Jix meandered between several pews, talking breathlessly as he approached. “Things in Thillria have a way of being passed around, m’lady. Secrets here are like streams, flowing from one gossiper to the next. Be glad you only just arrived. If you stay long enough, they’ll all know you, every one of them. You’ll run back to your husband-to-be, just begging to go home for a moment of privacy.”
If Rellen would even have me, she thought, but did not say. She faced the stars again, leaning on the sill. Her detachment from the world felt palpable, her every breath slow to pass her lips. “I wonder if I was wrong to come to Thillria,” she said.
Jix sidled to the window beside hers. “I know what vexes you.” He looked to the stars the same as she. “I’ve seen it in you. That stormy day in the fields outside Gryphon. By the lake in the Dales. Every other eve from Kilnhome to here. I know, m’lady.”
She pulled herself out of the window and gazed upon him. His face lay all in shadow, the starlight winking white in the blackness of his eyes. “You know nothing,” she told him.
“Perhaps you are right.” He shrugged. “But would you have come to Thillria if you believed me a fool? You did not forget what we talked of in Gryphon, did you? I know you’ve been waiting for it. It was cruel of us to keep you in the dark for so long, and for it I beg your forgiveness. But now that you and I have a moment alone…”
Her breath felt trapped behind her lips. Her words were stuck in her throat. She mustered nothing, so Jix carried on.
“It is known you survived the dark magicks of the Furyons,” he told her. “Your tale trickled south until it washed up on Thillrian shores. They took you, didn’t they? They locked you in their black citadel and shared their secrets with you. They taught you the night’s magic. Is this how you remember it?”
The memories came back to her then. The wounds of Furyon, for so long suppressed, speared her heart and sent chills through her body. Malog. She saw the obsidian citadel in her mind, huge and horrifying. Revenen, my Master. The oceans of bones, the black horn, the Orb. And…the voices.
“Yes,” she whispered, frozen where she stood.
“And then, by the grace of a few, you escaped.” Jix described it as though he had been with her all along. “You traveled home, forgetting all they had taught you. You dwelled in happiness, at least for awhile, until you began to remember. Even so far removed from Furyon, Malog returns to you. Like a string tied to your heel, it tugs you backward in time. You see and feel strange things. Your senses are keener by twilight, your dreams profound, and the things you once cared about have begun to fade to some forgettable corner of your mind. You suspect that you have become what the Furyons desired you to be, a child of the shadows. This is their doing, Andelusia. Their sorcery is an unwanted thing, and yet you crave it. You want to know more. You cannot help yourself.”
“How did you know? I told Garrett, no one else.”
“I did not know. The King told me.”
“How did he know?”
“Orumna suffers few questions. I did not dare ask.”
“How did you find me here in the abbey? It is dark. No one could have seen me.”
“No one who was not looking, I’ll grant you. But Jix always looks and Jix always sees. The moonlight followed you, and so did I.”
She took one step away from the window. Her hands shook like autumn’s leaves, her whole body quivering. “And the knife?” She wished she had the three-tined blade from the shop in Kilnhome. “I did not knock it off the shelf. It fell because it wanted me to find it. Why? Why did that happen?”
Jix shook his head. “I do not know, m’lady. I will say only that if you are attracted to something, you are meant to possess it. You are no ordinary woman. That which moves in your mind moves with great purpose, however vague it might seem.”
Shivering, she stood with her back against the cold stone wall. She shut her eyes again, feeling as though the stones might give way and swallow her into some dark and bottomless abyss. “What then?” she quaked. “I am some sort of witch? A ghost in a girl’s skin? Did the Furies kill me, and now I am but a wandering shade? Some nights, I feel more alive than ever, but others…the voices…I cannot take much more.”
She slid down the wall and sank to the floor, her hair falling like sunset across her face. For many moments, Jix said nothing. He let her weep softly until she found her words again.
“What does your King want from me?” She looked up to him, her eyes glistening.
Looming above her, Jix seemed larger than he had been, a figure graven from some substance blacker than the night. “He needs your help,” he said. “We all do. Without you, we have no hope.”
She peeled herself from the floor and stood before Jix. He is small again, she sensed. I should be ashamed for weeping in front of him. “What must I do?” she sniffled. “In Gryphon, you told me only a part of it.”
“Ah.” He smiled in the shadows. “It’s a simple thing, but then not so simple. There is only one who can do it, and she is you.”
“Why only me?”
“Mistress Andelusia, you know what I speak of. In the forest we call Nightmare, an old evil thrives. The dead souls of Shivershore have awoken. They stretch their talons ever northward, claiming lives by the hundred, growing bolder with every passing sunset. If the relic in the heart of Nightmare is not removed, I fear for all of us.”
