by L. Penelope
But somewhere along the way, the plan had changed. Ydaris was here, too, revealing herself to be Yalyish and not the Lagrimari Earthsinger she had pretended to be for so long. And the former right hand of the True Father was still controlling Kyara through the blood spell carved into her chest. Kyara was bound to obey Ydaris’s commands just as she had been since the age of eleven when the nonhealing wound had been inflicted on her.
Whatever sort of lecture or gathering this was, whatever they were doing to her, lasted for hours, though there were no windows by which to mark the passing of time. The brilliantly lit room was filled with hundreds of people, mostly in their late teens or early twenties, Kyara noticed. The stone table she was dragged and strapped to was eerily similar to the one in Ydaris’s library back in Sayya on which so many horrors had been wrought.
The mages had called this place the Academie. It must have been both a school and a prison. As the blood trickled from her hands, her Song grew weaker, as did her body, and she would inevitably pass out. That was what happened every time.
Every few days she was shackled and brought here, to this room, to this table, to be observed by apathetic students her own age, none of whom even looked askance at the woman chained before them.
The blood draining from her was courtesy of an elderly man who would pierce her flesh with a knife made of bone. Instead of stealing her Song outright, the way the True Father had with his people, the Physicks would drain it from her slowly, just to the point where her Song was barely there, and then they’d give her some time to allow it to regenerate. Though Ydaris’s command restrained Kyara from singing, over time her Song would grow strong again. And when she reached full strength, she’d be carted away again for a repeat performance. Like today.
Her eyes fluttered open as students began to file out of the classroom, climbing down the stairs and leaving through a door she couldn’t see. She must have lost consciousness again. Once the crowd was gone, footsteps neared the table, and then two guards loomed over her. They released the binds, but her limbs were too weak to even attempt escape. Instead, she submitted to being shackled, hand and foot, and led from the room to a comparatively dark hallway.
Every wall they passed was paneled in rich wood. In the stark desert of Lagrimar, such a thing was decadent, but in resource-rich Yaly it must have been the norm. The floors and ceilings of the halls were covered in the same material, polished to a high gloss. She passed doors every few paces, most with glass windows embedded in them but shaded by fabric so she couldn’t see inside.
Each passageway looked just like the others, and she struggled against the weariness, trying to find some difference, some way to identify her surroundings and perhaps find an exit. Eventually, she gave up and let her heavy head hang down. So much energy was required to keep it upright.
A clank of metal roused her. Somehow she’d fallen asleep while walking, and she awoke back in the prison. The door to her cell slid open on its own—perhaps using some kind of magic—and Kyara was deposited on the floor in a heap. Another clang and then the pounding footsteps of the retreating guards sounded. Always different men, all with shaved heads marked with the same blocky symbol tattooed on their scalps. She’d gathered that the insignia marked those who were not Physicks but merely servants.
She crawled onto her bed and let out a sigh. The only bright spot in this whole ordeal was the soft, pliable mattress. It was the most comfortable thing she’d ever slept on. The irony was not lost on her.
“Anything new?” a hoarse voice asked from the cell next to hers.
“Let her rest. Can’t you see she’s exhausted?” The second voice was identical to the first, but the difference in attitude identified the speaker.
“Nothing new, Roshon,” she said, not bothering to open her eyes and regard those with whom she shared the otherwise empty prison. Roshon grumbled under his breath. He was the more ill-tempered of the two teens. His twin, Varten, was the personable one. Both bore the ginger hair of their Elsiran mother and looked nothing like their Lagrimari father, Dansig, who shared their larger cell. His dark, tightly coiled hair had gone silver at the temples, and kindness shone from ebony eyes.
Kyara rolled to her side and looked over to find their concerned gazes on her. Even prickly Roshon looked anxious. She forced a grim smile to put them at ease. Varten returned her smile, then lay back on his bed. He’d grown increasingly weak these past few days. A healthy seventeen-year-old, even one who had been locked up for two years, should not spend so much time sleeping. But every day he grew paler and seemed to have a bit less energy.
