The Scarlet Star Trilogy

by Ben Galley

  Whether because it was shy or arrogant, Merion could not tell, but the Bloodmoon took its merry time rising. Ten minutes crept by, and no sliver of moon appeared above the city’s rooftops. Merion even tried jumping again. It was useless.

  ‘This is unbearable,’ he said aloud, getting resoundingly shushed by Devan, standing behind him with his mighty arms crossed. His eyes were half-closed, as if he were drunk on anticipation.

  Yara was soon amongst them, weaving between her rushers, touching shoulders and muttering in ears. She was smiling widely, and more so with every step. She stood at Merion’s side and rested a hand on his shoulder. It was almost enough to sour the whole moment.

  ‘Are you ready, Master Harlequin?’ she asked, echoing Rahan. ‘Ready to taste the Bloodmoon?’

  ‘I am,’ Merion replied, meaning it more than she knew.

  Yara only nodded, tilting back her head and closing her eyes like the others. It was time, it seemed. The waiting was finally over. Merion kept his eyes fixed on the horizon. If this was heresy, then he chose to be damned. This night was already teetering on the brink of damnation as it was.

  And there, a tingle in his temples. Something itching behind his eye. A shiver in his gut. Merion tensed as if he were rushing, excited and perturbed all at once. The crowd became deathly silent.

  Merion half-expected them to cheer as a sliver of red poked its head over the rooftops, but silence reigned. In moments it was a shallow dome of the deepest crimson, as if the buildings themselves oozed blood or fire. The Bloodmoon rose, up and up through the strands of cloud, eager to claim its throne of starless black. It was a jagged half-circle now, red as a sunset. Merion felt his mouth drop as his eyes roved over the moon’s puckered face: a colossal ruby battered by the hammers of forgotten gods. He could not tear himself away from it. It was a giant of a moon. Three times the size of any he had ever seen. It felt as though it would tumble out of the sky at any moment and reduce the world to cinders. Its scars glowed with a bright scarlet fire, burning the sky around it to a russet brown. The lights of the circus were overpowered. The grass and tent-cloth turned to flame.

  With every inch the Bloodmoon climbed, every wave of light it poured on the earth, Merion felt his own body climb with it. His teeth chattered as the pressure built up inside him. It felt as though his stomach wanted to clamber out of his mouth and run to greet it. Merion pushed back hard, wincing.

  And then, as the Bloodmoon hauled itself from the horizon and stood alone, unchallenged even by cloud, it felt as though a valve were released. Intoxicated, he crested the wave of shivers and rode it down. The Bloodmoon’s power became a trembling of his insides. A fire burnt inside him, as hot as the moon’s pitted surface. He flexed his arms and felt the surge of his own blood. He felt every pulse and twitch of his veins.

  With a guilty grin, Merion turned to Yara, who, along with the others, was busy raising her arms to the mighty moon. Merion felt it rude not to do the same. He lifted his arms and felt the blood rush into them, clamouring to be that little bit closer, like a doting subject reaching to grasp the coattails of a king.

  The Bloodmoon now held sway over the sky, holding fast in the vastness. Yara clapped her hands, once, twice. Devan added his own thumping to it, and before Merion knew it, the small crowd was gripped in exultant applause. Several of the rushers even bowed. He joined with them, not wanting to be left out.

  ‘And there it is, Master Harlequin.’ Yara raised her voice. ‘The Bloodmoon in all its glory.’

  ‘Stunning,’ he mouthed back.

  ‘Is it not? A year is far too long to wait for such a thing.’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Now, we put the red in our bellies!’ Devan barked, lifting a vial to his lips and throwing his head back. Others followed suit. Wide smiles appeared on their faces, their eyes rolling back. The looks on their faces were halfway between pain and euphoria. Merion patted his pockets for his own vials, doled out by Shan barely an hour ago. He held one with trembling hands, letting the shaking guide it up to his mouth. He could smell every particle of the eel blood: its copper, its salt, its magick. He felt an inescapable thirst driving his chin upwards and his mouth open. Down, the blood went, and Merion felt like a first-time rusher once again.

  Burning didn’t begin to describe it. He would have doubled up had his stomach not lurched inside him. Merion clenched his fists and pushed against the rising magick. It was unbearable for just a moment, but then as the blood made the jump from his stomach to his veins, he felt rhapsodic dizziness rising with it. He laughed uncontrollably as the magick swallowed his skull.

  Stronger, easier, faster, and a thousand other things, Merion put his hands together and felt the lightning run over them like water from a tap.

