The Crystal Heart

by Sophie Masson

  I did my duty. I stood by my father’s side at ceremonial occasions and inclined my head to the right people at court. I smiled and I spoke the right words. But it was all hollow. In my heart there was a longing that ate away at me like a sickness nothing could heal.

  And it was noticed. There were important folk who smiled and smiled when I first returned, but who later began to whisper that I was tainted. The fact I was a half-blood did not matter so much in the old days, before the war between Night and Krainos. Although peace was restored, suspicions that had built up over long years remained. And this was compounded by the fact that, in their eyes, my feyin half had been permanently diluted by too long a stay in the world of humans. This was proven, they said, by the fact that the small amount of magic that was beginning to be mine again after I left the Tower had ebbed away completely. Because of this, I was apparently not truly feyin. And the number of malcontents was growing.

  My maid Glarya – my only true friend since poor Fela’s death last year – told me what she had heard amongst servants to the nobility. Their masters whisper that perhaps I should be cast out for the good of Night, though they did not dare say so in public. But I knew the time would come if we were not careful. I knew Father watched me, longing for signs that my feyin nature would return to silence the critics. As his only child, the throne would one day pass to me. Yet it was more than that. I knew he loved me and wanted to protect me from those who would wish me harm. But he could not protect me forever. Eventually, he would have to choose between his power and me. Whatever choice he made, it would put him in danger. If he chose me, he would face open revolt. If he chose his power, he would have to wear the dishonour of an outcast daughter, and that would weaken him as a ruler, putting an end to any possibility that he could pass the throne to me …

  And that was why I agreed to do what he had been asking of me for such a long time – to marry the Erlking’s son. Father said it was the only way I could be kept safe, and the only way to preserve the throne. I think he also hoped it might repair the tradition that was broken when he followed his own heart and chose my mother instead of the Erlking’s sister. If I married a feyin lord, my children would be more feyin than me, and the doubters would be silenced.

  For a long time I refused the marriage, holding fast to the hope that Kasper would escape and find his way to me. By day I clung to my sweet memories, and at night I slept with Tales from the Forest under my pillow, as though it would bring him back to me. Nothing was impossible, I thought then. We had proven that once before.

  But when the crystal heart turned to dead rock, I knew that our connection was broken. I did not know why. Yet even when hope fled I had the solace of memory, and that gave me strength to resist. All that remained was the knowledge that this was my fate and all I could hold on to was the resolution that I would meet it as bravely as I could. So the dream last night can have no meaning. It was already too late.

  Kasper

  For hours, I paced around my cell. I knew I needed to plan, but I could not settle enough in my thoughts to do so. As to writing anything down, it was impossible and far too dangerous. After dinner I lay down and tried to calm myself, but all I got was a headache. I soon gave up the struggle and spent the last few hours of the night at my table, crafting a few clay whistles and pipes that would supplement the money I was to be given, if indeed that happened at all.

  As my fingers shaped the clay into fanciful shapes, I could feel my pulse slowing and my head clearing, thoughts no longer whirling like uncontrollable tops in my mind. Gradually, I was able to begin reviewing calmly – or as calmly as was possible – the situation I had so suddenly been thrust into. I picked up the crystal shard from the corner of my cell where it had lain for months. I brushed off the thick layer of dust and, as I looked at it, I suddenly had an image of Izolda standing there in the clearing, her fist clenched around the crystal heart. And a question I hadn’t asked myself in a long while came to my mind. The pendant had been her mother’s – the only thing Izolda had possessed from home. She had worn it all those long years in the Tower. Why break it and give half to me?

  When I still believed in our love, I had told myself it was to show that we were two halves of a whole – and though our hearts were broken apart, we would one day be whole again. I thought Izolda had been under her father’s spell of silence and that this had been her only way of telling me she’d always love me. Later, after belief had left me, I simply hated it as something that had belonged to her. I would have ground it into dust if I’d had any way of doing so, for it was hard as diamond and impossible to crush under my boot. Later, still, I simply ignored it. There was no sense or meaning to it, as there was no sense or meaning to all that had happened.

