Children of a Broken Sky (Redemption Chronicle Book 1)

by Adam J Nicolai

  Angbar threw her an apologetic look. He knew what they were doing. She caught his eyes and shook her head. Forget it. It had always been like this, for both of them.

  She twisted her ring and waited.

  The argument raged on. If Marlin didn't come back, where else could he go? Was it possible he could get out?

  No, she told them. The curse would have him, and he didn't have the spell he'd need to see past it.

  They didn't hear her. It was too much money. He had half their food. They had saved his life. How could he do this?

  "I don't know what it means," Lyseira finally cut in. "I saved him. I don't know why he'd do this." She blamed herself for what had happened—Syn could see it in her face. "But we have to listen to Syntal. She's the only one who knows the way out of here."

  "We don't know that it leads out," Seth urged.

  "I know." She touched his shoulder. "I know that. But it's the only chance we have."

  Harth was quiet, his mouth a pale line. "No. Even if we get out of the Valley, without any money, we're dead."

  Helix nodded with him, ashen. He loved Syntal; but he didn't trust her.

  "Enough," Iggy said. "No one's chasing him without me, because no one else here will be able to track him." He looked at Helix and Harth. "That means no one's chasing him, because I'm going with Syn." He began to gather his things.

  "Iggy—" Harth started.

  "No." Iggy turned on him. "I'm sorry you didn't know everything when you signed up. I don't think we even knew it all. I didn't mean to get you into this, not like this. But we're not in Keldale anymore. You're not in charge." He glanced at Seth. "Neither are you."

  Seth's face was like stone.

  "Don't you see?" Iggy went on. "We never should have come here. I was wrong to bring us in." He shook his head. "It was stupid. Those stories—all those old stories about people never coming out—they're true. And the next one is going to be about us.

  "The Tribunal, all that sehk—it doesn't matter. You're worried about food? Our food will run out even faster if we waste it going nowhere. We have to pray it lasts until we reach Syntal's beacon, whatever it is.

  "We follow her, or we die. Does that clear things up for you?"

  ~ ~

  She didn't need the mantras anymore; she hadn't used them in years. Ascending, now, was as simple as twisting a key.

  She unlocked her mind, and felt reality fall away beneath her.

  The world became a web of concepts, succinct and intricate. There was no dirt under her feet, only hardness and friction and millions of pinpricks of life. There was no air in her lungs; there was wind or stillness, sustenance or death.

  The Pulse thundered. All these truths echoed its commands. As always, she yearned to lose herself, to drown in insights.

  That, Lar'atul had warned, was the danger.

  She chanted, the words flicking from her tongue like darts. Her voice became the Pulse. She ordered her eyes and thoughts to align anew; to see differently.

  Then she Descended.

  Mundane reality crashed back. The world became pretense and nonsense, shallow as a sheet of parchment. She shuddered. Every time, the loss was vicious: as acute as her parents' funeral.

  The others watched expectantly. To them, she knew, nothing had happened.

  None of you understand, she wanted to accuse. None of you know what it's like. They had no idea what the world even was. They were blind people, all of them, living in caves.

  "M'sai," she murmured. "Follow me."

  With her new sight, she scanned the trees. The curse was draped over the branches, drifting in the air like a cobweb. It caught in her companions' hair and tangled in their minds. This way, it might have whispered. You are lost.

  Who could have done this? she wondered. If the spell covered the entire wood, it had to be enormous. It wasn't natural—the spellsight made that clear—but where had it come from?

  Part of her couldn't help admiring it. It put her own sorceries to shame.

  She pivoted, searching, until she caught a flicker of light from deep in the wood. It throbbed like a heartbeat, barely visible one second, brilliant the next. There. It had to be miles away, behind countless trees, but somehow she could see it.

  Definitely a beacon. She started walking.

  The curse swirled like disturbed mist, dragging at her feet and snaking into her ears. She was suddenly certain she'd forgotten something back at the camp. Her legs were tired; she wanted to rest. She was thirsty. She had to go back.

  No, she told herself. I'm not stopping. Gritting her teeth, she waded through the curse as if it were a river of mud.

