Sunstone

by Freya Robertson

  He stilled, aware that something was happening. Beneath his feet, the ground seemed to vibrate with his heartbeat, but that couldn’t possibly be happening, could it? He could feel it though, a rhythmic pulse that sent a shiver up his legs and spine to the roots of his hair. It couldn’t be his own heart. Was it the pounding of feet from the crowd? No, it was too regular. But it was coming from inside the arena…

  He opened his eyes and raised his gaze to the skies. Crows wheeled above his head like black threads weaving the clouds together. Far above Heartwood, the mountain coughed up a plume of steam and a shower of ash rained down like snow. Nobody seemed to notice, however. He frowned, feeling his heart thud under his ribs, matching the beat beneath his feet. Something was happening…

  “Tahir.”

  He snapped to attention to see Demitto standing on his right, looking down at him, concerned.

  “Are you ready?” Demitto asked, raising his voice above the noise of the crowd.

  Tahir felt a pressure on his left and realised Catena stood the other side of him. In front, the Nox Aves waited expectantly, Manifred at the end, his gaze steady.

  Tahir nodded. “I am ready.”

  “I will be at your side the entire time,” Demitto said as they walked forward.

  “As will I,” said Catena. “My prince. I am so proud of you.”

  “Thank you,” Tahir whispered, his throat tight.

  They passed between the two lines formed by the Nox Aves. As he felt their respectful gazes on him, Tahir’s final fears fell away. He straightened and lifted his chin.

  They approached Manifred who stood in the doorway. Manifred nodded across the arena, and somebody must have signalled something inside because the crowd suddenly hushed. A deep bell sounded from the Nest’s tower, and at the same time, trumpets rang out across the town.

  Demitto on his right, Catena on his left, Manifred in front carrying a white flag embroidered with a silver oak tree, Tahir walked forward.

  The trumpets continued as he walked along the white carpet. To his left and right, he was aware of the stands rising in tiers, filled with hundreds of people who watched him, silent as the solemnity of the occasion finally reached them. To his right, King Varin and his queen sat on a raised dais at the front of the stands. Somewhere in the stands was Atavus, although he could not see him.

  All eyes were on him, and for the first time in his life, he became the focus of everyone’s attention. But he hardly noticed as his gaze fell on the reason for his visit to the city.

  Towards the back, the Arbor watched him approach.

  Tahir had not known what to expect of the tree. There were oaks all over Anguis, of course, including a large one in Harlton, and he had lain under it many times, staring up into its branches as he pondered on whether the Arbor looked anything like it.

  Now, he realised that had been like wondering whether a cupful of water looked like the ocean.

  The tree reared above him – above them all – its trunk so wide that five men linking their arms around it would not be able to make their hands meet. Its branches arched across the span of the arena, filled with glossy green leaves in spite of the fact that they were just coming out of The Sleep.

  But its size was not the only thing that made him hold his breath in awe. As he slowed and came to a halt where the carpet came to an end in the centre of the arena, the tree shivered, and once again he became aware of the slow, steady beat in the ground through his feet.

  It is the Pectoris, he realised with shock. The beat he could feel was from the Arbor’s own heart.

  The trumpets fell silent, and Manifred walked forward to a podium in front of the tree and turned to address the audience.

  “My friends,” he called, his voice ringing out across the lawn to the tiers, reaching the ears of those listening, enthralled. “We come here today to pay homage to the Arbor, and to offer it this year’s Selected as a token of our gratitude for its care and protection of Anguis and its people. We give thanks to Tahir, Prince of Harlton, for graciously giving up his life for us, and we recognise the solemn sacrifice he is making for the good of the land.”

  He continued on talking about King Varin’s graciousness in allowing them all to witness the ceremony, and then he opened the large book that lay on the podium, which Tahir realised was the Quercetum – the book that held the history of the last few thousand years of Anguis. He started to read out the names of all those Selected recorded in the pages.

