by Lyra Selene
The Garde clicked her boots and gestured to me.
“A prankster, sir,” she muttered.
“A prankster?” The officer’s frown deepened. “What manner of prank did the girl play? I see no props or other silliness.”
“She claims she is of the bloodline,” explained the Garde, disdainful. “A legacy, sir. She wants to join the Imperial Court.”
The officer’s brows shot up toward his hairline before he schooled his features into passivity. His eyes took in my ragged clothing, my unwashed hair, the grime collected beneath my fingernails. Heat climbed up my neck toward my cheeks.
“And what proof do you have, girl? Writ of birth? Patents of nobility? Anything to prove this absurd claim?”
“N-no,” I said, hating the stutter in my voice. Humiliation flared through my veins, and I reached for the soothing planes of my ambric pendant. “All I have is my legacy. I can show you.”
“Fine,” snapped the officer. His eyes were keen on my face. “Make it good, or you’ll be spending this Nocturne in the palais dungeons.”
I scrubbed my palms against my skirts. I closed my eyes, listening for that familiar, faint buzzing. My palms tingled. I focused on an image, holding it in my mind’s eye until I could see nothing else.
I held out my palms, and showed the officer something that wasn’t there.
The same illusion I’d shown Luca: Coeur d’Or in miniature, delicate and gleaming and even more perfect than before. Spires of glass. Arches twisting with porcelain vines. The stunning golden gate, sunlit ambric glinting from the finial. I willed the illusion to hold, but like before, the toy-sized palais melted away in the space of a breath.
I dropped my arms, fighting a wave of dizziness.
The officer stared at the scraps of color evanescing into thin air.
“Worthless trick,” he snarled. “Clockwork legerdemain. Ambric and mirrors. I’ve seen such things before, in the labs at Unitas. A person can even buy such an apparatus in the marchés of the Mews, if one has the money to pay.”
Thunder roared in my ears, and I reeled a step back. No. I’d imagined a million different ways this day might go. Simply not being believed was never one of them.
“It’s not a trick,” I said, pouring the last of my strength into the words. “I’m not using a device. It’s my legacy. I create illusions.”
The officer hesitated, then threw back his head and laughed. The Garde did the same, her straight white teeth gleaming red in the ruddy light. The other Skyclad Gardes within earshot chuckled, shaking helmed heads.
“A worthy attempt,” mocked the officer. “Leave now, and I won’t punish you for it. Come here again, and I can’t promise I’ll be so lenient.”
He turned on his heel and marched back toward the gate, his cloak swinging in the breeze and his laughter echoing in my ears.
“Wait!” Desperation was a living thing inside me, choking my lungs and squeezing my heart. “I can do better. I’m not lying!”
Something in my voice reached the officer. From across the courtyard, his eyes touched mine, and I thought I saw a glint of uncertainty in his cool gaze.
“Look at me,” I ground out.
This time, when I closed my eyes, I let my mind soar through the days and weeks and spans, back to the Temple at the edge of nothing where I was abandoned as a baby. Back to the bullies who kicked me in the ribs when barely formed shapes and colors spilled unbidden from my hands. Back to the sanctimonious Sisters who prayed for hours over my unrighteous fingers.
What if we took them? I once overheard Sister Anouk whisper. She didn’t seem to realize the careless cruelty of the suggestion. The magic would go, and she’d have to stay.
But I never believed the magic ended with my hands. And I don’t think they did either.
I dug my ragged fingernails deep into the skin of my palms. My fingers tingled, but I ignored the feeling, concentrating instead on the space between my ears. Concentrating on the feeling of my skin, covering my muscles and bones. My face.
I hadn’t looked into a mirror for a tide. I could almost forget what I looked like—my sable locks; my blue eyes, tinged with grey Duskland shadows. Instead, I imagined another face. A face I’d seen more times than I could count on my journey through the city.
A face with even skin and sharp cheekbones, framed in a luxuriant tumble of dark auburn hair. Lips stained rose red. Luminous eyes the precise color of heliotrope. And a circlet bedizened with a single jewel of flawless ambric.
A swarm of insects droned in my ears. The skin on my face prickled before my cheeks went numb.