  "Syn," Iggy said. "That's the way we came in."

  Annoyed, she looked back. His face wore a shroud of grey mist. "I have to keep my eyes on the light," she said. "Don't make me keep turning back."

  ~ ~

  The spellsight wouldn't last forever. She had to concentrate on it, and the effort wore on her. It was like walking with her arms held out straight, for hours. At the same time, every glance away from the beacon emboldened the curse, giving it the chance to snarl her thoughts.

  These things were making her slow enough, but every other step was plagued by a stumble in the snow or a rocky patch of earth. Worse, the others forced her to halt again and again as the curse tricked them into wandering away.

  The constant distractions gnawed at her concentration, chipping away at her mind like a sculptor's chisel. The seed of a headache formed in her skull.

  "Syn," Helix asked when they paused for lunch, "are you well?"

  "It's tiring." She tried to reassure him. "But I'm well."

  "If you need a break, or a nap..."

  His concern was comforting. He didn't trust her magic—he never had—but he still cared for her. She nodded. "I'll tell you."

  The hours crept past. Inside her snow-soaked shoes, socks clung to her feet like moss. Her vision turned blurry, the beacon becoming a smear of light behind the trees. Her headache grew to a roaring throb.

  She lifted an arm to wipe her nose. Her sleeve came away dark with blood.

  Then she was falling.

  "Syn!" Helix and Angbar towered above her, tall as the trees.

  "No... no more," she managed. "Too much."

  "She's bleeding," Helix called to the others. "We have to stop."

  "Stop?" Seth sounded incredulous. "There must be two hours of light left. We can't waste them."

  "She needs rest!" Helix threw back.

  She let the spellsight go. Releasing her mind's hold on it felt like uncurling a fist that had been clenched for days. She winced, moaning.

  The curse's grey tendrils disappeared from sight.

  "It's the witchcraft." Seth's face crowded into her vision, glaring down. "You must know it. The sorcery's doing this to her."

  Angbar gaped at him. "Her sorcery is the only reason we're alive, fool!"

  Helix laid out a bedroll for her. She crawled into it, left the argument behind, and plunged into darkness.

  ~ ~

  The pain was gone in the morning. It always was.

  Since they'd left Southlight, she had pushed herself further than ever before. She could chant or focus until her eyes bled and her muscles screamed, and a night of rest would always refresh her. But there was a line she couldn't press past. Beyond it she wouldn't be able to rest, because she'd be dead.

  She'd glimpsed that line at the edge of the wood, when she'd chanted her last slumber spell at the wolves. She didn't want to find it again.

  Harth caught her alone as the others broke camp. "Are you certain of this?" he muttered. Iggy's challenge yesterday had left him subdued; he'd hardly spoken since. "Every instinct I have is telling me to turn around. But I'm trying to trust you."

  She gave him a wan smile. "I'm certain," she lied. "There's no other way."

  She Ascended and slipped back into spellsight, a horse getting fitted with a bit. She set out, Seth's ire burning between her shoulders.


  The ache in her mind returned slowly, creeping over her like a shadow. After lunch, her vision blurred again, and the nosebleed started. She pressed on. By the time dusk stole over them, she wondered through the constant scream of pain in her mind if she was going blind.

  "Enough," she whimpered, sinking to her knees. "Enough." She slept.

  The next day was the same, only colder. And the day after that. They took to walking with blankets draped over their shoulders, shivering as they stumbled through the snow.

  The beacon didn't look any closer, but she told the others it did. The curse wasn't just trying to turn them around; it was wearing on their resolve, convincing them with every passing hour that they were wrong to follow her, that she was delusional. She had to do something to combat it; something to reassure them.

  By the fourth night, even Angbar was doubting her.

  The next morning, they ran out of food.

  "It's all right," Iggy said. Unlike everyone else, he seemed stronger each morning, as if the forest's grueling trials rejuvenated him. "I've been watching. There are still berries on the bushes, and plenty of rabbits."

  Her hollow stomach gave the lie to his confidence. He talked of food, but what he had was words.

  They couldn't eat words.

