from the mirror but Glisette and the sparkling garment. “This can be your homecoming present.”

  For a beat, Glisette lost herself in the imagining, parting her pillowy lips in shameless self-admiration. The garment seemed to move with her in the reflection, and even her jagged cut appeared to fade. She straightened her shoulders and turned her head from side to side, examining the refined beauty beneath the grime.

  But Ambrosine ripped the manufactured image from the glass. She reappeared in the frame with narrowed eyes. “On second thought, maybe pink is more your color,” she muttered. “I might just wear this one myself to meet Lord Valmarys.”

  “Valmarys?” I said, a wave of weakness spreading from my belly to my knees.

  “Emlyn Valmarys?” Glisette clarified, shaking off the spell that had ensnared her.

  “Yes. I’m surprised you know the name.” Ambrosine sounded pleased. “He owns a large estate and several mines in the Brazor Mountains. He’s a private man, rather coy, but one of his servants brought him a likeness of me, knowing it would interest him. My beauty has given Lord Valmarys the will to venture into society. I’d never heard of him, but apparently he is greatly respected in certain circles—”

  “When did you say he arrives?” Glisette interrupted.

  “He keeps making promises to come and doesn’t deliver. My guess is he must be hideous if he elects to avoid civilization. He’s supposed to arrive in a week, but he might claim to be busy and send more dresses and jewels.”

  Glisette grabbed my wrist and steered me out into the corridor. “What if we traveled straight to Pontaval to meet Valmarys?” she whispered, shutting the door softly behind her. “All of this could be over. We could end this on our terms, get the upper hand….” I started to argue, but she squeezed my shoulders as if to transfer her resolve to me. “What you did to the blights…I’ve never seen anything like that before. You’re ready to face him, Valory.”

  “What if your sisters warn him we’re coming?”

  “They’ll listen to me. She said we could have a guard escort back to the palace….This is ideal.”

  “She doesn’t even know if he’ll keep his word to show his face. Or maybe she does—and this is a trap.”

  “Fate is on our side,” she insisted. “This is an opportunity. I can’t be the only one who’s bone-weary of this journey.”

  I let the possibility play out in my mind’s eye, but guards following Ambrosine’s orders were guards who couldn’t be trusted. “Make sure the Healer is on his way and let’s go,” I said, my tone leaving no margin for argument. “We’ve already stayed longer than we ought.”

  Glisette’s lip twitched with a prelude to a snarl, but she relented and flung open the trophy room door, positioning herself in front of the grand mirror again. “Ambrosine, make sure Ethion is on his way to the summer cottage—” she started, but the eldest princess had disappeared.

  “Ethion is traveling to the border to help block the fever,” Perennia said, stepping into view. “He departed just after he finished Ambrosine’s cosmetic skin treatments this morning. We only have mortal healers right now. And I asked Uncle about incoming missives, but we haven’t received any besides the ones from Lord Valmarys, not since the news about the materialization traps that came from the Alliance.”

  “The Healer’s gone?” I asked, feeling tears rise in my throat while my hope plummeted like an anchor. I couldn’t let Kadri become another corpse buried behind us on this perilous journey.

  “What do you need him for?” Perennia asked. “Your face, Glisette?”

  “No,” she scoffed, but covered it again. “Kadri Lillis
is dying from the blight disease. That’s why we came.”

  “Oh,” Perennia gasped. “I don’t know if it will help, but Mother planted a white astrikane tree in the greenhouse at the summer cottage before she died. She taught me to tend it, but I haven’t been to the summer cottage since we heard about the traps. The astrikane might not heal Kadri completely, but it could prolong her life.”

  “Thank you,” I breathed, grateful to have something to seize. The rare, magical leaf was renowned for bringing on pleasant visions and healing the mind. While it certainly wouldn’t harm Kadri, I wasn’t sure it would help. “Come on, Glisette.”

  “Ambrosine wouldn’t listen to us, but you must, Perennia,” Glisette said, desperate. “Emlyn Valmarys is the architect of everything that’s happened.”

  “Even the Water drying up, and Devorian?” Fear shimmered in Perennia’s eyes, which she flicked from Glisette to me.