I imagined I had that face. I imagined I was that face.
I lifted my eyes to the Skyclad officer.
Everything stopped. My breath caught in my throat, and I felt balanced on the edge of something terrible and beautiful and terrifying. I teetered, caught between one world and the next. The past, and the future, intersecting in this single, breathless instant on the cusp of failure and hope.
I toppled.
The courtyard broke out into chaos.
Blood drained from the officer’s features. His mouth dropped open, and his palm fell limp by the hilt of his sword. The stocky Garde shouted, then dropped to one knee, her dristic armor clanging loud against the cobblestones. Behind her, other soldats did the same, dropping like a line of Vesh’s precious dominos. A muffled whisper sprinted across the courtyard, followed by shouts of Your Majesty! and It’s the empress!
The illusion melted away.
I knew I was me once again.
The officer sprinted toward me, fumbling at the hasp of his cloak. The silvery material bloomed around me, snapping and billowing. He wrapped the silky fabric over my shoulders and face until I couldn’t see anything but his shadow, muted on the pale cobbles of the courtyard. I pushed at the cloak, but the officer reached out one gloved hand and captured both my wrists.
“Curse you,” he hissed, his words razoring through the shroud of heavy fabric. Then, loudly: “Back to your posts, you ingrates! Have you forgotten your training?”
The Skyclad platoon snapped to attention, shuffling and straightening.
“You,” muttered the officer. Polished boots stepped into my limited view. “Nothing happened here, do you understand me? If anyone speaks of this, they will be flogged.”
A grunt of agreement. “What will you do with her?”
“Chevalier Devall. He’ll know how to proceed.”
“Dowser?” A low whistle. “Better hope her mind is stronger than her body looks.”
Dread coiled in my belly as the officer tightened his gloved hands around my wrists. I opened my mouth to ask Who is Dowser? but the golden gates swung open, silencing me.
I passed between their ornate arms into the glittering heart of the Amber Empire.
Out of sight of the gate, the Skyclad officer ripped the silvery cloak from my shoulders. His eyes weren’t kind as he led me swiftly through the evolving labyrinth of the palais compound. Down shallow steps glinting with mica. Through a shimmering copse of jewel-flowered trees. Past a jardin that seemed to breathe in time to the distant chime of crystal bells. Gilded archways. Coiled staircases, golden and white. Stained glass. Mirrors. Chandeliers.
My mind spun at the blur of unfamiliar sights, and though I clung to each new image, I was soon overwhelmed. Struggling to keep up with the strident gait of my captor, I stumbled, my knees cracking against marble. I stared at my grimy hands splayed against the immaculate pattern twisting in the marble. A trickle of dread shivered along my spine, and I scraped my tongue around a mouth suddenly dry and foul-tasting.
“Get up,” the officer commanded. I did as he said, swallowing my fear as he dragged me down yet another anonymous hallway. A long line of arms hewn from pale, translucent stone grasped guttering torches wrought in kembric. The officer burst through a hidden door and snapped to attention, raising his arm in a salute.
“Chevalier Devall!” he barked. “Pardon the interruption, but I b
ring you a matter of some urgency.”
I squinted into the room. After all the white marble and gilt and blazing torches, the low-ceilinged chamber was dim and gloomy. A tall figure rose from the corner, face veiled in shadow. A glowing ember flared, then faded as the person sucked smoke from a curving pipe.
“Is that so?” The man—Chevalier Devall, I assumed—spoke slowly, his deep voice rich and refined. “Please explain.”
The Skyclad officer tersely recounted my behavior at the gates, but his words faded as I stared around the new room. A row of curtains shrouded a bank of windows—only a sliver of vermilion bled in from outside, illuminating dust motes suspended in the air. Books thronged jumbled bookcases. Vast spreads of paper swarmed the walls, but in the gloom I couldn’t see their contents. Maps, perhaps. The scent of tabak hung like a pall in the room, tinged with a cloying perfume. I smothered a cough.
The officer and the chevalier fell silent, and when I looked up they were staring at me. I pushed a thread of hair behind my ear, and shifted my feet.
