Radiant: Towers Trilogy Book One

by Karina Sumner-Smith

  Another tremor rocked Eridian, shaking the structure to its very bones. There was nowhere to hide, no way to protect herself from the splinters that fell, glittering, and so Xhea kept dragging herself forward, pushing with her good foot and inching along the ground as the shaking allowed. The surface beneath her continued to crack, thin fractures branching endlessly.

  On the pedestal, the young woman’s body had been tossed to the side and now lay in disarray, one arm hanging limply, the sheet slipped to expose a length of sickly-pale leg. Xhea could just see the side of Shai’s face staring upward, one long arm and part of her chest; the rest of her had vanished inside the body. Whatever progress she made was constantly undone by the spells’ pull.

  “I’m stuck—” Shai said, squirming harder and whimpering at each move. It hurt, of that Xhea had no doubt, but without new spells being added it seemed the pain’s intensity had faded, allowing panic to set in. “I can’t manage—Xhea, Xhea it’s pulling, and I can’t—”

  “Shai, you need to run through your breathing exercises.” The familiar actions had always calmed her.

  “Help,” Shai cried as another tremor shook the Tower. Her free hand waved wildly, grasping at air as she fought for purchase. “Oh please, Xhea, you have to help me. I can’t fight it and it’s going to—”

  “Shai, listen to me. You have to relax.” Xhea tried to sound calm, struggling for the steady tone that Shai herself had so often used—and failed. Her heart pounded and her breath came too quickly, while Shai whimpered above. She could only think how good it was that the ghost couldn’t see her, bound and beaten on the floor.

  She changed tactics. “Shai,” Xhea said, and this time she didn’t try to hide her fear or exhaustion. “I need your help. My magic—it’s out of control. It’s too strong for me. Please—I can’t remember which breathing exercise to do.”

  Shai whimpered again, arching against the bright lines that held her down. The body moved with her, muscles jerking spasmodically.

  “Please,” Xhea said, voice trembling. “Shai, I can’t stop it. I don’t know what to do.”

  Shai took a long and shuddering breath, the action echoed perfectly by the body. A pause, a breath. “You need . . . you need the first exercise.”

  “Which one was that? I don’t remember.”

  “I . . .” Shai managed. “It’s . . . I’ll show you.”

  They began to breathe together as Eridian shook and shuddered around them. Shai’s instructions began to come slower, her voice losing its panicked edge. What Xhea hadn’t expected was the way her magic responded in truth to the now-familiar routine. She had thought her power exhausted, and yet as she ran through the patterns she felt a curl of dark in her stomach, a whisper beneath her breastbone. Carefully, as one might coax a flame from damp paper, Xhea guided it down her arm to her hands, letting it curl around her wrists as she breathed.

  “Okay,” Shai said at last. “I’m okay.”

  Xhea exhaled in a slow stream and tugged at her restrains. There was a rip of protesting fabric, and then her arms were free. “Real silk,” she murmured. She raised her arms and let the ashy, blackened tatters of the scarf flutter to the floor.

  Now stand, she told herself, staring up at the glass pedestal. Don’t think about it, just do it.

  She struggled, rose. It was only looking down at the mess of spells and tether lines that she saw the true problem that Eridian—and now she—faced. Countless spell-lines arched up and over and into Shai, dragging her down and binding her to the still-living body. Her struggles and flaring power had damaged some spells, tangled others—while through it all ran the other girl’s tether, now so frayed that it was not one line but many, knotting wherever it touched. The ghost girl must have tried instinctively to reconnect with her body, and her tattered tether had indeed reached her body—but it had done so by impaling Shai through the chest.

  The tether was a help, in a sense; even as the spells pulled Shai down, the other tether repelled her—likely a large part of why Shai’s fight had lasted so long. Yet the other ghost would only be able to return to her body by following the length of her tether—and unlike the near-invisible length of energy, there was no way one ghost could pass through another.