She shifted into a sitting position and forced herself to recall what she could of the trip from the classroom. “We go the same way each day from what I can tell,” she whispered to them. “The guards take eight hundred seventy-four steps from the dungeon staircase to the auditorium. The number of turns are the same, too, and we never encounter anyone else in any of the passageways.”
She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, massaging her temples to take away the fatigue when she realized she was merely spreading blood across her face.
“Come, let’s clean you up,” Dansig said. Kyara crawled off her bed and made her way to the vertical bars separating the cells. She sat resting her head on them and pushed her arms through, allowing him to rinse her hands off with a cloth and water from the sink bolted to the wall. Then he bandaged her palms using supplies that one of the servants always brought with their meals.
“I’ll try harder next time to find information we can use. Someday one of them will make a mistake that we can use to our advantage,” she said. “We will find a way out of here.”
Dansig hummed as he tied off the bandage. She stared at his lowered head.
“Varten’s getting worse?” she whispered for his ears only. Dansig’s pain-rimmed eyes met hers, and he nodded grimly. Both their gazes fell to the ruby-red bracelets adorning each of his wrists. The calderas were much like the collars that the Cantor used in Lagrimar to subdue Earthsingers. Bespelled by blood magic, they blocked Dansig’s Song so that he could not heal his son or escape using his power.
After weeks spent in such proximity, Kyara had learned much about the family. For most of their incarceration, Dansig and the twins had been studied and used in experiments. Interrogated endlessly, pumped with drugs, coerced with the Physicks’ amalgam magic, and brutalized. Each of them still bore scars from the encounters. Much of it had been done in an attempt to learn the location of the death stone, a caldera of great power.
Kyara shivered at the thought of the Physicks getting their hands on such a thing. The family protected the location of the death stone without even knowing its purpose. She’d revealed to them that the caldera contained the trapped Song of a Nethersinger. Possessing it would give the Physicks the same power over death energy that Kyara wielded.
Dansig, Varten, and Roshon had never broken, not telling their captors anything about the death stone, but they had all paid dearly for their silence. And now the only bright light in all of this was that Kyara’s arrival had shifted the mages’ focus to her. Except having her around was almost as bad as having the deadly caldera.
She took a deep breath, willing strength into her worn-out muscles. She would gladly succumb to her eventual death, as she did not think she could live through the process of having her Song drained repeatedly for much longer. But Dansig and his sons did not deserve to die in prison. They were a good and loving family, and they needed to get out. Right now, Kyara was their best chance of that happening. She was the one who left the cell regularly and could gather intelligence to form an escape plan.
“I won’t give up, Dansig,” she said as she struggled to her feet and back to her mattress. “I’ll find a way out of here for you. I promise.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The Mother kept her daughter cloistered, protected from a world which had already proved false. But cocoons were meant to be escaped. A shelter, too long occupied, becomes a tomb
.
—THE AYALYA
Lizvette Nirall turned the dial of the radiophonic next to her mother’s bedside, changing among the four channels and turning away from the unyielding voice of the newsreader recounting the events of the day. That would only aggravate Mother, who was breathing peacefully now after tossing and turning for the past quarter of an hour.
The classical music station would soothe Marineve Nirall’s nerves and hopefully put her in a better state of mind to heal from her sudden illness. The palace physician had said nothing was wrong with Mother’s body, and Lizvette agreed. It was the woman’s heart that had broken, and Lizvette bore part of the blame.
A knock sounded at the door. Before she could even utter the words to invite entry, her cousin Zavros Calladeen strode in, eating up the floor with his commanding walk. Lizvette took a deep breath before he drew too close. He tended to suck up all the air in the room. She suppressed an inappropriate chuckle as the thought of her entering a room in such a manner popped into her head. Being ladylike and proper required a soft shuffle, not a commanding gait, no matter how many times she wished otherwise.
Her cousin acknowledged her with a mere nod of his head before kneeling at his aunt’s side and grasping her hand in his much larger one.
