A Lair of Bones

by Helen Scheuerer

  Roh paused at another story she knew well. ‘Uniir the Blessed defeated Asros at The Dawning, which is what they used to call this tournament.’ The carving displayed Uniir’s proud, imposing figure, standing between the goddesses Dresmis and Thera, their wings outstretched, as though sheltering the cyren king, protecting him. From what Ames had told Roh and the others over the years, Uniir had been a fanatic. His obsession with Lamaka’s daughters was evident in Saddoriel’s temples, and the statues of the deities scattered around all sectors of the lair.

  ‘Peace didn’t last long with him, then?’ Odi asked, standing before another well-known scene.

  The Scouring of Lochloria. Roh had read about it as a younger fledgling and had badgered Ames endlessly for more information. However, unlike her other quests for knowledge, Ames did not support this one. In fact, he refused to speak of that time, other than to call it ‘one of the darkest periods in cyren history’.

  Roh shook her head. ‘It did not,’ she answered Odi. ‘Decades before his reign began, rumours spread that water warlocks were gaining too much power in Talon’s Reach. Many of them left, thinking it safer to return to Lochloria. In one of his fanatical rages, Uniir claimed that water-warlock magic was unnatural, that warlocks were cyrens who had never fully matured. According to him, it was Dresmis and Thera’s will that Uniir rid the realm of them, so the hunting of water warlocks began.’

  ‘He killed them?’

  Roh nodded. ‘He sent the cyren army to wipe their kind from the world.’

  ‘That’s insane.’

  ‘From what Ames told us, Uniir believed he was reclaiming Lochloria for Dresmis and Thera, ridding their sacred home of the unworthy.’

  Odi swore.

  Roh pressed on, the facts coming to her quickly now. ‘In the past, Talon’s Reach was far bigger and its passageways full of life. Thanks to Uniir, our kind split into distant clans.’

  ‘He wiped out an entire race and split up his own people?’ Odi was wide-eyed with disbelief.

  ‘He did.’

  ‘That’s barbaric.’

  ‘That’s history,’ Roh corrected him. ‘Surely yours is just as bloody?’

  ‘No, I don’t think —’

  ‘I’ll wager it is exactly like this. History is just an ongoing violent exchange of power, whatever the cost.’ Roh stopped once more at a new series of mosaics. A pair of great wings spread wide before Uniir, a taloned hand clutching a double blade. ‘King Uniir opposed Delja’s entry into the tournament,’ she explained. ‘But somehow, she got through. And when she won, her wings sprouted. Then and there, Uniir dubbed Delja the descendant of Dresmis and Thera, and claimed his work in Saddoriel was done. He flung himself onto her blade, talking nonsense about making sacrifices to the gods.’

  ‘Really …?’

  Roh nodded. ‘Those who wish to pray to Dresmis and Thera are still free to do so. Cyrens still pay homage to them – they are our ancestors, after all. But those who wished to live by prayer rather than by the Law of the Lair left Saddoriel and joined the clan in Akoris. Apparently there, they still worship as Uniir the Blessed did.’

  ‘So your queen saved your kind?’

  ‘She became Delja the Triumphant for that.’

  Odi nudged Roh and she tore her eyes away from the carvings to see the competitors gathering at the far end of the passage. Their time in the Passage of Kings was at an end, it seemed.

  ‘The Triumphant?’ Odi asked. ‘Not Ramehra?’

  Roh shook her head. ‘When a cyren becomes ruler, the king or in this case, queen, drops their family name and adopts a title bestowed upon them by the Council of Elders.’

  ‘I see.’ Odi considered this before frowning at her. ‘I don’t know your family name.’

  Roh rubbed the bridge of her nose. ‘I don’t have one. No lowborns do.’ The bone cleaner, Rohesia … She was nothing in the face of the millennia of great cyrens and events that surrounded her. In the presence of the mighty rulers who had shaped their kind, she was a speck of dust merely to be wiped from the halls of history.

  The group of competitors began to move on and Roh craned her neck to see the back of Toril Ainsley’s head, leaning in close to Finn Haertel.

  What are they whispering about? She edged closer in time to see Yrsa elbow Zokez in the ribs, spurring him on.