  Xhea had thought only to ruin the spells binding Shai, freeing her; yet no matter how hard or long she stared, she saw no way to do so without untethering the other ghost entirely. Even with Shai lying still, the body doing nothing but breathing and shaking with the Tower’s vibration, the lines moved and shifted.

  Xhea reached into the tangle of magic, trying to separate spell from tether, but her attempts only agitated the lines. Shai gasped as a spell grabbed around her neck and tried to drag her down. A frantic struggle, and Shai managed to turn her head; a spark of light flew from her lips to the line, fraying it until it snapped. Yet after a fight that had clearly lasted hours, if not far longer, Shai looked as if she had little magic left to spare, the light of even her Radiant power dimming.

  Xhea stared desperately as if a solution might rise from the knot. Wondering if there was time to attack the lines one by one, wondering if she still had the strength. She ached for the feel of her knife, the silver blade imbued with darkness, requiring no strength nor fuel but the movement of her hand. Even without the growing cracks in the floor and the crystalline walls’ slow disintegration, she didn’t imagine this space would remain safe for much longer, not with the tapered point of Allenai’s main spire sliding knife-like toward Eridian’s heart.

  Eridian shook and the very walls seemed to scream as they trembled and buckled, fragments raining down. “Quickly now,” Xhea murmured, trying to come to a decision. Save the young woman’s ghost and risk letting Shai lose her battle with the spells; or save Shai and break the other ghost’s tether in the process, letting both body and spirit die for a girl who was already dead.

  Then: no. Not just a girl who was already dead. A friend.

  Xhea’s only friend.

  “Shai,” she said, touching the fine tether that still joined them and letting her voice reverberate along its length. “Shai, hold tight to me.”

  Xhea closed her eyes as she reached out, dug deep inside for the last wisps of her magic, and pulled. The darkness was thin and slow and sluggish, but it came, a chill touch that seeped from her fingers and palms, leaked from outstretched arms. There was no way to separate spells from ghost from tether; she simply directed her magic to encompass them all. A seeping fog, the creep of night: she set it free to do as it would.

  Even as she forced her magic to flow, she thought of Shai. A fluttering dress, closed eyes and a meditative pose. A body like this one, young, hurting, dying under her hands. Those stupid little embroidered flowers on her shirt. Breathing exercises. A soft glow, quiet words in dark places. A voice screaming her name.

  Xhea thought of everything Shai was, everything she knew and wished to learn, felt the tether that joined them and pulled with everything she had. She stopped only when she felt the last of her magic reach the young woman’s body itself, pulling back before the flesh too began to die. She caught herself as her good leg gave way, and sagged over the pedestal and the still-breathing body—a body now empty of all but flesh and bone and breath. She could not stand, could not lift her head, her hands. Could not open her eyes.

  Yet there was . . . a sound. The world broke and cracked and crumbled all around them, yes, and somewhere people screamed in fear and mindless panic—but closer. Closer. A thin sound. A whimper.

  A cry.

  Xhea forced open her eyes. On the ground beside her, the young woman’s ghost stared at the severed tether that protruded from her chest, its end now cut cleanly. She looked at her hands, holding them before her—slender fingers with neat, painted nails: an artist’s fingers, a musician’s fingers, a spell-weaver’s fingers. Trembling as they slowly became transparent, fading like mist in the morning sun.

  “No,” Xhea whispered and let herself all but slip from the pedestal’s edge, gra
bbing for the thin length of tether that remained. No magic this, only a trick of hands long trained for such work. She fumbled, trying to get a grip on the bit of shimmering air as the Tower around them shuddered to its very bones. There was a loud crack and the fissure in the glass floor above Eridian’s heart suddenly widened, snaking through the glass like something alive.

  Tether in hand, it was all Xhea could do to hold tight and breathe. The ghost seemed to strengthen—and as Xhea clung to the tether’s severed end, she felt herself steady as well, her breathing slowing, the trembling of her exhausted limbs easing, as if she somehow drew strength from the ghost as the ghost drew strength from her. She touched Shai’s tether with a single finger and the room stopped spinning; the ringing in her ears faded, replaced by the sound of the Tower being transformed all around them.

