Midnight's Blossom

by Corinn Heathers

  “I needed to protect you. I know you would try to find out more, try to gather as much data as you could and analyze it. You would have tried to find her killer, and in doing so, you would have uncovered secrets House Alcyone wishes to remain hidden.”

  “You don't think I still won't do that?” I felt my brows angle downward into a deep scowl as I regarded my mother. I'd never known my other parent, never even met her, but even so, Mother's intentional omission felt like a betrayal.

  “I'm telling you now because it no longer matters.”

  A cold chill crept up my spine. “Oh, no.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Rose demanded. I turned to her and opened my mouth to respond, but Mother was quicker.

  “My uncle, who always coveted the position of Head, has managed to gather enough supporters among the family to challenge my title. As the woman whose perverse dalliance tarnished the Alcyone name, I have few allies within the family. None are willing to jeopardize their own position by defending mine.”

  “Seven Holy Stars,” I swore.

  “Yes, that is an appropriate reaction.” Mother sighed and poured herself yet another glass of wine, her fourth one so far. She'd always been able to drink any two Alcyone men under the table, but I could tell that the stress was starting to wear her away. “I sent you away to the Academy so you wouldn't have to witness this, so you would be safely out of reach of my scheming uncle—”

  “And so I could gather allies of my own?” I interjected.

  Mother laughed, but it was not a happy sound. “You always were smarter than me. When you wrote to me about Rose, I was overjoyed. It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for House Alcyone to make any moves against a wealthy Fiallan citizen, and…”

  Rose blinked. “So what will happen to you, then, Lady Alcyone?”

  “It doesn't matter what happens to me, as long as Lily is safe. I can read your heart, Rose Merope, and I know that your love for my daughter is strong and true—”

  “Of course it matters what happens to you!” I cried, cutting her off. My eyes stung and watered, but no tears would fall. I glared at my mother furiously. “I love you, Mama! I don't want anything bad to happen to you! I'll protect you!”

  “I know you would, dear, but this isn't a battle you can fight. If you were to stand against Cyrus now, he would crush you. You wouldn't survive.” Mother paused for a moment to gulp down more wine and coughed, then cleared her throat. “As my beloved didn't survive.”

  A peculiar coldness seemed to settle over my body.

  “He killed her? Can you prove it?”

  “Not directly, and it would not matter if I could,” Mother growled. “No magistrate in the Empire would even entertain condemning a highborn Solarian for killing one of the fey. All would take his lies at face value, though I doubt it would be any different if he told the unvarnished truth.”

  The icy sensation continued to build within me, and I felt as if it would not stop until it had completely engulfed my entire being. My mother was gazing at me, worry evident in her expression, and so was Rose. I felt numb and clumsy as I was filled with that cold, dark sensation. A part of my mind recognized the soul-freezing chill and I knew what was about to happen, but that knowledge could do nothing to stop it.

  Violet-black lightning tore at the fabric of reality as the sword of dark magic returned to the material world. I felt the weight of the miinari blade in my hand. Cold fury welled up from within the relic and poured into me—or perhaps the warmth was drawn out of me. I couldn't tell as I was gripped with icy shadow, suffusing my heart and encasing my soul in dark armor.

  I knew, at that moment, that I did have the power to right this wrong, to exact retribution for the death of my miinari parent, to visit terrible death upon those who plotted against Mother. Without knowing how I knew, I intuitively understood that I would be capable of laying waste to any who opposed me, any who dared hurt the people I loved—

  “Seven Holy Stars!” Mother exclaimed, falling back a step. “Rose! Pin her arms behind her back, but don't let that sword touch you!”

  Rose hooker her arms beneath mine and pulled backward with all of her strength, levering my backside against her hip to lift my feet off the ground. Warmth from Rose's presence rushed into my heart, pushing against the soul-freezing desire for bloody vengeance.