  We're going to die here. A wind cut through the trees, making the curse flutter and dance. We're going to die. They had talked about it—Harth had glibly mentioned freezing to death a hundred times—but now, she truly imagined them all collapsed beneath the trees, too weak to continue. Iggy's bizarre optimism would chase them as they fell, making vapid assurances until the snow covered them.

  No. I won't let it happen. I'll Ascend—I'll rewrite what hunger is before I let it happen.

  But there was no chant for that. She couldn't just command anything. She needed a chant, and she had no idea how to craft them.

  Her sorcery was everything, but in the end it would fail her.

  Ascension beckoned; an infinite, perfect world of ideas. Maybe she didn't know the chant she needed, but the Pulse could do anything. Maybe, if she was desperate enough, she could figure out Lar'atul's "safehold," and plumb the depths of the Pulse for answers. And if she couldn't...

  She steeled herself, drawing defiance around her like a blanket.

  If she couldn't, she would hurl herself into the Pulse anyway, would push until her mind snapped and left her body behind. If there were revelations to be found, she would find them.

  She turned her back on Iggy's surety and trudged through the snow. The others followed. Highsun came and went, and Iggy distributed the berries he'd managed to pick. There were a few for everyone. Eating them felt like spitting on a bonfire.

  Then, without warning, the trees gave way.

  She stumbled into a meadow. An oblong stone building hunched in its center, at the bottom of a shallow depression. Fingers of browning vines clutched its walls, dragging it into the earth with the slow determination of centuries.

  She was so prepared for failure that she wondered if it was a trick of her mind. But the beacon was here, throbbing in the meadow's heart like a toothache. It was on the building's only door.

  "Kirith a'jhul," Angbar breathed.

  As she left the trees, the curse ended. Its whispers ceased so abruptly she nearly stumbled.

  "Syn?" Helix said. Turning back, she saw the curse retreating from all of them. Its grey tendrils halted at the tree line, curling in an invisible breeze.

  "We made it." She could barely believe the words herself. "It's gone. Can't you feel that?" A whisper of relief tingled in her mind, like the first hint of warmth in a limb gone numb with cold. "We made it."

  They filed into the clearing. Despite the cold, despite the danger, she had a sudden, potent memory of their days as children, exploring Pinewood forest. The days when Southlight had been a haven, not a prison. The days when her mother still smiled.

  "What is this place?" Angbar marveled, his voice a whisper. "It's so old."

  The edges of the hollow were too steep to climb down safely, but at the far end from the building, a path led down. Syntal picked her way toward it. "I don't know." There was no reason to think the building had food inside—it looked as ancient as a tomb. But it could provide shelter from the snow. Maybe they could start a fire inside it, without being seen, and keep the heat enclosed.

  And the Tribunal had no chance of finding it. The curse ensured that.

  A spark of quiet hope, a thrill of vindication, stole down her spine. We may survive this. She grappled with it, trying to keep it on a leash. The door still had a spell on it—the beacon, at least, if not something else. They were still surrounded by a curse. She had to be careful. But her sudden optimism would not be stifled.

  We may survive.

  The path was a line of worn stones, bulging with snow and tufts of dying grass. It sloped down the basin toward the old ruin. A row of statues, their features worn into smooth stone, lined the path on either side. Some of them listed. One had lost its battle with the ages and snapped in half, its legs still jutting from the ground in surprise.

  The crumbling stones beckoned. She started down, her eyes locked on the light welling from the building's entrance: the light only she could see.

  Seth called for her to wait. She ignored him. The faceless statues watched as she passed them, their admonitions meaningless.

  The ruin grew as it approached. It was taller, down here, than it had looked from above. She reached the door and hesitated. The beacon was brilliant now, shining like the sun.

  Shuddering, she reached toward it... and felt only cold stone.

  "By Akir," Lyseira breathed from somewhere behind her. "Can you read it, Syntal?"

  You don't "read" a spell, she thought, irritated. I can barely look straight at it.

  Lyseira drew up next to her and touched the light. "That... I think that's First Tongue."