  ‘Toril,’ he ventured. ‘Might you tell us about your time in the tournament?’

  Roh clapped a hand over her mouth, yanking on Odi’s shirtsleeve to bring him closer to the group. Of course the highborns had dared to ask such a question, for what could happen to them as a consequence?

  Toril’s nostrils flared and a taloned hand lifted to the burn that ran through the scales at her temple. Her eyes narrowed and she looked as though she were about to bite Zokez’s head off.

  ‘Please,’ Yrsa added. ‘We’ll likely not have the chance again to speak to a former competitor.’

  What? But Toril is a Jaktaren. Surely she speaks to Yrsa and Finn all the time?

  ‘Please, Toril,’ Finn implored beside Yrsa.

  Roh couldn’t contain her shock. Finn Haertel using manners? Did he hit his head somewhere?

  At this, Toril’s furious expression softened and she gestured for the group to follow her with a long-suffering sigh. Roh gathered this wasn’t the first time Toril had been badgered about her experiences. As they turned a corner, her voice carried down the tunnel.

  ‘I competed in the most recent Queen’s Tournament. Exactly fifty years ago. Some of you more mature cyrens may remember, I made it to the third trial.’

  Roh saw Estin and Arcelia nod.

  They turned another corner.

  ‘I was the crowd favourite against three others in this last trial,’ she continued. ‘It took us to the most savage parts of the seas – a challenge of speed and agility. I had taken the lead early and was a hair’s breadth away from the finish line, when one of my competitors gained on me suddenly.’

  Notes of music became louder as they moved down the passageway, but Roh and everyone else was hanging on Toril’s every word.

  ‘I knew that should she catch up, I no longer had the stamina to race talon to talon to the finish line. I had swum those particular currents before, and knew of something that lived amidst the coral on the seabed, something that might hinder her progress, should I manage to stir it into action. It was a risk,’ she admitted. ‘A risk I was willing to take for a chance to hold the coral crown as my own.’ Toril ran her talon down one of the ringed scars on her arm. ‘I dived down fast and deep … and awoke a reef dweller.’

  ‘Dresmis and Thera,’ Neith muttered in disbelief somewhere nearby.

  Roh resisted the urge to shush her.

  ‘It had camouflaged itself against the coral and I miscalculated its exact position. It shot up as if out of nowhere, its giant tentacles thrashing in all directions. I remember hearing my fellow competitor’s scream and feeling the briefest sensation of victory. That was until I realised my screams had merged with hers. The reef dweller had wrapped its tentacles around me as well, and its poison was eating through my skin.’ Toril paused and rotated her arms before the group, Roh flinching at the depth and breadth of those scars once more.

  ‘It even damaged my scales,’ she said, gesturing to the gruesome burn on her temple. ‘I can no longer communicate with other cyrens under water because of it … I nearly died. My fellow competitor did.’

  The silence was deafening.

  ‘Does that satisfy your curiosity?’ Toril asked flatly.

  No one spoke.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘We’re here.’

  They turned a final corner and music, brighter and clearer than ever, flooded the tunnel, emptying all thought from Roh’s crowded mind.

  ‘The Passage of Kings,’ Toril called, ‘is one of many entries to the queen’s music theatre.’

  Roh’s heart nearly froze mid-beat in her chest. She had dreamed of this place all her life, imagining what it would be like in the f
lesh.

  ‘Some of its newer additions,’ Toril said as they paused at a pair of elaborately embellished doors, ‘were designed by one of your fellow competitors.’ She dipped her head in acknowledgement to Estin Ruhne, who stood at the front of the group.