  As Tahir listened to the names, once again the hushed whispers around the arena disappeared and even Manifred’s voice faded. At the same time, Tahir’s senses seemed to turn crystal sharp. He could feel Demitto on his right, Catena on his left, their combined presence giving him strength and courage. He could feel the light brush of flakes of ash on his skin as they floated down from the mountain. The ground rumbled, disturbing the steady heartbeat for a moment, but then it returned, stronger than ever, drowning out every other sound in the arena. Could nobody else hear it? He glanced around, but everyone seemed to be listening to Manifred, and Tahir knew he was the only one aware of it.

  His attention came back into focus again as he became aware that Manifred was concluding his speech. “…And Tahir, Prince of Harlton,” he read from the Quercetum, finishing off the list of Selecteds. He closed the book and rested a hand on it for a moment.

  This time, when the ground rumbled, everyone seemed to hear it. Demitto stiffened beside Tahir, and Catena muttered something beneath her breath. Tahir looked up at the emissary and saw his pulse beating rapidly in his throat. He remembered what Demitto had told Catena the previous night, about the arrival of the Apex, and his own heartbeat quickened.

  Manifred looked across at Demitto, and Tahir felt the emissary’s hand come to rest in the small of his back. The Nox Aves moved forward once again to form a walkway to the Arbor’s trunk. Demitto, Catena and Tahir walked between them towards the tree.

  Music spiralled around the arena, a haunting melody of a cappella voices, male and female. Tahir’s breath caught in his throat at their beauty, and he glanced around but could not see the source.

  “Who is singing?” he whispered to Demitto, his feet carrying him ever forward to the tree.

  Demitto bent closer and whispered in his ear. “It is the Arbor. It is calling you home, young prince.”

  His breathing quickened, and as he came to the end of the line of Nox Aves, he looked up and realised he stood beneath the Arbor’s branches.

  The Nox Aves withdrew. Demitto and Catena remained, as they had promised, a pace or two away.

  What was he supposed to do? He stood there, uncertain, waiting to be told. The voices rose around him, heart-rendingly beautiful.

  Something touched his shoulder. He looked, thinking it was Demitto’s hand, but to his shock saw it was a tree branch. It had dipped, and the leaves now brushed his upper arm affectionately.

  Breathless, he watched as the branch dipped lower and the leaves stroked his arm, gentle and persuasive at the same time.

  Something touched his foot, and he looked down to see that one of the tree roots had snaked across the ground and now curled around his ankle. The singing intensified, and as he looked up at Catena, he saw tears pouring down her face at the beauty of it.

  The tree tugged gently, and he walked forward, up to the trunk, and placed his hands on the bark. It felt rough beneath his fingers, but to his amazement it was warm. Beneath his fingertips beat the steady pulse of the Pectoris, in time with his own heart.

  Whispers echoed around the arena – or was it the rustle of the leaves above his head? He closed his eyes, feeling the roots wrap around him, pulling him close. He put his arms around the trunk and rested his cheek against the bark. The tree tightened its grip, and its sharp edges bit into his soft skin.

  Beside him, Demitto swore loudly, the curse ringing out across the quiet arena.

  Tahir opened his eyes, a small part of him wanting to laugh at the emissary’s irreverence. Bu
t the laughter faded at the sight of the sunstone in the pendant around Demitto’s neck glowing scarlet.

  Behind him, the King’s expression grew incensed at his ambassador’s disrespect. But at the same time, the crowd began to mutter and voices rose. Tahir followed their gazes and pointing fingers, craning his neck. He could just see, way up above them, a column of flame erupting from the peak of the mountain.

  The Arbor wrapped its roots tighter around him, and Tahir closed his eyes again.

  It begins, the Arbor whispered.

  III

  Comminor followed Geve and Sarra’s horrified gazes and saw the horizon spread with scarlet as the firebird rose in the sky.

