Stain

by A. G. Howard

  The two had materialized behind a Nerezethite banner; an emblem’s silver seams showed through on the back of the shimmery black fabric: a large star along with a crescent moon and three smaller stars. Overhead, crisscrossed slats formed a roof. Light from outside painted Lyra and Luce in blocks of violet gold. She threw a grateful glance to Luce who still winced from the bitter, metallic flavor that coated their tongues and made their throats itchy. He had insisted she wear her lacewing cloak for protection, in case they ended up in the midst of a thorn thicket. Considering the soft glow that warmed her face through the nightsky mask—much like the sun at the Crystal Lake—he’d been wise to do so.

  Glimpses of meadows and gardens showed through the trellis at their backs. A floral-scented breeze wafted in and tugged the hem of her cape, carrying the sounds of birds, horses and cattle, waterfalls and gurgling brooks. Her senses . . . her heart, they brimmed full, savoring this flavor of life—everywhere. It was beautiful. Thousands of fireflies drifted like glimmering dust motes along the roof and outside, reminding Lyra of the dance she and Scorch had shared so long ago beneath a rainfall of cinders. Though in truth, she’d been dancing with a prince . . . her betrothed, and neither had known it. She hoped they’d get the chance to relive that moment. A pang of worry echoed within her like the gong of a warning bell.

  She oriented herself; the fireflies were insects, not sparks of flame shaken from a Pegasus’s mane. She’d read about the arboretum in one of the prince’s notes earlier while waiting for Luce to return. Vesper had explained how the manufactured daylight nourished spring flowers and fall harvests, yet also rationed out sickness to certain members of Nerezeth’s populace. She hadn’t expected to land in that very place, inside a latticed bower.

  So, where is he? She turned to Luce with the question. Her hands froze in midair as the breeze caught a corner of the banner and revealed the dais in the center of the enclosure. She pushed Luce aside for a better view.

  No. Her breath caught.

  The prince was all but a statue now, laying upon a bed of twigs and petals. But that wasn’t him, not truly. As both the man and the Pegasus, he was stalwart, alert, wise, and witty. To see him so silent . . . so immobile . . . provoked a tearing sensation behind Lyra’s sternum. A large luminary reflected a celestial pattern along his golden face—high cheekbones, full lips, and strong chin. The bright stars dimmed as they crossed the only flesh that remained dark, soft, and flexible upon his forehead and nose. Guilt pricked anew when she realized what she had seen in the moon-bog: the glittering flash beneath the shreds of his shirt had been his chest surrendering to his infected blood. His heart and lungs couldn’t be far behind. If she’d only stayed, he would never have come to this state.

  Eyes hot and stinging, she started forward, swiping the flag aside so she might reach him—to touch his nose, to search for the warm rush of breath.

  A snap of wind shoved her back and flung the flap into place in front of her.

  “Stay hidden.” Luce’s whisper tickled her ear.

  We don’t have time! Lyra shouted with her hands. But Luce had already abandoned his bag on the floor next to her feet and shifted from corporeal to ethereal. He may be two breaths from death and you’re flying about like a summer breeze.

  “He’s not. He’s under a spell of preservation.”

  Though the explanation gave her hope, she had to force herself to wait, to allow him to think strategically for her, since in this moment her emotions ruled.

  She squinted, trying to keep track of her sylphin accomplice’s movements. It was like watching the atmosphere itself—that combination of sunlight and water when the beams splintered apart to craft the sheerest rainbow, except this rainbow was shaped like a man—barely discernible except to those who knew how to seek life in hidden places.

  “Don’t make a sound.” Luce’s coaxing voice trailed upward, indicating his rise to the domed roof. The fireflies parted for him. “You’re about to have company.”

  Through the slats, Lyra caught sight of two women being escorted by guards and attendants a few steps from the entrance. One she recognized as Vesper’s sister, and the other Lyra’s false counterpart, judging by the nightsky draped over her lacy orchid gown. A long, flowing train encrusted with pearls and gems showed beneath the cape’s hem. Only a princess bride would wear something so glittery, so splendorous.

  Lyra thought upon the regal rags beneath her own cape.