  Roh chewed her lip. As a kindness, Ames had shown her those designs, a demonstration of what true architectural prowess looked like. But seeing lines on a piece of parchment was wholly different to —

  The doors opened and Roh had no words. As she stepped inside the queen’s music theatre and the melody drifted up from the stage, she thought her chest would burst. The entrance opened out at the back of a small, exclusive tiered seating section that was nestled in the curved edge of the half-circle structure. It looked out onto an open, flat stage, where a harpist sat at the centre. But above … above was the true feat of genius. Rows and rows of curved balconies looked down onto the stage, the levels of seating climbing up until they disappeared into a beam of light. The banisters seemed to flow from one section to the next, horizontally and vertically, designed to mirror the crest and fall of the waves in the sea. Roh loosed a breath. The sheer magnitude of the structure made her little model back in the workshop seem like exactly that: a little model. Though she detested the renowned architect after her comments at the feast, Roh couldn’t help the begrudging admiration she still held for Estin Ruhne’s work. Could she separate the creator from the creation? The music theatre sang with an astounding sense of creativity that Roh knew in her heart she would never possess.

  ‘Our whole lair was enchanted by the ancient water warlocks so that the music reaches all corners of Saddoriel from wherever it is played,’ Toril explained from where she stood halfway down the aisle to the stage.

  Odi leaned in to Roh. ‘Again, their magic remains, but they do not?’

  ‘Their magic remains in a lot of places.’

  ‘So, cyrens took their magic and then annihilated their kind?’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ she hissed. ‘And yes. Have you learned nothing of Saddorien cyrens yet?’

  Odi’s expression became sullen, and to Roh’s relief, he turned away from her to face Aillard.

  Thank the gods for that, she thought, turning her own attention back to the music theatre. He was irritating her to no end. She wished that Harlyn and Orson could see this place, the place that housed the very life’s blood of Saddoriel, the music that was pumped to every major part of Talon’s Reach. The music that Queen Delja and her council enjoyed so freely, coming and going as they pleased. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to absorb as much of the song as she could, feeling it touch somewhere deep in her chest.

  ‘— were it not for my wife, back home.’ The snippet of conversation pulled her from her reverie. Wife?

  ‘Where is home?’ Odi was asking Aillard.

  The old man grinned. ‘We call it the fire continent.’

  Odi’s brows shot up. ‘You’re from Battalon?’

  Aillard tapped a finger to the side of his neck, where a lick of flame was inked. ‘This not proof enough?’

  Roh hadn’t noticed the marking before, but the human lands meant little to her kind. Her geographical lessons had been focused on the cyren territories, the currents of the seas and the coastlines above.

  Odi let out a low whistle. ‘Is what they say about those tattoos true?’

  ‘That depends, what do they say?’

  ‘Well, I’ve heard —’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Roh said. Didn’t they know that any personal information they made public could be used against them? Didn’t they know that one of these days they might come face to face with each other in a trial? Being friendly with the other competitors wouldn’t help their cause.

  ‘Come on, Odi,’ she said, finding her voice softening at the hurt in his eyes.

  They left the music theatre all too soon, before Roh could sink back into the cascading notes of the harp. Toril took them through a different exit that led to yet another passage. Roh had to admire the vast network of tunnels. They were a true feat of her kind and it was no wonder cyrens were born with an inner compass to navigate such labyrinths. Toril led the group, turn after turn, the path twisting around numerous sharp corners.

  One of the other humans crashed into Odi, sending him sprawling across the wet ground.

  ‘What in Thera’s —’ Roh’s words died on her tongue as she saw Finn clap his human heartily on the back.

  ‘In the dirt where you belong,’ Finn sneered, stepping over Odi dramatically, avoiding making contact as though the human had an infectious disease.

  ‘You bloody bastard.’ The words were out of Roh’s mouth before she had even thought to say them and they tasted like poison. Panic gripped her as what she’d said settled between her and Finn, his narrowed lilac eyes fixed on her. She had just cursed at a highborn … In defence of a human … What sort of consequences came with such an action?

  But it was the water runner, Neith, who broke the tension, as she struggled to help the much larger Odi up from the ground. She staggered under his weight, but eventually, the human was once more upright, brushing the clumps of dirt from his clothes.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Toril’s voice cut across them.

  ‘Nothing,’ Finn said, before stalking off after Yrsa.

  Roh caught Neith’s eye. ‘Thank you,’ she said, tugging Odi closer to her and checking him for visible signs of injury.

  Neith simply nodded and motioned for Aillard to follow her.

  ‘You alright?’ Roh asked Odi as they once more took up the rear of the group.

  ‘Yes. Fine,’ he said, gaze forward.