  “No,” Glisette barked. “I mean, yes, clearly the Summoners had their own plans for the contract, and Devorian fulfilled them in some backward way. But the wave and the blight disease and the traps—”

  “There are rumors that…that Valory is trying to take on the Realm Alliance,” Perennia murmured, casting her gaze to her toes.

  “They aren’t true.” Glisette altered her stance to block me. Oddly, her unflagging loyalty flattered me. “I’ve been at Valory’s side practically since I left you. I trust her.”

  Perennia expelled a nervous breath and trembled as she said, “Valmarys’s envoys just materialized here. Is that why they’re brave enough to materialize? Because the traps won’t hurt them? I’ve wondered about that. What should I do? Have the guards close the gates?”

  “Listen to me,” Glisette said, pressing a hand to the glass. “Pretend nothing is wrong. They haven’t hurt you yet. Act as you have the other times they’ve come.”

  “Don’t leave me,” Perennia begged.

  “We must—” I started, but Glisette spoke over me.

  “I won’t.”

  Perennia picked up Ambrosine’s gilded hand mirror and gave a command that shifted our point of view so that we were peering up at her from the smaller glass. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t begrudge Glisette this moment.

  Perennia pointed the mirror out the window. Four figures crossed the courtyard: three men in black tunics and a small woman in a ragged dress.

  These were not blights, but living men with swords at their hips. A pair of them carried a trunk overflowing with jeweled bracelets, diadems, and necklaces.

  The leader boasted broad shoulders and a purposeful gait. His right hand rested on his sword pommel and a smoky elicrin stone nested at the center of a palm-sized medallion around his neck. In his left hand, he clasped a chain connecting to manacles that held the petite woman captive. As she drew closer, I saw that she was barefoot and her dress was nothing more than a burlap sack. She had auburn hair and elegant, pointed ears, and she was wearing an elicrin stone—though that didn’t last long. The leader ripped the chain from her neck and tucked it into his breast pocket.

  I grew dizzy as Perennia traveled out of the room, down the corridor, to the banister overlooking the circular entryway. She seemed to be discreetly holding the mirror alongside her lilac skirts.

  Two guards swung the doors open to welcome the men inside. The whole household seemed to have congregated in the entryway to watch them cross the threshold with their tokens of admiration.

  “If Lord Valmarys sends more gifts, he’ll have to buy us a whole new palace to put them in!” Ambrosine laughed, tossing back her long tresses as she reached the ground floor. The leader caught her hand and kissed it. “Who’s this?” she asked, eyeing the small, redheaded woman with tapered ears.

  “Your Highness,” the leader said, his voice gruff with a rustic northern accent. “You look most alluring. Lord Valmarys will be pleased you’re enjoying his gifts. It also pleases him to offer you one of his own fairy servants to answer your every whim.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Ambrosine cooed, circling the woman. “Full-blooded fairies are supposed to be extinct. How exquisitely small she is! But why is she chained?”

  I closed my eyes, thinking of Grandmum and her quest to find the fay. If they were in danger, then she must be too.

  “Her kind can be fickle. But if you treat her well, you will earn her loyalty.” As the broad-shouldered leader spoke, he slid a discerning gaze across the horde of servants and cast his eyes upward to the landing. His dark blond hair was cropped short on the sides and grew long down the middle. Even from afar, and despite a thick blond beard, I could see the scars raked across his face, the hunger for blood in his eyes. But the angles of his brow, nose, and jaw held a familiarity that yanked on my heartstrings.

  I clenched Glisette’s wrist. “It’s Tilmorn,” I mouthed in awe. “He did survive.”

  Here was the man who could give and take elicrin gifts so easily. He had given the fairy slave a gift and stone just so she could materialize to Pontaval.

  “Do you mind if I have a look to ensure that the accommodations will suit my lord?” Tilmorn asked, eyes combing the crowded hallway. I could see the cunning in his expression barely concealed by cordiality—just before Perennia shifted the mirror deeper into her skirts.

  “Be my guest,” I heard Ambrosine reply. “We still have preparations to finalize, but I think you’ll find everything most suitable. Do you know when Lord Valmarys will grace us with his presence?”

