“But—”
“No. They must not be left to carry tales to IPSB.”
I opened my mouth to retort, but Rose was faster. She rushed forward like a rifle-shot bullet, striking the more unsure of the two men with her whole body as her weapon. He was physically imposing, even for a Solarian, but Rose was larger and stronger still.
The Solarian mage was well-trained, for he managed to deflect her charge and sidestep away. Ice shards materialized in the air in front of him and streaked out toward Rose. I called power to my hands, trying to shape the earth into a physical barrier. An attack fueled by water mana would be weakest against an earth-based defense, but the element inevitably resisted me. The magic was unresponsive to my commands. The stone-paved walkway buckled in a few places but the earth beneath failed to surge forth.
Fear soured the saliva in my mouth. As much as I never wanted to admit it, I'd privately wondered how long it would be before my deficiencies put us in danger.
Fortunately, Rose was able to twist her body into an evasive roll that avoided the worst of the ice storm. Shards of glowing blue slashed frost-rimed gouges into her shoulder, and she hissed in pain, but I could tell she wasn't seriously hurt.
“Kill them quickly,” the smaller man hissed at his subordinate. “They are mere children.”
“No!” I cried.
A burst of sinister light split the air and the sword came to my grasp with an ease that stole my breath. It was as if the weapon itself was guiding me, pulling me toward those who threatened our lives and the lives of the injured woman.
Rose scrambled backwards as I swept out with a grand, sundering blow that missed completely, and the man hadn't even tried to dodge. His expression was predatory and smug as he drew a pair of daggers from hidden sheaths.
“You don't stand a chance against me,” he snarled. “Even with that.”
I didn't respond with words, but instead let the sword lead. The world around me seemed to crackle as time slowed down. The attacker's twin dagger style would normally have been lightning-fast and impossible to defend against considering my lack of skill with a sword, but the magic of this blade filled me with preternatural speed and lethality of intent.
There was no need to even attempt to parry; his strikes were oh-so-slow from my perspective. I stepped to one side, dimly aware of the air rushing past my body, and spun the blade around between the hole in his defenses. Had I not been accelerated by the magic of this sword, the hole would have lasted only a split-second. But I was, and the gap seemed to stretch into infinity.
Purple-black energies seethed from within the enchanted steel as it struck flesh. It was effortless, like cutting through a gossamer sheet. I followed the strike through and stepped beyond the dagger-wielder. Time seemed to snap back into place, and I heard a pair of wet, meaty thuds. The sword flared with dark energy, searing away the blood and leaving the purple-tinted steel bright and clean. With a flourish, I whirled around to face the remaining assailant.
“Seven Holy Stars!”
The larger man was staring at the two halves of his former companion. His face had gone absolutely white with horror, and his own daggers dropped from nerveless fingers, falling to the stone walkway with a muted clatter. “No… please, no…”
Rose was beside me, and she put the coldest glare on the terrified man. “Leave now and we'll let you live.”
“Quickly,” I insisted, punctuating Rose's ultimatum by turning the point of the sword in the direction of his chest.
With a wild shriek, the man fled without looking back, disappearing into the park.
“Are you okay, miss?” Rose asked the woman. The Fiallan knelt down beside her and called forth fire mana, drawing the heat from her burns. It wasn't quite as good as true healing magic, but it would help.
“It… it hurts, but I think I'll be fine,” she said, sighing in relief as Rose's spell began to soothe away the pain. She stared, wide-eyed, at the dead assailant, and then at me. I held my hand out and the sword withdrew into its pocket dimension.
“You're safe now. The other one fled.”
“N-no! Get away from me!” Fear and hatred warred for supremacy on her face, and she tried to scramble away from Rose—but mostly away from me. She made a warding gesture, a supplication to the Celestial One, and her crimson manashard glimmered in response to her sudden shift in emotional state.
“D-don't kill me, I swear I won't tell anyone,” the woman babbled. “I swear it on the souls of my ancestors and the altar of the Celestial One, I won't say a word!”