“How is she?” His voice was a low, deep rumble.
“Much the same,” Lizvette replied. “She sleeps most of the day away and is fitfully awake much of the night.”
He searched the face of his beloved aunt. “And the physician?”
“Had nothing new to say. He prescribed a few tinctures to add to her tea and said I should try to get her to eat more, but it’s not a physical ailment … I think we both realize that.”
Zavros turned to look at her for the first time. “Have you heard from him?”
She reared back from his question as if she’d been struck. “Father? No, of course not. If he had contacted me I would have alerted someone. Do you honestly think I wouldn’t?” She pursed her lips to keep them from quivering as he paused to consider.
“I’m not sure what to think of you, Lizvette.” Her cousin’s cold tone was no surprise. He and Father had often bumped heads, and while Zavros was no supporter of the unification, it was Father who was wanted for treason after spreading rumors about and threatening the life of their new queen. And for her part in Father’s ploy, Lizvette was on house arrest, confined to her family’s apartment in the palace, where she’d lived nearly her whole life.
She swallowed the burning in her throat that arose whenever she dwelled on her situation. Though she wore no physical chains, regret bound her heart. She deserved the punishment, she couldn’t deny that, but weeks of pacing the floors, feeling claustrophobic in a place that once had given her joy—on top of watching her mother deteriorate slowly from shame and heartbreak—had taken their toll.
Zavros squeezed his aunt’s hand again, then rose, motioning brusquely for Lizvette to do the same. She narrowed her eyes at his haughty manner but still followed him out of the bedroom into the sitting room, closing the door behind her.
“You won’t stay longer?” she asked, though she was honestly glad to be rid of him. “Mother so enjoys when you read to her. I think she likes hearing a man’s voice.”
“I wish I could, dear cousin, but the principality—I suppose we should be a kingdom now, shouldn’t we? At any rate, things are in flux just now. There’s been a bombing at the Southern temple.”
Lizvette gasped. “A bombing? What in Sovereign’s name?”
He nodded. “Yes, not an hour ago. We’re keeping the press at bay for now until we know more. Of course, the wolves are salivating at the door. Both the Goddess Awoken and our dear queen were inside when it happened.”
Lizvette cringed internally at the cold tone he used when referencing Queen Jasminda. “Were they hurt?”
“Certainly not. Their magic sees to that, doesn’t it, Lizvette?” He raised an eyebrow. “Were you hoping, perhaps, for some harm to befall the queen and place you back into the affections of King Jaqros?”
Her mouth hung open. She was quite literally rendered speechless by the horror of his implication. She snapped her jaw shut and breathed in deeply, flaring her nostrils. It was her own fault. Most people who knew of her downfall likely would have asked the same question. She had tried to force Jasminda to leave and position herself as the most likely contender for Jack’s heart. But Lizvette would never have tried to intentionally hurt or kill another person. The thought made the burning in her throat flourish to an inferno.
When Father had told her that sending Jasminda back with the Lagrimari refugees after their despicable king, the True Father, had demanded his people be returned was the best way forward, Lizvette had believed him. The men she’d hired to kidnap Jasminda were not supposed to injure her in any way; she’d made that clear. But none of that mattered anymore. Regardless of what happened, Jack would never choose her now.
Her heart clenched painfully. Her own loveless engagement to Jack’s older brother had ended with his death. And Jack had never loved her either and never would. Perhaps the problem was her.
Zavros was still talking dispassionately about the horror at the temple. “The Sisterhood will likely be appealing for funds to rebuild,” he said with derision. “And we will have to hold a national funeral service for the dead. More distractions from the real work the Council needs to focus on.”
“And the injured?” she asked. If her cousin had any humanity left, it was buried deep inside, far beneath his ambition and political cunning.
“There are very few, almost none seriously so.” He shrugged as if it was of little importance.
“I suspect the queen and the Goddess healed a great many.”