  But now I was not so sure. There was some meaning to it, though not the one I had so naively believed. Izolda had not loved me, not in the way I had imagined. In fact, she had betrayed me. But why would you break a precious object and give it to someone you have just betrayed? As a pathetic attempt at apology? As the parting condescension of a high-born lady to a social inferior? Or because it was a gesture that cost nothing? That was it, I thought, with a sharp pang, remembering the photograph of her I’d seen in the newspaper over a year ago. There she’d been, smiling by her father’s side, looking impossibly beautiful and without a trace of anxiety. There was no sign that she was unhappy, no sign of sad memories. She had forgotten me.

  I let out an angry curse, crushing the clay whistle in my hands. What was I doing, dwelling on such futile things? It would only make me weak. I had to be strong. I had to become a machine, thinking of nothing but my goal – the death of the Prince of Night.

  When they came for me in the early hours of the morning, I was still awake. The guards raised their eyebrows when they saw the little row of figures I’d made. ‘You intend to become a millionaire in your new prison, do you?’ the nicer one amongst them joked.

  ‘Just thought it might be of help to have more to trade,’ I said, shrugging. I packed my wares in my bundle of possessions.

  The guard smiled. ‘Well, why not? Come on, then, the van’s waiting.’

  The Commander had said I’d be given my necessaries today, but there was no sign of them. What if this wasn’t a real mission, but some sort of cruel joke? Or a trap? What if I was simply being led out to my death? I tried to still the doubts and questions that agitated in my mind. Whatever it was, I had no way of stopping it or of changing my fate in any way. I could only go on my pre-ordained track, a creature without rights or will, obliged to follow whatever it is they had set out for me.

  We emerged from the prison into an open courtyard. It was still dark outside, with the grey light of dawn only just beginning to lighten the sky. During my two years in the prison, I’d only ever seen glimpses of the sky in the exercise yard where I was allowed to go for ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes in the afternoon. Out here it looked astonishingly big, and I could not help shaking at the emotion it roused. ‘It’s cold out here.’

  ‘That it is, Bator,’ said the guard. ‘You’ll be nice and cosy in your sardine tin, unlike us sitting on the bum-freezer outside.’ He laughed, his breath fogging in the chill.

  The van was just as the guard had described – a metal box painted black, with no windows and only a couple of narrow slits for ventilation. It was secured on the tray of a large sturdy cart that was pulled by two huge horses. I clambered in and sat in a corner while one of the guards locked the door, shutting me in the dark. I heard them outside, settling themselves on the wooden driver’s seat of the vehicle. In the next instant, the van jerked with a grinding of metal as the horses started up.

  Slowly, the horses advanced at a steady pace. As the dawn broke and the early spring day began, the small band of light at the ventilators grew brighter and I could see my hand in front of my face. There was not a trace of the necessary papers I had been promised. I tried to think only of small things, to still the panic that was again bubbling in my thr
oat.

  Bang! The van shook violently, sending me flying. Outside, I heard yells. Shots were fired. Scrambling to my feet, my heart pumping so fast it felt as though it would leap out of my chest, I flung myself at the door. It did not give, and for a moment I thought I was trapped. Then the lock rattled, the door was flung open and a figure in a black hood, with holes cut out for eyes, stared in at me. For a flicker of an instant, I looked directly into a pair of hard blue eyes.

  The figure threw a knobbly bundle at me, and hissed, ‘Get going.’

  I did not wait to be told twice. I tumbled out of the van, clutching the bundle I’d been given as well as the one I’d brought with me from the prison. A quick glance showed me the guards were much too busy trying to fight off five or six hooded bandits to notice me. The ambush had happened on a narrow stretch of the road overhung with densely growing trees, and into this cover I dived. One last look behind me revealed the man who’d let me out locking the door of the van again.