“You may go,” said Chevalier Devall. The Skyclad officer bowed before stalking from the room. His steps echoed away, leaving me alone with the chevalier.
Anxiety twisted my stomach into a skein of knots. All I could see of Devall was the flare of his pipe. The stench of tabak clambered up my nostrils and sent sickly fingers down the back of my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting away nausea and a sudden feeling of weightlessness. When I opened them, the chevalier was standing right in front of me.
I muffled a shriek and lurched backward. Devall was tall, and broad in the shoulders. He wore a long, unadorned robe, like a monk or an ascetic. His bald pate was a smooth, deep brown—like polished ironwood—and his features were refined, almost severe. Lines sprayed from the corners of his eyes, and a deep furrow dug between his brows. His black eyes, hidden behind slender spectacles, betrayed no emotion.
“Your name.”
“Sylvie, sir,” I muttered. “I mean—Chevalier Devall—”
“Call me Dowser,” he said. “Everyone else does.”
“Dowser,” I repeated, bobbing my head like an idiot.
“You traveled far,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, sir,” I managed. “From the Dusklands.”
“A long journey. From the edge of Dominion to the heart of our empire. Because you believe you are special.”
A cold hand stroked my spine, and I shivered.
He’s just guessing.
“Maybe you are. But most likely you aren’t. Few deserve what they were born with. Even fewer deserve what they weren’t born with.”
“I’m a legacy, sir,” I managed, ignoring the fingers of ice caressing my heart. “I belong here. At Coeur d’Or. At the empress’s court.”
“Ambition—I like that.” A precise smile creased Dowser’s face. “But that exhibition you put on at the gates doesn’t guarantee you are a legacy. Magic is not the sole domain of the highborn.”
My head jerked up, my nostrils flaring.
“Surely you knew that.” He studied me, not unkindly. “This world is full of strange things. The bewitching songs of the Gorma can just as easily lure a fish into a trap as they can dash a frigate against the rocks. I’ve known Aifiri who could bend metal with a touch. Among my people, the Zvar of the Meridian Desert, there are those who can command armies wrought from sand and nightmares. No, the bloodline of the Scion is not the only magic in this world.”
“So I’ve come all this way for nothing?” I clenched my hands to stop them shaking with fury and embarrassment. “But—but I could be a valuable asset to the empress and her court. I create illusions—I can make you see things that aren’t there. I could act as a double for the empress at public events, or perform for the people, or—”
“And what of your family?” Dowser interrupted. “Won’t they miss you when you abandon them for wealth and prestige? Or perhaps they are in on the plot.”
“I have no parents.” My tongue was a lick of flame, turning my mouth to ash. “Only a highborn sire or dam who deserted me at the edge of the darkness and never returned.”
“Interesting.” Swift as a viper, Dowser reached out his hands and placed them on my temples.
“What are you doing?” I tried to jerk my head away, but his grip was like a vise.
“Didn’t you wonder why they call me Dowser?” His expression flickered. “Because I dig deep, and what I find is nearly always precious. Now hold still. This won’t be pleasant.”
My mind imploded.
I might have screamed, but my own voice was distant, like an echo from another time. I fell inward, spiraling. I felt him there—here—dredging inside me, digging relentless fingers into the crevices of my being.
Images surged around me, a whirlwind tumble of noises and smells and sights and feelings. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I was drowning beneath the cascade of my own memories.
And at the center of it all was Dowser, watching.
Sifting.
Luca smiling, reaching for my hand. Warmth. The Skyclad platoon. Violence. The shadowed dusk at the edge of nowhere. Home. The bruised clouds above Dominion, bright with slashes of silvery lightning. Frenzy. The slap of a dusty hand on my cheek. Pain. The smack of knees in packed dirt. Misery. Ugly laughter. Monster. The pointed toe of a boot in the ribs. Fear. My own urine, warming my trousers and staining the dust. Humiliation. A chilly Prime—
There.
The whirlwind slowed. A dingy, frigid room. Dull, livid light oozed from the window. An ancient desk. Heavy drawers creaking open beneath my hands, empty of anything but dust. One locked. I grabbed a bent letter opener, jamming the tip into the lock. Snick. Click.