  This was the cousin who’d so callously taken part in a scheme to murder her and steal her throne—endangering both her kingdom and Vesper’s, not to mention Vesper himself. Lustacia. The name tasted pungent on Lyra’s silent tongue. Her entire body twitched, impatient to confront her. Yet how does one face a past without any prior memory to stand upon?

  Lyra couldn’t even picture her rival’s face. It was impossible to see clearly through the nightsky, which formed a mask. Lustacia and Selena spoke as if they were old friends. Lyra wondered if Vesper had shared portions of the letters her cousin had written in her name. Lyra itched to expose every lie. She owed her cousin all that she’d given Erwan earlier—and more.

  An angry heat climbed her cheeks and a new batch of shadows she’d never met—those that darkened the outline beneath the prince’s dais—hedged closer while staying outside the patchwork of light.

  “Not yet,” Luce murmured from above. His airy presence stirred some anchor webs and their spiders. “We don’t want to draw attention until you’ve healed your donkey . . . prince.” He amended the latter to appease Lyra’s scowl. “Defeat his curse, and no one can deny you’re his destiny and Eldoria’s true heir. We must have irrefutable proof to countervail your cousin’s prophetic characteristics—the ones you’re missing. The ones they’ve already seen and heard in her.”

  The ones she stole, Lyra mimed. Teeth clenched, she directed the shadows to stand down . . . to wait. They shrank back obediently. Luce swept outside, encircling both Selena’s and Lustacia’s forms like a gust of wind before returning.

  “Your imposter yearns to walk through the wildflowers,” her invisible companion whispered, so close his breath pressed the nightsky to Lyra’s face. “Like you, she’s been hidden away so long, she’s missed being outdoors and visiting Eldoria’s royal garden. I’ll lure her over to pick a bouquet, and encourage the entourage to follow for her protection. However, I sense her desire to see the prince is greater than her need for fresh flowers, so I’m not sure how long it will hold. I’ll get you as much time as I can.”

  With that, he left again. There was a flapping of hems, tunics, capes, and surcoats, then the entire party veered to the left where red, yellow, and blue wildflowers bobbed in the distance beneath a grove of elms. Once only their backs could be seen, Lyra leapt from behind the banner. She carefully cleared a path through the spiders and asked the shadows to keep watch. Pulse racing, she stepped forward—fearing the burn and singe that awaited her flesh and blood . . . more frightened than she’d ever been, even when she’d first lost her identity and stormed a bog to save a winged horse.

  The dais came to her waist. She knelt, her hands trembling as she held her thumb in front of Vesper’s nose. As his faint breath warmed her skin, she sighed in relief. Her hand lowered to smooth the thick tangles spread around his head—only the ends remained dark and untouched by the brittle golden plague, and those were every bit as soft as Scorch’s mane.

  Vesper . . . Can you hear me? she asked of his mind.

  No answer.

  She’d read several notes in the tunnel, and her respect for his human side had grown. How lovingly he described his family and his people; how much he hurt for the ill, especially the children; his affection for his world and all the creatures in it—from the lowliest cricket, to the brumal stags that were enchanted to share his thoughts and guard the hidden borders, to his horse, Lanthe, a precious gift from his father; his hopes for Eldoria and Nerezeth to thrive in peace once they came together under the same sky. All this, along with poetic d
reams of a future with his bride . . . so many facets from a man with only half a heart. Now that he was whole, she could only imagine his capacity to love, to reason, to rule. He could teach her so much about being a sovereign. But first, he needed to live.

  I know who you are. Lyra made another attempt at mind-speak. I’ve looked with my heart, and I see you. And I know who I am, but you do not. I’m the true Princess Lyra. Upon your awakening, all will be made clear. For now, just know I’m fighting for you, and you must fight to live no matter how much this may hurt. I don’t know what will happen . . . how we’re to unite the sun and moon, what it will take out of us. But I intend to survive, and you must as well. For your people, for your family. And for that little orphan girl who adores her Pegasus and misses squabbling with him. Will you do that?

  His flaxen eyelashes twitched and his eyes rolled beneath their metallic lids. Though she wished to see those expressive eyebrows punctuate his thoughts, they were now as pale and stiff as his lashes and hair; this was all the answer she would get, and it would have to be enough.