  There was no time to lose. Racing through the forest, I stumbled several times but kept going until I judged I was far enough from the ambush site to take a breath and check what they’d given me. Inside the bundle was a pair of steel-capped boots, a purse and a map. Attached to the map was a note: Papers in waterproof container under inner sole of right boot. I checked, gently lifting up the inner sole of the shoe. Just as the note said, there was a small flat package there. Extracting it, I found it contained several very fine sheets of rice paper, each covered in numbers. I saw the title of one of them: Navy positions. It was enough. Replacing the sheets under the sole, I kept reading the note: Needle case, identification and money in purse. Destroy this note as soon as you’ve read it. All these sentences had been typewritten. But underneath was an angular handwritten scrawl: Good luck.

  The banal little phrase was a human touch I hadn’t expected from the ruthless man who’d sent me here. Ripping the note into tiny pieces, I stamped it into the muddy ground. I looked at the map. It had been torn from some atlas or directory, and it showed the region of Katena. There was a faint dot at one place, and I realised it was the place where we’d been ambushed. From that, and taking my bearings according to the sun, I soon worked out the direction in which I must walk. I could not go back to the highway; that was much too dangerous. I’d have to follow my nose, and the map, through the woods till I found another exit close to Katena.

  Pulling on the boots, I discarded my old shoes, and left behind most of my other effects. I kept the little clay figures in their box, though, for they might come in handy before I reached the mines. Fortunately, my prison garb was not out of the ordinary, being of rough-spun dark wool, pretty much identical to what any labourer might wear. My prison crew-cut was just long enough now to pass muster, too. Meanwhile, my prison pallor could easily be dealt with by a couple of smears of mud.

  The identification document – an internal passport – was for a certain Vazily Adamak, a native of a region to the west of the White City. It was famous both for its spicy blood sausage and for the way its inhabitants slurred their r’s instead of rolling them. It was an easy accent to mimic. Vazily was apparently a labourer, a useful catch-all, and was aged twenty-two, a year older than my real age. There was no other information, and the characteristically blurry black-and-white photograph showed a gaunt-faced, dark-haired young man that could easily have been me. It was perfect. I could make up everything else, and as I hurried through the forest, I rehearsed to myself a few random stories that would help to make Vazily a real presence, or real enough to pass at the mines.

  I had not been in the woods for two years. And yet its ways and knowledge slipped over me again like they had never left me. And the pleasure of it grew with every passing moment, despite my haste. In the woods, I was in a place that felt like home. If I survived this, I thought, I would build a cottage deep in the woods somewhere far away and live there alone in the solace of the greenwood. If an image of those weeks with Izolda in the cottage in the woods slipped into my mind, I was quick to dismiss it. I would never love again. It brought nothing but suffering. Living alone, surrounded only by the trees and the wild creatures of the woods, was the only way a man could be content.

  It was well into the afternoon when I finally reached Katena. From the edge of the woods, I plunged onto the narrow road that led to the gates of the town. Katena is not a pretty town, but it is a large and busy one these days, for it is the centre of the salt trade, with a large saltworks where the blocks coming from the mines are processed. Slipping through the heaving crowds, I soon found my way to the Mines Employment Office.

  After a quick glance at my identification and a couple of desultory questions, the clerk had me sign in on a list for the next day’s roll-call. I had apparently arrived at a good time, for a new work party was being gathered on the morrow. I was to turn up at six o’clock sharp the following morning, ready to head straight to the mines if required. The clerk added that if I wanted to have even a hope of being selected, I should make sure I had a sturdy pair of steel-capped boots, a helmet with an in-built torch, and a pair of leather gloves.

  I departed at once in search of the items I lacked. They cost a good deal more than I had hoped and, in fact, more than I had been given. But I had to have them, so I pulled out one of my clay pipes. ‘Er, what about if I add this in as well?’

  The shopkeeper took the pipe and turned it over, looking at it this way and that. He finally grunted, ‘Very well. This will do.’