I shook my head. “I… I'm not going to hurt you. We're here to help you.”
“I—but you… necromancer…” The woman's eyes, wide and round with terror, fixated on my empty sword hand. “P-please.”
I didn't say anything else. There was nothing I could do against centuries of ingrained prejudices, not in such a short time. Instead, I turned toward the aetheric prominence that kept us shifted out of phase with the material world. With a subtle manipulation of the power already within, it was no great task to coax a few critical threads out, unraveling the entire spell. Sound, smells and color lost their muted quality, and the field that had pushed us outside of normal reality was gone.
The dead attacker's body was nowhere to be found. I suspected it somehow stayed in the phase-shifted space when it collapsed, some sort of contingency worked into the original spell to ensure their bodies would never be found if they were to fail.
I had no idea if the one who fled was still imprisoned inside that false space after I dispelled the magic sustaining it. I found that I didn't care. I didn't feel much of anything, even though I had just killed someone. It was frighteningly easy, and my heart was unburdened by the horror I expected to feel upon ending a sapient life.
Did I have the heart of a warrior? Or a killer?
I didn't like that thought. Not at all. But by the time I turned around, the woman was already gone, having fled herself down the street. I glanced at Rose and she looked back at me, a haunted expression on her face.
“I think we'll be okay,” she said after a moment. “Though we should get out of here before anyone figures out what happened.”
I could almost hear the words Rose didn't speak. Without a body, with the actual combat itself having taken place in an extra-dimensional sub-reality that had already collapsed, IPSB would be unable to find any incriminating evidence. The fear in the Solarian woman's eyes told me she would remain silent about what she'd seen and sensed, but I was still worried. Some traces of dark mana may have ended up on her, and there was always the possibility that she would be detained by IPSB before it dispersed. If she were stopped, the presence of dark mana would implicate her. It would only be a matter of time before she admitted everything and had her memories examined. I looked at Rose and was comforted to see concern for me in her eyes.
“I think she was clean,” Rose murmured in my ear. “I couldn't sense any on her.”
I blew a sigh of relief. I trembled, partly from the chill air and partly from a deep sense of foreboding. What in the Seven Holy Stars was this strange magic, and why had it called to me so strongly?
“Are you really going to be okay, Lily?”
“I'm fine.” I reached out and took Rose's hand in my own, knowing that she would feel how cold it had become. When her fingers closed around mine, I could barely feel them. “I think.”
“You don't look so good.”
“Don't feel great, either,” I mumbled, my voice barely audible. “Come on. We… we should get back to the Academy, and quickly…”
A fresh wave of nausea swept over me and I swayed on my feet. If not for Rose holding my hand as tightly as she did, I was certain I would have fallen. My skin felt cold and clammy, and copious amounts of icy sweat sprang from my palms. Everything started to become blurry and out of focus; I could scarcely make out the fearful expression on Rose's face.
“Lily!”
I could tell from the way her lips moved that
she was shouting at me, but all I could hear was a dull ringing. Sound and light faded and red spots began to dance in my vision. My stomach lurched and I felt cold, far colder than I'd ever experienced, despite the relatively pleasant weather.
That coldness wasn't temperature. It wasn't natural or even external; it was something within me. It was as if all the light had left my spirit, leaving nothing behind but a frozen void. Sensation left my awareness only moments before my vision went black.
Part II
-
Antilight
Chapter 9
Falling Petals
The next few months of our first term at the Academy were unremarkable and, mercifully, passed quickly. Rose and I dedicated ourselves wholeheartedly to our studies and I did my best to curb her more mischievous impulses. Neither of us could afford heightened scrutiny right now, not with the new and dangerous secrets we had to keep.
After the battle with the would-be assassins, I'd dropped into a deep sleep for nearly a day. Rose filled me in after I finally woke up. As far as she could tell, I hadn't sustained so much as a scratch from the entire ordeal. Somehow we managed to keep the Academy from discovering what had happened. After a few weeks of nothing out of the ordinary, it became clear that none of the masters suspected anything was amiss.