  As her energy returned, so too did the familiar pull of her magic toward the ghost. She knew she could weave the darkness around a ghost and send her away, as she had with the ghost in the hospital. Even now, but thin wisps and a shimmer of gray, it tugged toward the girl’s spirit, wanting to offer her the same release. No, Xhea told it, a hesitant command, a whispered prayer. Instead, she showed it how to anchor, to stay.

  Here, she said, and pulled on the tether, letting the energy stretch as wisps of her own darkness ringed around, coaxing, guiding its passage. She pressed her hand to the young woman’s body; felt the beating heart beneath the flesh, the solid arches of her ribs, the warm softness of her skin. The tether shivered and hesitated, and again she coaxed it with darkness: Here. Stay.

  The tether slipped from her hand, finding its true anchor anew.

  The girl’s ghost had watched the whole process, following Xhea’s hands, and now she stared. “I’m . . . I’m dead,” the ghost whispered. She looked at her own body, reaching so her fingers flickered in the air above her living mouth like a moth circling a flame.

  “No,” Shai said. She stepped forward and took the other ghost’s hands in her own, clasping them together to stop their trembling. “No, not dead. You’re only dreaming.”

  Another shudder and the crack in the floor widened. Xhea grabbed the pedestal’s edge to keep from falling.

  “Here,” Shai said, as if oblivious to the Tower trying to shake itself apart around them. She pulled the ghost up beside her on the pedestal. “Just lie down here, that’s right. Just lie down and close your eyes . . .” Xhea took the girl’s ghostly hands and guided them toward their living counterparts; Shai cradled the ghost’s head and allowed it to sink slowly into her body. Another whisper of power, a twining ribbon of gray: Here. Stay.

  “Her name is Koiya,” Shai said.

  Xhea leaned down until her lips all but brushed the young woman’s ear. “Koiya,” she whispered. “Wake up.”

  A gasping breath and Koiya opened her eyes—a flutter of dark lashes, blinking back tears. Her lips, chapped and bleeding, opened and closed as if she were trying to speak but could find neither words nor the air with which to speak them

  “Shh,” Xhea said. “Remember later. For now you have to run—get out of here, okay? As fast as you can.” Where would be safe? Xhea didn’t know; yet the Tower could protect its own. Hostile takeovers were dangerous, but she’d never heard one spoken of as a mass slaughter.

  Xhea took Koiya’s hand and struggled to help her sit. The girl’s movements were heavy and sluggish, her face dazed as if she were still lost in dream. “Come on,” Xhea muttered as the Tower shook, hauling on Koiya’s arm and urging her to stand. “I can’t bloody well carry you out of here.” She hopped back on her good leg, wondering where the iron pipe had rolled.

  “Where did she go?” Koiya whispered. She stood unsteadily and looked around, confused; but whatever she saw in the trembling, cracked ruin of the room above Eridian’s heart brought her no comfort. “The other girl. Where did she go?”

  At Xhea’s side, Shai pressed her fingers to her lips and turned away. Invisible.

  “She’s gone somewhere safe. This is a takeover, do you understand? You have to get out of here.”

  Koiya blinked once, twice, and comprehension blossomed. Her cracked lips opened in a perfect O. She took a step forward, clutching the sheet around herself, its long end trailing behind her like a train. She murmured her thanks without meeting Xhea’s eyes and stumbled toward the lift tube, shards of glass dancing about her feet like diamonds. Even as the lift spells formed and carried her down, she still searched the room as if she might catch a glimpse of Shai if only she looked long enough.

  It was only as Koiya vanished that Xhea realized her folly: “She was my only way down.”

  “I could try to call the elevator,” Shai began, before another tremor drowned out her words. Unable to keep her balance, Xhea slipped from the pedestal, landing with her braced leg awkwardly beneath her. There was a crack like the world breaking, and the fissure made good its promise, rending the floor from end to end and raining its fragments through Eridian’s sputtering heart to the garden far below.