  “He sends his regrets that he won’t be able to visit next week, but he vows it will be soon. Where are they?”

  “Where are who?”

  My heart clenched like a fist.

  “Your sister and her friends,” Tilmorn replied.

  Glisette went rigid and slowly reached to grip my wrist.

  “Oh, she’s at our family’s cottage out west,” Ambrosine replied, examining the fairy’s every feature while casually spilling our precious secrets like cheap perfume. “She used one of my enchanted mirrors to contact us. I told her your men would see her home safely. I’ll be desperately relieved when she’s not off gallivanting with people of ill repute.”

  “It would be our pleasure to escort her home.” Tilmorn’s deep voice was sonorous, effortlessly thundering. He must have taken the gift of an Omnilingual, just as he had given it to Mercer long ago. “It’s a dangerous world, especially for a beautiful young woman of high standing. Simply point me in the right direction and we’ll deliver her here as soon as possible.”

  Glisette’s fingernails dug into my forearm.

  “Beautiful?” Ambrosine repeated. “Do the peddlers sell portraits of my sister as well?”

  Glisette whispered, “Mirror, as you were.”

  Our obscured view of the palace entry rippled and our reflections returned to the glass. The trophy room fell as quiet as a winter night before the first snowfall.

  “What do we do?” she demanded.

  “We run,” I said, bolting for the door. “Cover our trail, snake through the forest to lose them.”

  “We can’t—”

  “Tilmorn serves the Moth King!” I shouted, no longer minding if the servants could hear me. “He can evade the materialization traps. Ambrosine told him our location and he materialized to Pontaval right then. He could be here in seconds. I knew this was a terrible idea.”

  “But Perennia—”

  “Will be fine as long as she plays along!” Realizing that Glisette would have to be dragged away from the cottage, I steered her to the door. But she dug in her heels and shrugged out of my grasp.

  “Unless they were only keeping my sisters alive so they could learn our location. If they no longer need them, they might kill them.”

  “What can we do to help them, Glisette? If you want to risk materializing to Pontaval, that’s your choice. But if you don’t get eviscerated like Brandar, Tilmorn will capture you. You saw what the Moth King’s servants are capable of, what they did to those poor—”

&nb
sp; “Yes, I saw it!” Glisette screamed through her teeth. “That’s why I can’t leave my sisters to suffer.”

  “I’m getting the astrikane and we’re leaving. You can come with us or stay.”

  Behind Glisette, the mirror undulated again like the surface of a pond. Perennia appeared in Ambrosine’s room again, her pale hands splayed on the glass. “Ambrosine told them where you are,” she whispered, a sob caught in her throat. “They’re coming. Run.”

  “Are you all right?” Glisette asked, and I had no doubt the righteous anger ringing in her voice could inflict worse damage on her enemies than the Moth King had so far inflicted on innocents.

  “Yes, I’m fine. I’ll keep playing along,” Perennia insisted. “I love you. You have to go. Go now.”

  “Perennia!” Glisette cried.

  “Mirror, as you were,” Perennia whispered, and disappeared.

  Glisette turned and crossed the trophy room. The black eyes in the mounted heads seemed to glint with warning, as though the final image they had glimpsed—of a ruthless hunter stalking his prey—still haunted their empty husks.

  If we could reach Mercer in time, if Tilmorn could see the face of his brother, we might stand a chance.

  “He’ll have to come in the front because of the materialization barrier,” Glisette said. “We’ll go out the back.”

  But heavy, deliberate boots in the hallway struck terror in my heart. Glisette and I froze, our heartbeats deafening in the quiet, breaths strenuously hushed.

  The handle turned. The door unleashed its warning wail. And there he stood.

  Tilmorn wore a handsome black wool tunic with silver clasps, but his boots left mud on the pristine floor. Now that I stood but a few paces from him, I had no doubt that he was an excellent warrior, trained to fight and survive. If Mercer had never told me the nature of his brother’s power, I would have feared this man nonetheless.

  A pure light burst from Glisette’s elicrin stone, but as her lips formed a spell, she froze, locked into place by an unseen force, her eyes enormous with dread. Then the same rigidity worked its way through my own muscles.