Since the battle I'd gone into Naara multiple times, but I never saw the noblewoman again. I had no idea if she were even still alive, or if IPSB found traces of dark mana and the Church demanded her to be locked away in the mages' prison.
What in the Yawning Hells had we stumbled upon, anyway? It wasn't a question I could answer easily without talking to others, but a bit of clandestine research suggested that the man I killed was a member of the Antilight rebels. I had to know more about the terrorists, but information that wasn't obvious pro-Solaria propaganda was scarce.
“'They are vile and irredeemable, without a shred of conscience. The Antilight are naught more than terrorists who deny the legitimacy of the Imperial Court, denounce the Church of the Celestial Prophecy and reject the innate purity of His Light,'” I muttered aloud as I read. It was all that most Solarians knew of the organization, but I suspected there was a great deal more nuance to the rebels than was immediately apparent.
“You've been reading about them for hours, Lily,” Rose complained. “Stop. Please. We just finished our last exam and all you want to do is study even more?”
“I'm not going to have access to the Academy's archives after tomorrow.” I shrugged and closed the book. A deep sigh escaped my lips and I turned a plaintive look on Rose. “Though I suspect there's little else to find here. The data doesn't run especially deep, and it's…”
“One-sided?” Rose snorted loudly. “Of course it's one-sided. It's propaganda.”
“Don't say things like that here.”
“We're alone, if you hadn't noticed. Erika left us for the library—for a reason, remember? A very specific reason.”
“I'm sorry.” My cheeks grew hot and I averted my eyes. “I don't… I'm just not feeling up to it tonight. I'm really sorry.”
“You were the one who couldn't keep her hands off me.” Rose gave me a look that was filled with worry rather than disappointment. “Are you sure you're okay?”
“No, and I know, and I did, but… I don't now. I'm sorry.”
Had Rose been anyone else, I would have expected a negative reaction to my refusal. Instead, she leaned forward and lifted me up into a soothing embrace. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply of her. No matter how long she remained in the Empire, Rose somehow managed to avoid blending in with the Solarians. She always smelled of far-off shores and fragrant spices.
“I worry about you, Lily. All the time, as long as we're here in this place, I don't feel like I can keep you safe. Your people consider me inferior because I'm a foreigner, but they fear and hate you for your fey nature. I feel… helpless, and that scares me.” Rose shivered faintly, but it had little to do with the temperature.
“I know. It's not your fault.”
“I know.”
My silence stretched out, long and uncomfortable, but Rose wouldn't push me. She knew I wasn't in the right mindset for that sort of thing. Instead, she just held me in her long, strong arms, her breath warm against my neck.
“Rose?” I murmured, tentatively.
“What is it?”
“I want to go to Fialla with you.”
She stared at me, thunderstruck, for a second or two. Then her face split into the biggest, silliest grin I'd ever seen her wear. “Y-you do? Really?”
“Yes, really.” I smiled at her and held a fingertip against her lips, both to stop her from expressing her joy in a rush of babbling glee and to keep her from occupying my mouth with hers. “Though I have to spend at least some time with my mother before we depart. I couldn't just leave the country without visiting her first.”
“I guess that's fine. I'll miss you while you're at House Alcyone, of course.”
I smirked at her. “No, you won't, because you're coming with me.”
“W-what?”
“Mother wants to meet you.” The inevitable blush returned to my cheeks. “She was… overjoyed to discover that I'd, um, met someone. In that pile of mail you never bother to check, there should be a sealed envelope bearing her personal sigil.”
Her jaw dropped. “I've been officially invited?”
“Yes and no. You've been invited by Juno, not by House Alcyone. I doubt she bothered to tell them. Not everyone will be pleased,” I warned, crinkling my nose in disgust. “Just the fact that you're Fiallan is going to raise a lot of eyebrows, but no one should openly challenge Mother's decision.”