  Xhea stared. No chance of an elevator now, she thought, dazed. The gap divided the room in two, the pedestals on one side and the lift tube on the other. Even whole and healthy, she never could have made the leap. As she watched, magic began to rise from the crack, a bright fog no longer held at bay by the floor’s barrier.

  “Not good,” she said, hearing the edge of her own fear, panic barely held in check. “This is not good.”

  And the point of Allenai’s bottommost defensive spire broke through the ceiling.

  Xhea cowered, wrapping her arms around her head for protection from the falling ceiling’s debris. Yet though there was light and sound and the room vibrated as if it were a vast drum, nothing fell—no glass shards nor pieces of roof, no bits of broken Tower raining down. The echoing sounds weren’t those of things smashing and tearing, but something she didn’t know how to identify—something strange and primal and almost melodic.

  After a shocked moment, she moved her hands and peered hesitantly upward. The tapered point of Allenai’s main spire jutted into the crystalline room, the massive needle so dark it was all but black. Allenai’s surface swirled in dizzying patterns, charcoal on midnight on black, and Eridian’s walls shivered in response, fractures running riot through the clear facets.

  But though they broke and splintered, the pieces did not fall but floated free, hovering in midair and quivering in time to the movements dictated by Allenai’s liquid-oil patterns. Slowly they began to turn, faster and faster until it seemed that above her spun a spiral galaxy made from broken glass and fractured ceiling supports, strips of wire and plumbing pipe. Soon she could not tell one bit from the other, only watch the blur of their movement. And the sound they made—Xhea wanted to cringe and clasp her hands over her ears; she wanted to throw her head back and listen forever.

  The Towers were singing. There were no words but those formed by the destruction, stressed metal and fracturing glass giving voice to the strange transformation above her. It was not the song of two political powers doing battle, but a sound from the structures themselves: a communion of living steel, grown walkways, and stone flesh given wingless flight.

  “They’re alive,” Xhea whispered, unable to hear her voice over the Towers’ song. Towers weren’t just grown, shaped, and molded—they were alive. And the heart of living magic that she’d tried to poison was a heart in truth.

  In time to their singing, the walls melted. The debris had become liquid in its dizzying turn about Allenai’s point, and it now spiraled tighter and tighter in an upward-pointing tornado until it vanished into the other Tower’s surface entirely. The rest of the ceiling overhead began to peel back like a lily opening, Eridian’s surface stripped away layer by layer, melting and shifting and becoming absorbed into Allenai’s very flesh.

  Hostile takeover, Xhea thought, but the words were wrong. As terrifying and alien as the scene above her was—and as damaging to the lives in Eridian—this strange merging of the Towers was beautifu
l. If their meeting had been violent, their courtship rushed, it seemed they were no less grateful for the joining. Despite the chaos, the song that rose all around was one of joy.

  “At least they’ll be happy when they crush me,” Xhea managed. She tried to get to her feet, but her legs wouldn’t hold her.

  No matter where she turned, she could see no escape. There was no hidden stairwell, no ramp, no door in a far wall previously unseen; only the crack in the floor and the long fall to the garden below. Even if there had been—could she have trusted such ways anymore? Where the Tower was not melting entirely, its walls were surely shifting, passages becoming unstable, rooms and halls moving within the confines of Eridian’s outer boundaries, and redesigning themselves to meet Allenai’s needs. Even in the throes of their joining, the Towers would not destroy anything with a magical signature—not, Xhea thought, that that’d do her any good.

  Magic rose from Eridian’s heart like steam on a winter morning. It surrounded Xhea, filling her lungs with every breath—breaths that hurt, hot and burning, before they numbed her from the inside out. Her skin too burned, and she shivered until she felt neither heat nor cold. Everything became strangely distant, as if reality were but a picture held at arm’s length.

  The darkness, she thought, and didn’t know how to continue. There was no darkness here, only the light of the magic rising from Eridian’s heart to meet Allenai, like two hands reaching out, touching. The magic rose between the two of them, a great turning pillar that grew with every moment, the force of the power like heat on her face, and they were singing, singing.