There.
A sheaf of parchment lined in handwriting so elegant I barely recognized the language. My eyes skittered down the page, but my rudimentary skill in reading could only decipher half the words. Remit of the empire … martial enmity … protective custody … Order of the Scion. The sentences didn’t make sense. The Imperial Insignia filled my eyes, ornate and unmistakable—a sunburst bigger than my hand, stamped in amber wax and gilded with kembric.
And below that, a signature scrawled in vermilion ink, looping and illegible. A puzzle to my squinting eyes.
The scene whirled away, scattering into dust. I rose, soaring up through the swarm of thoughts and images.
Me. Only me.
I stumbled, and fell to my knees. My breath was a harsh rasp. I swallowed a surge of bile.
Dowser took one shaky step back. His chest rose and fell as quickly as mine. He straightened the immaculate lines of his robe and swept one uneasy hand over his smooth crown.
“Show it to me.” His voice was rough with gravel.
“I can’t,” I whispered, stricken. “They burned it—when I found it, the Sisters burned it. They thought it was the best way to keep me from leaving.”
“There’s something else. Let me see it.”
Recollection poured over me, and I reached with shaking fingers for the only thing I truly owned—the only thing the Sisters never dared take. The only thing that was all mine.
The amulet hanging between my breasts, skin-warmed and timeworn.
I held it out, reluctant. The ambric pendant dangled from its chain, glowing faintly in the gloom of Dowser’s study. I’d brushed it with my fingers so often that its sunburst shape was nearly obscured.
Dowser nodded, once. His face hardened with a decision.
“Put it away,” he growled. “And get up.”
“What does it mean?” I gasped, shoving the amulet beneath my shirt. “Who gave it to me? Whose signature was on that imperial decree?”
“Ambitious, and inquisitive,” he said, but this time there was no humor in his tone. “The signature was mine. Now rise.”
“What?” Surprise wrapped hands around my throat, nearly choking me. “You? How—”
“No more questions. Get up. We’re going.”
I d
ragged myself to my feet, cursing my trembling muscles. A waterfall of questions blotted out my thoughts. I came to the city to find the world where I belonged. I swore to myself I didn’t give a Scion’s eye who my parents were—why should I? They abandoned me, cast me off like nothing. But this—this was new.
Dowser signed the writ passing my guardianship to the Sisters. And even if I didn’t care who my parents were … I did care why they abandoned me.
Dowser swept out of the study, a blot of shadow against the spill of saffron light gilding the marble hallway and stinging my eyes. I hurried to keep up with him.
“I hope you have a better trick than what you showed the Garde tucked up those filthy sleeves,” Dowser said without looking at me. “They’ll expect something more impressive.”
“They?” I felt suddenly dizzy with hope and uncertainty. “Who? Where are we going?”
Dowser twisted to face me. In the ambric glow, his eyes gleamed red as the sun.
“I’m giving you what you said you wanted. I’m presenting you to the Amber Court.”
Entering the Amber Atrium was like waking into a dream of paradise.
The spacious room was airy and full of colors. Potent sunlight streamed in through a curving ceiling paned with colored glass, tossing jewels across the creamy floor. Flowers spilled across walls and along fluted pillars, filling my nostrils with a dense perfume.
Arrayed along a series of shallow tiers rising toward the throne was the Amber Court, strutting and preening like exotic birds. Even the flowers seemed drab and plain beside these courtiers. Everyone was young, and lovely. Silk nestled against velvet, and satin whispered secrets to great sweeping feathers pinned to headdresses or draped along sleeves.
Courtiers lounged along divans and among scattered pillows, lithe and elegant, jeweled fingers waving and fans twisting. Soft chatter rustled the air. A young woman gowned in tangerine strummed at a lyre, while another girl with blue-tinged skin sang. The sound sent a frisson of delight tripping down my spine. A young lord with hair like glass tossed a glittering crystal decanter toward the ceiling, where it exploded in a cloud of glittering fragments. Prisms danced across the floor. When the shards hit the floor, the decanter was whole once more. I stared at a billow of opalescent orbs. A tangle of vines, sprouting roses that bloomed in seconds.