  Roh waited for him to meet her eyes, but he didn’t. After a moment, she straightened her shoulders and pressed on. ‘Good.’

  They said no more as they followed the others, with Roh silently willing the tour to be over. But as they pushed on and started to descend through the levels of Saddoriel, Roh realised that the tour was far from over. As they walked on, the delicate notes of music grew fainter and the passages became damper and darker. Roh knew this scent … The stale aroma of the Lower Sector and beyond.

  Her stomach churned with dread and the motive behind the tour became clear.

  She knew exactly where they were going next.

  A portcullis of bones, reinforced with iron, cast long shadows across the wet ground beneath Roh’s boots. Thick, rusted chains and heavy locks wrapped through its latticed grille, a solid wall of algae-covered stone standing either side. In contrast to the harsh, looming structures was a crawling plant of white oleander, its vines firmly wrapped around timber beams, its delicate flowers peppered across bone and iron alike. Roh’s skin prickled. Until now, she had never seen the official entrance to Saddoriel’s prison, the one that, for whatever reason, highborns and officials used. It was formidable; a warning to those who were condemned to its confinement that they would never pass through its gate again. Roh cast her gaze upwards, abstractly wondering how long those bones had guarded the most damned creatures of Saddoriel’s underworld. A long time, by the look of them. Centuries of dirt and grime coated them, and the chains looked like they had rusted in place permanently. Two guards manned the gate, dressed in formal black uniforms, leather whips coiled at their belts, backs to the stonework.

  Roh felt the eyes of her fellow competitors on her like a red-hot brand searing into her flesh and recalled Taro Haertel’s cruel words:

  ‘The offspring of such a beast in the dungeons is bound to share the same foul blood.’

  Toril Ainsley cleared her throat as she stood before the gate. ‘This here is the only cyren prison in all our territories,’ she said. ‘Once reserved for deserters of the Saddorien Army and prisoners of war from the Age of Chaos, it is now exclusively reserved for those who have betrayed the coral crown and the Law of the Lair. Prisoners from other cyren clans are brought here to face the consequences of their crimes. Part of our queen’s duty is to oversee and judge such atrocities.’

>   Toril pointed up, a black talon extended. ‘There you will find the prison records. Exactly who is imprisoned beyond these walls, and for how long.’

  Roh’s mouth went dry and she was filled with a premonition of dread. A stone slate hung from a spike hammered into the stone, its dark surface etched with the details. The hair on Roh’s arms and the back of her neck stood up. There it was, scratched into the slate in an old script, the name she didn’t want to see: CERYS. FIVE MILLENNIA.

  It was the longest sentence on the list, with no marking to indicate when it had begun. An icy shiver snaked down Roh’s spine. Knowing that cyrens generally only lived for two centuries, she had always shuddered at the symbolism of such a long punishment. Cerys must have been a true monster to deserve it.

  Though there was no family name to connect them, Estin Ruhne’s remarks from the feast were repeated in hushed tones and Roh heard her mother’s name on the lips of Toril Ainsley and the highborns.

  ‘I’ve heard it said that she is ancient, perhaps as old as Queen Delja.’

  Roh tried not to react as she reeled in shock at their whispers. Could it be true? She had no way of knowing. She realised too late that their lilac eyes were on her now, staring at the gold circlet around her head, the very thing that solidified her connection to this nightmarish place, the thing that marked her for what she was – the daughter of the longest-imprisoned traitor in cyren history.

  ‘So, not only are you the nestling of the Elder Slayer,’ sneered Zokez. ‘But you were actually conceived amidst this filth?’

  Roh had no retort, no answer but a furious flash of her talons. She let the shame wash over her in a burning wave. What could one say in response to such a truth?

  Rohesia the isruhe. Cerys the Elder Slayer.

  She had no defence for herself, nor for her mother’s actions all those centuries ago. But in that moment, all she could think of was the cell she knew best, somewhere behind that portcullis of bones. What most of the cyrens around her would never see: her incensed mother, hacking at her own hair with her talons, and the etchings of strange masks on the stone walls. In fact, there was only one person who had seen what she’d seen. Jaw and fists clenched, Roh turned to Odi, desperate for understanding.