  It was too far away for him to see in which direction it was flying. It was coming vaguely towards them, but he couldn’t be sure if it had seen them yet. Despair filled him. How could he protect her and the new shoot against something so powerful? If the firebird flew directly over them, he had no hope of stopping it from turning them all to ash with one blast of fiery breath.

  “We have to get her back to the Broken Room,” yelled Josse.

  Comminor hesitated, wishing he had made that decision earlier. He had thought he was doing the right thing, but now he realised he had just put all their lives in danger. He looked up the slope of the mountain, wondering if they could make it back there if they ran. But even as the thought entered his head, he knew the answer. “We would never make it in time,” he said. “It is too far.”

  The hope faded from everyone’s eyes, and frustration filled him. He had led them all for so long in the Embers, for years and years. Even though many had hated him, they had trusted him to keep them safe.

  In the distance, the firebird blasted the landscape with scorching heat. Dry dust rose in a sandstorm and swept over them, choking him, searing his lungs and stinging his eyes. He closed them against both the dust and the fear, his hand moving automatically to cover the pendant on his chest.

  What was he to do? Had he travelled this far, worked so hard, only to fall right at the end?

  Sarra’s cries filled his ears as she became gripped with another contraction. He wanted to move, to be at her side to comfort her and help her through this, but something made him remain where he was. His head was spinning. At first he’d thought it was panic confusing his senses, but as pressure built on his ears and the noises around him faded, he realised something was happening.

  He held his breath, holding one hand out in front of him as his balance failed and he swayed. He was vaguely aware of the dust blowing across his skin, of the faint cries of Sarra as if from far off in the distance, of the voices of the others rising as they argued about what to do. The world went quiet. His pulse echoed in his ears.

  Or was it his pulse? It was not just in his ears, he could feel it, like when he’d stood near the Magna Cataracta and felt the thunder of the water as it cascaded down the rockface. The regular, rhythmic beat pounded against his feet, shooting up through his legs and knees, into his hips and spine, until his bones seemed to vibrate with it, and his heart slowed to match the beat.

  He felt himself expand, his consciousness scatter like a handful of blown dust. For a brief moment, he became aware of the passage of time, of history, of the whole timeline of the world stretching back into the past. Suddenly he knew what the Arbor had seen when it was alive – how it had stretched through time and space, how it had known everything there was to see and hear and taste and smell.

  It is time, a voice whispered in his ear.

  He opened his eyes.

  The dust in the air before him shimmered silver the way it had in the ceremonial room. Those around him didn’t seem to notice. Betune and Amabil knelt by Sarra, holding her hands as she grimaced in pain. Geve stood arguing with Josse, looking like he was about to punch him at any moment. Nele, Paronel and Viel looked nervously through the dusty wind at the approaching firebird, seemingly unaware of anything else.

  Comminor blinked. Someone was singing. Above the rising bellow of the whirling wind, he could hear voices raised in song. He caught his breath at the beauty of it, not understanding the words, but the melody brought tears to his eyes. The mouths of those around him weren’t moving – at least certainly not in song. Who was it?

  The air glittered, glimmered. As in the ceremonial room, figures flickered, the barrier between times thinning, parting. He saw the faces he had seen before loom out of the darkness, then disappear again, the moment not quite ready, the time not quite right. He wanted to yell, to tear apart the fabric of time and let them through, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but stand there like a useless statue, his head spinning.

  He looked at his feet, his mouth opening as he stared at the green shoot. It had risen by a foot and now reached almost to his knee. The ground around it crumpled as its roots spread. The shoot waved in the breeze, growing even as he watched, trying so hard to establish itself.

  And then he glanced up at the horizon, and the hope faded, and his heart sank. It did not matter – the firebird loomed above the ground, approaching them at a fast pace. It had seen them. It would turn them all to cinders before the shoot could grow its first leaves.

  They were too late. The Apex wasn’t going to happen. Through time, everyone was coming together, trying to save the world, to save Anguis, and he was going to be the one who’d let them all down. A sob tore from his lips, but still he could not move.