Rose's eyes narrowed. “She's not going to tell them anything, right? Like that we're, uh, dating, is she?”
“No. Mother won't let them hurt you, no matter what. She's the one who has to deal with their displeasure, not us. The various lords and ladies of Alcyone will likely try their best to pretend neither of us exist.” I leaned closer and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “The silly politics of highborn families won't get between us. By the Seven Holy Stars, I'll make sure they don't.”
“I'm happy I get to go with you and meet your mom, but I'm less so that we're going to have to keep our distance from each other for the duration of the visit.” Rose's expression was intensely sour and I knew it was the part of the arrangement she would tolerate the least.
“Yes, I'm sorry about that, but I have to think of my mother. If the rest of the family knew, they would not hesitate to use it against her…” I trailed off, unwilling to voice the possible consequences of our mutual romantic involvement. There were no official decrees on the books forbidding romance between two women, but that didn't matter. Scandal and innuendo would render a much more terrible punishment than any Imperial magistrate.
The nobility didn't care what the commoners did, and the highborn families would relentlessly watch each other for any sign of weakness or impropriety. Alcyone had already suffered tremendous loss of standing when Mother's love for my miinari parent was made public, not to mention my subsequent birth. I would not provide them with any more ammunition.
“It's okay. I know it's to protect your mom.”
“I'm sorry this is going to be… sub-optimal,” I said. “It'll only be for a few days, though, so we should be able to at least enjoy our time spent visiting Mother.” I nestled in closer to Rose and sighed in contentment. “If we find it too difficult to bear, there are… some options, though I still think we should be careful. It's not us that'll be hurt.”
“That's sensible.”
“Just remember,” I reminded her in a lofty tone, “once we depart House Alcyone for Fialla, there will be nothing at all to stop us.”
Rose's grin was rather lewd. “Ooh, I like the sound of that.”
“I thought you might.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back against Rose's warmth. Without even having to ask, she understood my desires. Strong arms lifted
me out of the desk chair and carried me to the bed. I let out a slow breath as we nestled down into the soft mattress.
“I'm tired,” I murmured.
“I know. You've been pushing yourself too hard recently.”
“Have to.”
“I know.”
*
Thanks to Rose, I slept very well that night. When the two of us woke the next morning, Erika Corvus had already departed, leaving a note on the desk. The Academy maintenance crew would be coming to check over all the dorms while the students were away for the winter break. Our chronically absent mentor left instructions to ensure we either took our belongings with us or locked them away. It wasn't that the workers were untrustworthy, she reassured us in her flawless and beautiful handwriting, but that they needed to have the rooms free of obstructions.
We stepped off the tram to Naara once again, this time moving rather more slowly than our first visit to the city together. It was bitterly cold, but that was only a minor inconvenience when your girlfriend happened to be a pyromancer. Neither of us had to bury our bodies beneath heavy jackets, as the city's less fortunate inhabitants did.
The two of us leisurely made our way to Naara's Gate. Travel was one of those areas where technology lagged heavily behind magic, and the Empire was endlessly proud of its interconnected network of magical Gates, allowing anyone to travel nearly anywhere in the country in the blink of an eye. So long as they had the money and the authorization, of course. Passage through Gates wasn't for the bereft of coin or title.
I was in a better mood than I should have been, I suppose because I would soon get to see Mother for the first time in nearly half a year. I hadn't ever been away from her for longer than a few weeks at the most, and I missed her terribly.
Rose still seemed to be on edge, and I wondered how much of that had to do with her inclusion in my family visit. I suspected she was worried about something more immediate and potentially dangerous.
“Are you sure it'll be okay?”
I nodded. It was the fifth time she'd asked me this question, but I let no signs of irritation or annoyance show in my expression. It was natural to care about, worry about and fuss over a person you loved, after all.
Midnight's Blossom Page 7