“Why should I do this?” She looked down at him. “Why should Thillria matter to me?”
“Andelusia.” The way he said her name sent a shiver up her spine. “If you do this for Thillria, you will earn all you ever wanted in life. King Orumna will give you gold, a manor of your own, incomes and servants and tables full of food every night for the rest of your life. But more than any of this, he will give you purpose. You would become powerful in these lands, a princess of the arts if you like. You like music, yes? What about books? Saul of Elrain is not the only one among you who noses in the world’s oldest tomes. Do this for Thillria, and every book will be yours, every wine yours to sip upon as you read. Are these not reasons enough? Is there something more you desire?”
Yes, she wanted to say. What I want, no one can give me.
Her gaze drifted toward the stars beyond the window. The tiny aperture to the heavens called to her, willing her imagination to life. She remembered all of what Jix had said in the field outside of Gryphon. Just before the rain, she recalled. I believed him then. And here I am, a month from home, doubting everything.
“You said the dead guard the forest.” She willed her doubts away. “You named places like Shivershore, Nightmare, and Selhaunt. Tell me everything, Jix. Tell me now or I will leave.”
Jix pulled at his cheeks with his fingers as if to tear away his trepidation. “You want to know what we’re asking you to retrieve,” he said. “Is this so, m’lady?”
“Yes. Tell me. And after you tell me that, tell me why I am the only one who can do it.”
“The Pages Black.” All the night’s sounds died when he said it.
“The Pages…” Her breath left her. “But…”
“Yes, the Pages,” he repeated. “The nether power of those who came before mankind, the last written words of the Ur. This is what sleeps in Nightmare’s heart, my dear. This is what plagues us. No man alive knows just how the black book came to be in Thillria or how long it has lain in Shivershore, but if this foulest thing should be removed from the forest, we feel certain the dead will tumble back into their graves. The horrors will stop. The shadow over Thillria will lift.”
“The Pages.” She felt compelled to say the name again. “Saul said there were five objects.”
“Five indeed,” said Jix. “Until you helped destroy one in Furyon. Now there are but four. Thillria would prefer only three.”
The Pages. The thought roiled in her mind, a maelstrom of terror. I should run now. I should fetch my friends and leave tonight. Either he is lying or his guess is wrong. But…what if he is not wrong?
“It must be done,” J
ix pressed her. “Else we are doomed. I have already made the arrangements. Six days from now, eleven men will arrive in Denawir. They will ride to Nightmare with or without you. But know this; without you they will surely die. Only you may pass unharmed. Only you may remove the Pages Black.”
She pressed her back to the wall again. The stones were warm, but only because her skin felt cold as death. If Rellen or Garrett knew, she thought, they would hew Jix to tatters. Now I know why the King wants Rellen to stay so long. He means to delay him while recruiting me. The Pages…I need to talk to Saul. He would know the answers.
The moonlight brushed Jix’s face, making a ghost of him. He stood placidly before her, his body garbed in darkness, his hands folded before him as if in prayer.
“You make me wonder.” She took one step toward him. “Is this the want of your King? Or is this your desire?”
“Pardon, m’lady?”
“The way you say these things, the way you corner me here, I cannot help but think you mean to use me. Your promises are lightly given, Jix of Aeth. Gold and glory can be mine, so you say. No one can touch the black book save me, so you tell me. Why? Because I have been to Furyon? Because some creature in a tattered old cloak taught me a few words I only barely remember? Let us suppose I am a warlock, and that I do possess some power lent by the Furies. How would you know these secret things? Why sneak to me in fields and under ruined domes? To save Thillria? Or to recruit me to some other purpose? Do not think that because I am a woman, frail and fragile in your eyes, that you can push me to your own ends. Make sense of this now, Jix, or else I shall go to Garrett. Not Rellen, because I know you do not fear my love, but Garrett, whose wrath every soul on this earth would be wise to avoid.”
Jix unfolded his hands and stepped away from her. “I understand, m’lady. Perhaps the King hoped for too much, as did I. A fool, I’ve been. I’m sorry to have troubled you. I shall not do so again.”
“You will not answer me?” she challenged him. “All this, and you mean to walk away.”
Jix retreated until the darkness consumed him. He glanced to her once before leaving, his face invisible, his footsteps soft as snowfall as he floated to the abbey door.
“I am sorry, mistress. There is no time.”
Ghost of a Girl
At a sun-bleached bench in the topmost chamber of the Inkhouse Lodge, Saul sat before a window and looked out over Denawir. His was a fine vantage, the window just high enough for him to take in the city’s gardens, its towers, and the deep blue waters of Denawir’s. For the first time since leaving Gryphon, he found himself at ease.