  The sword's magic seemed confused. It had eagerly responded to my wrath, granting me the immediate power of very direct redress, but now it was… unsure. It responded as if it were being given two logically contradictory commands. The burst of emotion that issued forth was filled with conflict and frustration, buried beneath a chaotic torrent of “sound” that was not any sound one could hear with their ears.

  “Lily, please put it away. Please.”

  I could scarcely make out Rose's voice over the garbled psychic noise. The part of me that was still rational screamed within my own mind, demanding the sword to withdraw. My body, still not entirely under my own control, struggled fiercely against Rose's iron grip, but she would not budge, would not let go of me.

  Releasing an indignant spark of dark energy in protest, the sword finally obeyed my commands and vanished. The unintelligible noise in my mind was gone, disappearing at the same moment as the relic itself. With the miinari blade gone, that awful and cold feeling of emptiness returned, stronger than before.

  “Hold her so she doesn't fall,” I heard Mother say, just as my vision started to go black.

  Chapter 11

  Eternal Shadow

  Though I couldn't see anything, I heard Rose's voice.

  “I think she's waking up.”

  My eyelids felt incomparably heavy, as if the flesh had been replaced with solid lead. I fought to regain conscious awareness of the world around me, managing to pry my eyes open through sheer force of will.

  I was no longer in the kitchen, but instead in my mother's workshop beneath the house. The presence of strong warding magic hummed faintly at the edge of my senses. I struggled to sit up, finding that while I felt a little weakened, my muscles would obey my commands. My vision swam slightly, but the brief episode of nausea passed.

  “You nearly scared the life from me,” Mother said.

  “W-what happened?”

  “The sword, Lily.” My mother sat down in a rolling work chair nearby, handing me a glass phial filled with what looked like faintly-glowing water. “Drink. The sword depleted your body's aether enough to cause long-term damage.”

  I nodded and downed the contents in a single gulp. It didn't taste like much of anything—in fact, it was actually just water that Mother infused with mana. The liquid itself washed the taint of bile from my tongue and my mother's magic absorbed even more rapidly into my body. The strange sensation of emptiness on the verge of collapse started to subside.

  When I was finished, I set the phial down. “How long was I out?”

  “Two days,” Rose replied. “Your mom and I have been trying to wake you, but nothing worked until today.”

  “What?” I gawked at her. “I’ve been asleep for two days?”

  Mother ignored my astonished outburst and instead lay a hand on one of mine. “Rose told me how you managed to acquire the relic. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would never have imagined. How could such a thing sit in a swordsmith's display case for so long and go unnoticed the whole time?”

  “It looked like an ordinary sword until after Lily's presence woke its power,” Rose said. “I don't think anyone recognized it as anything other than just a weapon taken from the corpse of a slain dark fairy. And even then, the swordsmith's apprentice didn't seem to notice anything unusual about it.”

  “He was magic-dead, though,” I reminded her. “You could sense the magic on it, right?”

  “Yeah.” Rose's lips bent into a pensive frown. “What in the Yawning Hells is it, though? I mean, other than being made by the miinari and being obviously filled with necromancy.”

  “You know I spent hours in t
he library trying to find out.” Frustration bunched the muscles of my jaw. “Nothing in the Academy's archives ever even mentioned something like this.”

  “With good reason, I should think,” Mother said. “It's a miinari spirit blade.”

  Both Rose and I gave her identical blank stares.

  “How do you know what it is?” I asked.

  “Because I've seen it before, many years ago, before Lily was born.”

  Rose's head tilted curiously. “You've seen one?”

  “Not 'one' of them, but this blade in particular.” My mother's shoulders shivered violently, even though it was far from cold in the pleasantly-cozy workshop. “The reason that it called out to you, Lily, was because it recognized you. Not because you have miinari heritage, but because you have specific miinari heritage.”

  I found that I couldn't speak, couldn't respond to what she was saying.

  “So they're… family heirlooms?” Rose guessed.

  “Much more than that. Spirit blades are a physical manifestation of the magic that binds miinari parents and their children. They aren't ceremonial, but functional and very powerful tools of a peculiar sort of magic unique to the fey.” My mother turned to regard me, her expression a bittersweet mixture of sadness and joy. “This one belonged to Eiri. Now it is yours, Lily. It seems that your fate is to be entwined with her legacy rather than my own.”