Zavros waved this off. Anything good about the magic of Earthsong fell on deaf ears when it came to him. Most Elsirans feared Earthsong, and not without good reason. While the magic could not be used to harm directly, the Lagrimari army had used it to create all types of mayhem—from mudslides to earthquakes to fireballs—during the many breach wars. But Earthsong could also be used benevolently.
“The Council will form a committee to oversee the investigation into the bombing,” Zavros said. “These are changing times we live in, cousin. Changing times. I must go. Send word if Aunt Mari’s condition worsens.”
“Of course.”
He bowed stiffly before disappearing through the main doors. The guards assigned to her quarters were visible in the hall until the door shut.
Lizvette turned to the balcony and walked out to stand in the crisp fall air. All those people … Her heart ached at the senselessness of the deaths—what sort of evil could be responsible for such horror? Was there no good left in the world? She stood lost in thought for so long that her fingers grew numb where they met the cold, stone railing.
Winter was on its way. Where would she be come spring? Her future was uncertain. Charged with treason, she would not face a regular trial. The king and queen themselves would decide her fate. Considering her history with Jasminda, even her longtime friendship with Jack was unlikely to aid her. Though he had promised her exile instead of the possibility of death. She had to be grateful for that.
She drew away from the railing and rubbed her hands together as an intense melancholy consumed her. If she could go back in time and change her behavior she would. But her father’s malevolent whispering in her ear had swayed her. Thank the Sovereign that the Mantle had fallen, ending the long war the very day the refugees were to return to Lagrimar. When Lizvette looked back at her actions, she could not speak against her punishment. She deserved every moment of suffering.
She had actually liked Jasminda at their first meeting, though the jealousy had quickly arisen when Jack’s feelings had become clear. And though Lizvette still loved Jack as much as she had since childhood, she was a pragmatist. She bet his heart had belonged to Jasminda from the day they’d met. The memory of the way he often gazed lovingly at his soon-to-be bride was etched in he
r mind.
There would never have been a time when he looked at her that way. Her own fiancé had not looked at her that way when he’d been alive, and it was unlikely a man ever would. Even before her crime, she was a tool in the hands of powerful men. Her father had wanted her to become a princess; he had pushed and wheedled until she was betrothed to Prince Alariq, no matter who her heart longed for. Alariq had wanted her to be a symbol for the people. No one had cared what she wanted.
Without anyone around, she let her guard down, let the tears fall that she would never allow another soul—including her mother—to see. Niralls didn’t cry. Her parents had reinforced that childhood lesson with a switch across her legs. In fact, it was her very first memory. Never cry. Never show any emotion at all. It was so deeply ingrained in her that even alone, only three tears made it down her cheeks. Yet, it was more than enough to shame her.
She wiped them away and turned to go back into the apartment, when an odd chirping caught her attention. The sound was unnatural and metallic, like no birdcall she’d ever heard, and indeed, the creature that landed on the terrace ledge certainly looked like no bird she’d ever seen before.
At first she thought the thing was some kind of windup toy, but it had gotten all the way to the second story of the palace on its own. Crafted from heavy paper and thin plates of metal, it hopped from foot to foot in jittery motions. She peered closer to view the tiny screws that kept the whole thing together. The bird resembled a sparrow but with little gears visible inside its chest that were slowly winding down. When its mouth suddenly opened, she stared in shock.
“Lizvette, my dear.” She stumbled backward upon hearing her father’s voice coming from the contraption. “I hope this message finds you and your mother well. I apologize for not having been able to communicate with you before now. I am saddened to hear of your house arrest. A cleverer girl would have been able to avoid such a thing and exploit your connections to help get you out of that rat’s nest, but that ship has sailed, as they say. At any rate, if your mother has any intentions of the religious variety, bid her to make her prayers from home today. The temples are not safe. As long as there are unsavory elements in control of our great land, safety is simply not guaranteed. Probably best that you are confined to your rooms. Make sure Mother doesn’t stray far, either. My thoughts are with the both of you. Rise above your dull tendencies and exceed my expectations, dear girl. Ta-ta for now.”