  By then I had no money at all and was still in need of food and shelter for the night. I was ravenous, and the exhaustion of a sleepless night and the race through the forest was telling on me now. I went around looking for establishments where kind faces might be spotted. And though Katena is not noted for its generosity, I eventually found a landlady who took pity on me and allowed me a bed in a small cosy room. She fed me a hearty stew, fresh dark bread and a foaming mug of beer for a late lunch, all for three of my clay whistles.

  ‘My grandchildren will love these,’ she said, her eyes twinkling. When she heard I was going off to try my luck at the roll-call the next day, she said, ‘Look, lad, I’ll throw in a cheese pie for breakfast as well, for you have to stand around an awful long time while those ones make up their mind.’

  Her simple kindness nearly undid me. I murmured my thanks and fled to my room, where I lay down on the bed, intending only to close my eyes for a minute or two. But when I opened them again, it was dark and the taproom below resounded with cheerful noise. I ate my dinner in a dim corner, half-listening to the conversations of the inn’s patrons, many of whom seemed to be miners on leave.

  From things I overheard it appeared that, since the reopening of the mines, thousands of men who had previously been forced to leave their native Krainos to seek work had been able to find employment at home again. Katena was booming and so was Krainos, generally. It sounded like the work was hard and the conditions perilous, but the pay was good. Once, I really pricked up my ears, as I heard them speak about the Prince of Night. Turned out it was his administration that set the pay levels, as part of his agreement with our government.

  ‘Say what you will,’ one burly fellow in a grubby coat expounded to his mates. ‘That Night Prince might be a feyin but he’s not a skinflint like our lot. Left up to them Supreme Council, we’d be paid a pittance!’

  ‘I’ve heard it said that it’s his daughter who persuaded the Prince to do that,’ said another man, earnestly.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ another chimed in. ‘With a face like an angel, she’s bound to have a kind heart.’

  ‘Not to mention a very tasty figure,’ said the first man, with a wink. ‘Wouldn’t mind that in my arms, eh?’

  ‘Not that you’d live to tell the tale, Yann,’ said his friend, smiling. ‘Even if you ever managed to get into that place, a look even sideways at her and that dear papa of hers would have you hung, drawn and quartered.’

  The first man laughed. ‘True enough. Mor
e than your life’s worth to try and steal a kiss in that quarter!’

  I had stopped eating, my fist clenching my knife. The red mist was swimming in front of my eyes and my guts churned with a wild rage that nearly sent me surging to my feet. Controlling myself with difficulty, I swallowed the bile that had risen in my throat, and forced myself to take deep breaths as the miners’ conversation turned to safer matters. What was wrong with me? Izolda meant nothing to me. Then why did I feel like this? Why did I want to batter that man senseless, just for a few off-colour remarks? I had to get a grip on myself, or my mission would certainly fail.

  Kasper

  It was five o’clock on a raw morning, my head still thick with sleep. Low cloud hung over the town as I hurried through the streets to the Mines Employment Office. I had not slept well, despite my tiredness. Jumbled dreams had disturbed my rest. In one of them I was a bird flying in thick darkness, knowing I was lost and would never find my way home. I had woken with tears running down my cheeks. It was the first time in months that I’d had any kind of dream, and like the uncontrollable feelings that had surged through me yesterday, they frightened me because of what they might mean.

  Reaching the mines office, I found that there was already a long queue of men stamping their feet and rubbing their hands to keep warm in the chill of dawn, and my heart sank. Well, there was nothing for it but to wait and to hope the recruiter’s eye might light upon me. While I waited, I studied the people around me. They spanned the spectrum of age and physical appearance: big, small, wiry, broad, blond, dark, from very young to middle-aged. Some even had a foreign appearance – I spotted two Ruvenyans, for instance, wearing their characteristic fur hats, and a man wearing the embroidered waistcoat of a herder from the Almainian Mountains. Several of them seemed to know each other, and listening to their talk, I realised that some of them had already worked shifts in the mines.