  “It's… then it's come home,” I murmured.

  “Yes.” There was concern in Mother’s eyes, but also relief. “It has.”

  We shared the next few moments in silence. I had never known who my other parent was, never known half of my heritage. I only knew hate and fear from House Alcyone, from other humans in the Empire who hated and feared the dark fairies, whose faith in the Celestial One demanded that they hate and fear the dark fairies.

  “But why did a random swordsmith’s shop in Naara have your other mom's sword?” Rose asked, breaking both myself and my mother out of our ruminations.

  “When they had Eiri killed, they must've sold it off. They probably didn't understand what it was, either, and just wanted to get rid of any evidence.” I laughed bitterly as the pieces began to slot into place, and I realized just how bleak the situation truly was. “We're going to have to leave House Alcyone now, aren't we, Mother?”

  “I'm afraid so,” she replied. “I know you wanted to visit with me, but you have the relic. It's not safe for you here any longer. If Lord Cyrus finds out Eiri's spirit blade woke your Aspect, the manor grounds will soon be thick with IPSB agents.”

  “She didn't steal it, though,” Rose objected. “I bought it for her, and it wasn't cheap, either.”

  I shook my head. “It's not the relic that's the problem, but my true Aspect.”

  “But you're a water mage… just, um, kind of a bad one. You're terrible at channeling elemental mana—” Rose broke off in mid-sentence, and realization dawned upon her face. “Oh. Oh. That… makes a lot of sense, actually.”

  “All who worship the Celestial One abhor necromancy, but did you ever wonder what happened when someone tested as having an affinity for the Forbidden Aspect?” I let out a slow, ragged breath. “The lucky ones are those like us, who were born with more than one path to walk. Your connection to fire was stronger and so it was natural that you'd take that road.”

  Rose said nothing.

  “In Solaria, children who have been found to possess a weak affinity for dark magic undergo a ritual in which they have their powers taken from them,” Mother added, and she gazed upon me with eyes filled with an old pain that I didn't quite recognize. “Those with stronger affinities, strong enough to evolve into an Aspect, are… purged, for the safety of the Empire. Their official records are altered and their passing counted as childhood illnesses.”

  My mother forced an unpleasant smile as she continued. “I know you're afraid, Lily, for me and for yourself, but you need to distance yourself from this. Your appointment to the Academy has been secured through my connections in the Imperial Court. No matter what becomes of me, your future is guaranteed. But if you stay here…” She trailed off and let out a sad sigh. “If IPSB discovers the color of your magic, you'll be executed.”

  That cold fury blossomed in my heart once again. “Not if I kill them first.”

  “Eiri's legacy seeks to manifest your desires, but you should take care. If you give in to the desire for vengeance, no matter how justified it may be, you will become an enemy of the state.” Mother pushed a lock of her hair behind one ear and leaned forward, kissing my cheek. “You are a child still, my little red lily. If you stand, Cyrus will ensure your end and mine. IPSB will hunt you down relentlessly, and the more you slay the more they will throw against you. Eiri's blade is powerful, but not that powerful, nor do you yet understand how to wield it properly.”

  “But I—”

  “Lily, I am not defenseless. Recall that the name of Juno Alcyone was once counted among the most respected, most promising master mages by the Imperial Court.” Mother held a fingertip to my lips, silencing my inevitable objections. “I've accepted the loss of standing, the imminent loss of my title and influence. Cyrus has already taken everything from me—except you, little red lily. I need you to be safely out of his reach.”

  I sniffled and wiped at my eyes. “Will I ever see you again?”

  “Of course you will. I have no intention of dying, though I doubt that Cyrus will be satisfied if I merely step down.” A flinty hardness entered my mother's eyes, and the azure manashard upon her forehead flared. “Trust me, Lily. I will not be so easily overcome. You might hear terrible things about me, but you shouldn't dwell on them. Cyrus and the lords and ladies of Alcyone are desperate to redeem themselves in the eyes of the Empress Altair and the Imperial Court. Don't underestimate what that means to them… and to us.”