  It was only gradually that he became aware that the pendant in his hand was growing hot. He glanced down at it, confused. The wood remained untouched, the faded deep brown it had always been. But inside it, the oval sunstone glowed as if it had been placed in a fire. He frowned, lifting it up before him, startled as the glow intensified. It burned red, then orange, then a bright yellow-gold, the light hurting his eyes so much that he had to avert his gaze as it brightened.

  He looked back up and saw Viel, Josse and Paronel staring at their own pendants, which also glowed a bright red-gold.

  Something rushed through him, not quite heat, not quite light, making his spine stiffen, his head tip back, his heart pound along with the beat that vibrated through his feet. A shaft of light shot out of the sunstone at the same time that the other three also ejected a beam, and the four rays joined and brightened, spreading above their heads in an arc of golden light.

  Everyone exclaimed, even Sarra, and they all stared in wonder at the dome above their heads. Comminor’s chest heaved, and he tried to keep calm, knowing this was meant to be – this was the Apex, happening exactly when it was supposed to happen.

  Above them, the firebird loomed, and it exhaled a wall of fire that swept over them. Heat scorched his skin, hot dust flurried around his face, but when it had passed, they all remained standing, protected by the dome of light.

  The firebird bellowed, its frustrated screech ringing out above the sound of the singing, and the dome above them flickered, although it didn’t break.

  “It is not enough,” Josse yelled. “It will not hold.”

  Comminor looked down at Sarra in despair. Her baby had led her here, and she had followed, full of hope that it was leading her to a better life. This couldn’t be the end of them all.

  He glanced at the seedling still growing by his side. It was a miracle – a new Arbor, born in this land of fire and darkness with the belief that it could grow and conquer the Incendi elementals. He couldn’t bear to think he had failed it. He had dreamed for so long of its shining leaves, of the sun and the sky.

  But what could he do about it?

  The singing grew louder, insistent, haunting, distracting him from the view, in spite of the imminent danger.

  He closed his eyes, and in his mind, a picture formed of his room in the Embers. In the middle, on the table, rested the Quercetum, open to reveal the stories of the past, of Teague and Tahir and all the others, of those who had died to give the Arbor life.

  He remembered the paragraph written all those years ago by Oculus, the man who had begun th
e Quercetum, who had been responsible for originally building the Temple around the Arbor in the ancient town of Heartwood.

  “‘The Arbor brings life, but it also brings death. Because essentially life is about balance. What is given in one way has to be taken in another. It is all a cycle – everything lives, and dies, and lives again. For there to be light, there has to be darkness. For there to be day, so equally there has to be night. And to create, we have to destroy. This and this alone lies at the heart of the Arbor’s place in the world.’”

  Yes… whispered the tree, the singing dying away.

  Comminor opened his eyes. “A sacrifice,” he whispered.

  It barely sounded above the noise of the flapping firebird, the howling wind and the cries of Sarra, who strained again with another contraction. He clenched his hands in frustration, knowing what had to be done, urging himself to move. But he seemed frozen in place, his feet nailed to the ground, unable to do anything but let the sunstone draw energy from him to cast the dome above their heads.

  And then he looked up and met Geve’s eyes. He saw immediately that Geve had heard him, and that he understood.

  Josse continued to argue, but Geve fell silent, and he nodded.

  “I am sorry,” Comminor said, meaning it, but Geve shook his head.

  “We all have a part to play,” he said.

  Josse stared at him in confusion. “What?”

  Geve ignored him and came forward to stand by the seedling, in the middle of the rays of light beaming from the four sunstones.

  Sarra stared at him. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  He looked down at her and smiled. “Good luck with the baby.”

  Sarra’s eyes widened. She looked up and met Comminor’s gaze and tried to struggle to her feet, but at the same time a contraction gripped her and she doubled over, crying out in physical and emotional pain. “Do not go,” she sobbed, reaching out towards him, but he turned away.

  Instead, he met Comminor’s gaze. “Look after her,” Geve said, and Comminor nodded.