If only Gryphon had such a place. He considered his fortune. Though if it did, I’d never leave.
The Inkhouse was all he had ever hoped for. Books, scholars, artists, and more books. He had found it by accident during his second day in Denawir, and had rarely left it since. The Inkhouse was a place of learning, a haven for writers, travelers, alchemists, and old nosers like me. It lay in the heart of the city’s market, the tallest dwelling on a street lined with tents, wagons, and every manner of Thillrian. Its only door, a heavy slab of dirt-encrusted oak, was gouged with countless boot marks, while its white coquina walls were cut with wide, clean windows. Its first floor was a tavern, its second and third libraries, and its fourth, the room he liked the most, was all bookshelves, tables, couches, and quietude.
Having already accepted him into their ranks, the scholars had left him alone for the morning. He had the top floor all to himself, every book, scroll, and inkwell. A dozen tomes lay open before him, including The History of Shivershore, Sailors of the Selhaunt, and even a black-bound book named The Cornerstone. He wished he could read them all. And if King Orumna keeps Rellen for the winter, perhaps I shall.
He was just about to shutter the window, fire a lamp, and sink into the History of Shivershore when he heard a knock at the door behind him.
“Who goes?” he asked without looking. “Come in,” he called. “It’s no bother. I haven’t started reading, not yet anyhow.”
He heard nothing thereafter. Leaning back in his cushioned chair, he thought little of it. So polite, these scholars. I could almost live here, but for the winters we were promised. He cracked open the cover to The History of Shivershore, tugged his lantern close, and stretched his arms to prepare himself for a daylong read.
But he was no longer alone in the room.
“Good morning, Saul.” The sound of a woman’s voice stunned him. “Awfully quiet in here. I thought for sure you would hear me.”
He leapt from his chair and snatched up his battlestaff, but sank back down as soon he saw Andelusia. She was reclined on a couch, her feet bare, her white dress soiled at the hem, and her eyes full of mystery.
“Ande,” he exhaled and set his battlestaff down. “Crows take my eyes, girl, how did you get in here? I didn’t hear the door open. You shouldn’t sneak up on people, you know, least of all a man deep in his books.”
She smiled, as pretty a thing as sunrise. “You said you had yet to start reading, so I thought I would say hello.”
Quick as a cat, she bounced up from the couch and wandered elsewhere in the room. Like moonlight she seemed, brightening the books as she browsed the shelves and ran her fingers along their spines. “I knew I would find you here,” she said as she walked. “Look at all these books. More even than your cellar in Gryphon.”
I know this mood, thought Saul. She wants something. Likely lots of somethings. “Such a nice day outside.” He looked to the window, beyond which blue skies reigned. “And you came here to see me? Really now, you and Rellen should forgive each other.”
“I would if I were the only sinner.” She plucked a book from a shelf, perused it, and stuffed it back. “But I am not. You heard the things he said. You know.”
Hard to argue with that, he thought. The lad is a mess of late. He should have married her years ago.
Dragging a chair behind her, she came to his table. She looked not to his pile of books or the towers beyond his window, but directly at him, as disarming a look any woman on the earth had ever given him. She seems sad, he reckoned, though for some other reason than Rellen.
“Besides...” She plunked in her seat. “Rellen would not have me. He is under Orumna’s yoke. You are my one and only friend.”
“What about Garrett?” He sat beside her.
“Off in the city.”
“And Aeth? The gardens? The wine?”
“Nice enough.” She shrugged. “But the courtyard is a lonely place without a friend, and the King’s wine is bitter.”
“Ande, about you and Rellen…”
“I did not come here to talk about that.” She lifted a finger, silencing him. “There is something else. I have a secret of sorts. You must swear to say nothing.”
“Ah, another secret.” He folded his hands in his lap. “You keep so many.”
“I know.”
Just then, he witnessed the change sweep over her. A shadow washed over her face like a sudden twilight, the greyness conquering her eyes after a single bat of her long, dark lashes. She sank into her chair like a stone into the sea, and Saul shivered, for she seemed a different woman than moments before.
“Are you ill?” he asked.
“Frightened.” Her voice cracked. “Lost. I did not know who else to go to. I need your help.”
“Frightened? You? Of what?”
“Of my life. Nothing will be the same.”
He remembered her the way she had been, all those years ago. When he had found her in Cairn, she had been just a girl, fickle as the wind, her heart rich with dreams and childlike hopes for a world that never was. But that was a long time ago, he reckoned. After what she has been through, she should fear nothing.
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