  I slid off the workshop cot and stood so that I was just above Mother's eye level. Rose was beside me, and she placed warm hands upon mine.

  “We'll leave soon. I've already wasted two days being unconscious,” I said, nearly choking on the words. My voice was ragged and weary, as if I'd run for kilometers without end. “I'll miss you so much, Mama. I love you.”

  My mother's sad smile returned.

  “I love you, too, little red lily.”

  *

  “I was not expecting that.”

  I glanced at Rose. Her features were illuminated by the moonlight, lending her hair an ethereal, silvery sheen. “Neither was I. I had no idea it had gotten so bad, that things were even remotely close to this. Mother downplayed everything.”

  “So you wouldn't be distracted from your studies,” Rose reasoned. “So you would be happy.”

  “I know, but I'm definitely not happy now!”

  Rose gave me a stern glare. “Trust your mom. She's obviously someone to be reckoned with, capable of taking care of herself. I could sense the power of her magic. Any two masters of the Academy wouldn't last a minute in a fight against her.”

  I knew it was true, but I was still afraid. Decades ago, before I was born, Juno Alcyone had been on the Empress's short list for the position of Grand Mage of Solaria. Her place in the running shocked everyone and brought House Alcyone to the attention of the highest families in the land. For the past three hundred years, every Grand Mage was a master astromancer, chosen from the ranks of the Celestial Acolytes. That my mother, a water mage, would have been considered over ranking members of the Church, ensured that Alcyone was a new star rising fast beyond families that spent decades, even centuries, courting the ruling House Altair's favor. With Juno poised to accept the duties of Grand Mage, House Alcyone could have very well found itself within a few generations' striking distance of the throne itself.

  I told Rose all of this as we made our way through the woods. It would be impossible to use the Gate near the Alcyone manor without being noticed. Mother wanted us to slip out under the cover of darkness, to put as much distance between us and my childhood home as we possibly could
before my great-uncle discovered we’d already departed.

  We'd been traveling for three hours before we came upon a small clearing in the dense forests that surrounded the village-turned-manor. Despite having been unconscious for two days, I felt utterly exhausted. The ill-fated summoning of Eiri's blade affected my magic badly enough to stress my body beyond its limits.

  “You think we're far enough away to stop?” Rose asked. I could tell she was relatively well-rested, having had plenty of time to sleep, but her concern for me was obvious.

  “I don't know,” I mumbled, my voice slurring slightly, “but I'm so tired I can barely walk in a straight line. We… we should rest, at least for a little while.”

  “Shouldn't we use that gem Juno gave us before we do that?”

  I shook my head. “We're not far enough away. Alcyone mages will sense the magic, my mother's magic, and Cyrus will know something isn't right.”

  “All right, we'll stop for a bit. I'll keep watch while you rest.”

  I stifled a yawn. “Wake me if anything happens.”

  “Of course.”

  We had no real supplies for a long journey through the forest, because Mother had given us a charm that would teleport us back to Naara. From there, we would board an airship that would take us to Fialla, where I would be safe from the internal strife within House Alcyone. While I wished we could have made use of the Gates, Rose assured me that we'd be able to catch a ride on one of her family's fast merchant vessels.

  I nestled in against the trunk of a large tree, cushioned by the moss that grew upon it. I closed my eyes and attempted to slow my breathing, but sleep proved elusive. I was too filled with worry for Mother, even though Rose was entirely correct in her assessment of Juno Alcyone's power.

  As my eyes finally started to droop, inviting the restful embrace of sleep, I felt something.

  “Lily?”

  Sluggishly, I got to my feet. I was so tired, but Rose was tense, wary. Her eyes darted around the clearing, and she nodded to me wordlessly. I stood by her side, shaking off the lethargy I attempted to bring forth mere moments ago.