  First Tongue? For an instant she was even more annoyed—then she realized what Lyseira was seeing. She squinted, peering past the pulsing spell to the door itself, and saw markings.

  A triangle was carved into the stone, its tips capped to form smaller triangles in each of its corners. The entire shape encompassed a cross. Beneath was a line of First Tongue script, caked with dirt. Lyseira scrubbed at it with the corner of her blanket.

  "Safe... hold?" she read, "of the Faithful."

  "Safehold?" Angbar echoed from behind them.

  "Let those who are... guided, and those who have..." She leaned in, peering. "Come before... find rest in the arms of Akir."

  Seek the safehold. Syntal felt faint, as if she suddenly stood atop a mountain peak.

  It doesn't mean anything, she told herself. How could this be what Lar'atul had meant? He said to seek it, not stumble across it by accident.

  But I didn't stumble across it, she realized. The beacon flared, rippling with insights. I didn't.

  He led me to it.

  "Syn," Angbar said. "Wasn't that what—?"

  She batted a hand at him, shushing. Her mind whirled. This was it? It was a place, not an idea?

  This was the safehold?

  "'In the arms of Akir,'" Lyseira repeated. "He brought us here." She released a breath, a long exhalation of relief that smoked upwards. "Oh, thank Akir. We're safe. He did this." She was smiling, tears in her eyes. "He did this."

  "Lyseira," Helix said, "we don't even know what this building is."

  "It's safety," she said. "It's a blessing from God."

  "How do we get in?" Angbar said.

  Syntal pushed her hands against the stone, experimentally. It slid inward so smoothly she nearly stumbled. A rush of warm, stale air rolled over her.

  Within, the sliver of light from the doorway fell across a book.

  It rested on a stone pulpit, facing the door. It was unmarked, its cover bound in black leather, sealed with an unbroken band of metal. Sparks flickered in its pages like lightning behind storm clouds.

  "A Church entry," Lyseira breath
ed. "It has to be. I wonder—"

  "It's no holy book," Syntal whispered. Not to you. She stepped in, and her shadow fell over it.

  "Syn," Helix murmured. "That looks like your book."

  She ran a finger over the cover, her heart in her throat. Another book? Why? The first one had brought the Storm. By opening it, she had changed the sun. Something inside her screamed for caution, begged her to let someone with more wisdom make this decision.

  "Salgo," she whispered at the band. Nothing happened.

  "Syn," Angbar said. "Do you think Lar'atul put it here?"

  She focused her spellsight on the band. There was a truth there that made no sense, a command from the Pulse she would never have guessed.

  It was alive.

  What does that mean? Her mind reeled. Alive? How? It was a piece of metal.

  "Enough," Seth said tightly. "Leave it." Suddenly he was next to her. "It's a witch's book." He grabbed it, made to wrest it away.

  "Ves," Syntal snapped.

  A flash of white sparked from her finger, hurtling into the band like a knife. The metal died with a whispered shriek only she could hear. It fell open.

  And the Pulse roared.

  Colors exploded from the book, thrashing upward. The walls quaked with panic; the air trembled and screamed.

  Outside, the meadow rippled an unearthly orange. Above, a blue bolt ripped away to the east.

  Then the sky detonated with lightning. It flashed every color known. It flashed colors that had been forgotten. It lanced through the clouds and shattered the sky, strobing the forest floor with madness.

  Epilogue

  An excerpt from "Musings: A Commentary on the Kespran Chronicle," by Angbar Shed'dei

  I've been asked if we knew what the lightning meant. "You must have," people say. It's too frightening to imagine that such incredible things could happen in ignorance. People want order, they want things to make sense. They want to believe things happen for a reason.

  We tried to figure it out. We fought, of course. Seth was furious. All of us were terrified, but to this day, I think none of us were more frightened than he was.

  Opening the second seal changed everything in ways we couldn't even conceive of, but when the Storm ended, the world looked as it always had. It was more real, more vibrant. As beautiful as Syntal's eyes. But fundamentally, it was still the world we knew, and our situation hadn't changed. We didn't have time to figure out what the Storm meant. We were still starving and cold and lost. We had to find a way to survive, so we explored.