  Looking over her shoulder, she formulated a plan. She hadn’t considered she might save the prince in a place where sunlight and flowers already abounded. Where would she release the reserves, should she be able to drain him of his curse? If she tried to liberate it here in the arboretum, the sunlight would be magnified, which could hurt the Nerezethites.

  Outside the iron door and walls awaited the snowy tundra, a world devoid of sunlight and flowers. A land thirsting for life and warmth. Though she’d never seen it, she’d heard tales. That was her destination. She glanced through the shrine’s latticework. The way out across the footbridge and through the iron door must be hundreds of footsteps at least. Could she make it that far while wrestling exhaustive pain?

  No more time to debate; she sat on the dais edge, close enough she could bow her head to the prince’s without quite touching. Twigs and moonflowers poked her thighs through her clothes. She waited for the nightsky fabric to encompass them both, like it had her and Luce’s hands on the banks of the lake. In dark, velvety increments, the penumbra crept from her to Vesper, binding them until nothing stood between their skin but clothing, as if they were encapsulated by a bubble of black soot. Everything outside became distant and hazy.

  Carefully, she pushed up his tunic’s furred cuffs to reveal his golden wrists and forearms. The place where she left her handprint in the moon-bog now blended with the rest of his metallic shell, as if they’d never connected. A lump rose within her throat, her regret for abandoning him in the bog unbearable now.

  She pressed her fingertip to that healthy swatch of skin between his eyebrows, wanting just once to experience no sunlight between them. No barriers or pain. He felt warm, soft, and giving. The skin trembled beneath her fingertip, as if he sensed her and struggled to furrow his brow.

  She leaned her forehead to his and touched noses. Upon contact with the golden shell, a slow-burning heat simmered beneath her flesh, starting at her head and spreading along her chest to her arms and feet. But it wasn’t enough . . . the plague clamped tighter around him, hardening his nose even as hers touched it, as if it meant to devour him before her eyes.

  No.

  She would have to devour it instead.

  Though it made her heart thunder to entertain such an intimate move, the prince didn’t have time for indecision or timidity. She closed her eyes, cupped both sides of his face, and pressed their lips together. An invasion of liquid flame scalded her mouth and tongue, sucking the breath from her lungs, yet in its wake came an unexpected sweetness, a softening as his lips returned to supple flesh and began to mimic the movement of hers. His throat opened on a breath, and she tasted something both fruity and bitter—the residue of the spell keeping him alive, holding the curse at bay. She swallowed his relieved sigh. His cheeks softened beneath her hands and his jaws worked as he broke free bit by bit and responded to her touch, to her kiss. Then his relief shifted to a ravenous response, as he gorged himself on her moonlight.

  The coolness seeped from her body, and yet she still would’ve drowned in the beauty of sensation, her mouth following his direction, his passion—a lovely exchange of light and dark—until the sunlight he sent back grew so hot it savaged her from within. She could no longer taste the sweetness, for she drank pure combustion: a flame cauterizing her throat and racing through every vein, setting fire to her bones.

  She gasped and drew back, hacking. Smoke slipped from her lips and nostrils. Silent screams stretched her broken vocal cords. She struggled to stand and clenched her throat, almost blinded by the yellow brightness radiating from her own skin.

  The nightsky fabric abandoned the prince and retreated to contain only her. She toppled backward, saved from a hard landing by the saddlebag still on her shoulders. Daylight scalded her from the inside, wanting out. It razed against every nerve ending, sending jolts of lightning into her muscles. She spasmed and writhed, unable to even crawl toward the entrance and the iron door, to escape into the snowy outer world. The nightsky seemed to understand; it responded, barricading the brilliant light beneath the surface of her skin. The shadows in the room joined the cape to fight the steam seeping from her ears . . . from her nose . . . from her mouth. The lacewing cloak wound around her from head to foot, then lifted her: torso, arms, legs, and toe tips from the floor. She managed one glimpse of the prince—bound and lifted as she was, but it wasn’t enough. He wasn’t yet flesh and blood; his deep coppery complexion and silken black hair hadn’t returned. His eyes remained closed. Though his lips twitched, she wanted more. She wanted to hear his breath, to see his fingers move, clenching and unclenching in a fight to awaken. She couldn’t leave, not until she knew he’d live . . . but the choice wasn’t hers.

  Her stomach jumped as she began to spin in midair, spiders causing the revolutions—hundreds of them wrapping her in their webs, to protect her shadowy cocoon from the light filtering in through the latticework. A slit remained for her eyes and nose, enough to see flowers and vines creeping in from the gardens and meadows. The spiders grabbed them and wove them into their masterpiece, camouflaging her. In the distance, somewhere around the grove of wildflowers, came a beautiful sound. It pierced Lyra’s muffled ears—silvery and pure as a nightingale’s song—and numbed her pain for an instant.

  Perhaps she imagined the song, being enclosed within the nightsky, being carried through the shrine’s entrance on a wave of flowers that glimmered with sunlight and multiplied at her touch. Yet Lyra recognized it, a soul-deep knowing: that voice that had once belonged to her. It was the song she would’ve been singing upon her walk along the sunny banks of the Crystal Lake, upon her first glimpse of her kingdom; it was the song she would’ve sung upon learning Scorch hadn’t died at all, but was the man she was promised to marry; it was the song she’d be singing right now, if only Vesper had opened his eyes and looked back at her like he did in the moon-bog, with a mix of adoration, irritation, and fascination—the eyes of a Pegasus on fire. The thought of flame snuffed out the music and any hope. Engulfing her, the agony returned tenfold; it was too much . . . too severe. Her brain broiled in her skull, a searing flash that made her question all she saw: Was she truly floating past everyone, encased by glowing flowers and vines glued together with web? Was she truly seeing her treacherous cousin and Selena race past as if she were invisible, stumbling toward the shrine upon hearing the prince cry out in pain? Was she truly only inches from the arboretum’s iron door when it flung open and her tidal wave of flowers knocked over the five guards keeping watch in Nerezeth’s tundra?

  Perhaps it was all a dream, but dreams had never hurt so much.

  A gust of frosty wind siphoned through spaces in the webbing as she felt herself, wrapped in her cocoon, being thrust headfirst into a powdery wall of something endlessly white and blissfully cold. In moments, the wall melted away to water, carrying her like a leaf on a swift current into more whiteness. Her hands escaped their binds, and she clawed at
icy, thorny surroundings to slow her passage. With each touch, the world erupted into water, light, and color: petals, roots, leaves, and stems flinging out of her fingertips before the whiteness swallowed her again.

  At last she’d spent all the sunshine she’d taken, leaving her hollow, aching, and weary. Everything around her had closed. Soggy and shivering, devastated by her failure, she curled up in her bundle of petals, shadows, and webs. Shutting her eyes against the vivid glowing flowers, she allowed her grief to drag her into darkness.

  27

  Tears of Ink and Flame

  The song that once rang from an enchanted seashell—upon the clear unwavering voice of a nightingale girl—resonated throughout Neverdark, tugging at Prince Vesper’s spirit. When he woke, he shouted in elation and pressed his fingers to his lips. His rescuer’s kiss remained fresh upon them, just as her words echoed in his mind: I’m fighting for you. She’d said more than that, but that was all he could recall.

  The instant his eyes pried open, he sought the one who had saved him—his princess . . . his betrothed. At first, all he could see was a trail of flowers and vines along the shrine’s floor; then his sister and Cyprian rushed into the entrance alongside a lady wearing nightsky over an orchid gown. She dropped a bouquet of wildflowers at her feet, drew off her hood beneath the latticework’s shade, and revealed flawless moonlit skin, long silver hair, and soft purple eyes.

  Vesper’s breath caught and his pulse jumped. It was her: the embodiment of his youthful dreams, the exquisite princess he’d envisioned marrying and taking to his bed—as a man. Yet there was a wilder side to him now, and it remembered shorn, blackberry hair, scarred flesh, and lashes as long and sleek as the crystalized cobwebs that draped across the dais . . . a savage loveliness forged of wilderness and pain. That girl spoke with a different voice, within his head—no music, only words. Her voice grated like sandpaper when scolding his impulsiveness or contradicting his feral instincts with human wisdom, yet at the same turn it soothed like silk when his fury became too much to bear alone.