  ‘You feel it now?’ Yara asked of him.

  Merion was gritting his teeth so hard he almost forgot to answer. ‘I do,’ he said, working his strain into a wide smile. ‘I do.’

  ‘I said you would be ready,’ she smiled, walking away to bask in the glory of the others.

  More than ever, he thought to himself, grinning at the moon.

  Thrumming with magick and with grins and laughs aplenty, the crowd filtered back to the marquee, leaving Merion to stare up at the Bloodmoon. He could not take his eyes from it, and with each passing moment he felt as though he were drinking more and more of its power in. Whether that was even possible, Merion didn’t care. He felt it, and that was all that mattered. He found himself wishing for a ladder, or a rope and hook, anything that could get him closer to it. Such was the allure of the blood-red moon.

  *

  An hour passed, and still the show raged. Like a whirling machine, getting faster and faster, slipping closer to the edge of control. The crowd felt it, breathed it, and urged it on. All things that teeter beg to be pushed. Yara was a master of spinning that particular illusion. Merion hated to admit it. Every act topped itself, again and again, with every trick the Lightning had up her sleeve. Merion hovered in the shadow of the stage stairs, watching wide-eyed as Jackabo, rushing impossibly hard in the Bloodmoon’s presence, spun a thunderstorm out of fire, much to the crowd’s delight.

  The refined can always find some savagery in them when in the presence of real magick, even if they don’t quite know it. A shelved memory, somewhere deep in the roots of the mind, of an olden time huddled in a cave, coaxing fire from a stone, listening to the roar of the night’s monsters. They gawped and goggled, hooted and brayed, letting sense fall away. Merion would have been doing the same, had he not been a scant handful of minutes from the peak of the evening. His finale. His one and only chance.

  Merion looked around, surreptitiously trying to spot Rhin. The faerie should be here by now. The marquee was a hive of laughter with the swigging of moonshine and blood. The show was coming to a climax. Their jobs were done, and now they waited patiently to take their positions for the closing bow. Merion clenched his fists, letting his magick pulsate. There would be no bowing. No gracious kiss-blowing and waving.

  There, in the long grass, something glinted. Fae steel. Merion just nodded, scratched behind his ear, and walked deeper into the big tent. A hollering call rose above the clamour of the audience.

  ‘Now presenting! All the way from frozen Rosiya, the master of Cirque Kadabra, Yara the Lightning!’

  Merion flinched as Yara brushed past him, taking to the stage with Devan. The boy felt an itch to see this, and so he edged along the stage, under its struts and out to where Lincoln’s guards lined the fringes of the audience. A few of them cast him cautionary looks, but he settled down in front of them, in the shadow behind the lanterns, and watched.

  Yara bowed deep and low to Lincoln and his entourage. An eager clapping followed her as she did a lap of the stage. With a wave of her hand, drums began to play, somewhere on the other side of the tent. They hammered out a throbbing beat, savage in itself. Merion could hear the audience mumbling in anticipation, hear the benches creaking as they edged forward in their
seats.

  Devan was still wearing his costume, the one that exposed as much of him as possible without being overly inappropriate. He went to the end of the stage, where a stack of wooden boards had been piled. He took two and held them outstretched. Yara bowed again, and as she rose a hand darted inside her skirt-folds.

  Babam!

  Two daggers struck the boards in quick succession, quivering only slightly. The crowd gasped as their wonder-addled minds caught up. Yara grinned and bowed once more as the roar rose. Devan hoisted up two more boards, holding one in his teeth and tilting his head. The other was held in front of his groin. Yara magicked two more knives from her sleeves, holding them between her fingers. The audience oohed appropriately. With a slim hand covering her eyes, she threw as if shaking out a wet towel. The knives sailed through the air, lazy in their accuracy. The audience held its breath, fearing the worst for Devan’s neck and family jewels. Two sharp thuds sounded, and Yara grinned at their cheering.

  And so it went. Sharp blades raced from her deft hands, each a blur of silver or dusty black streaking across the stage to torment the boards. The audience were enraptured. Devan held a stoic smile, keeping his fingers in and his body still. He need not have worried. Merion could see it in his face: utter confidence. And why not? Yara the Lightning was the finest knife-thrower this side of the ocean, and most likely of the other side too. Even when Devan began to spin around, the boards dancing, there wasn’t a target she couldn’t hit.

  It crept over Merion like a bitter frost. The realisation, cold as winter’s claws, even though he was sweating something chronic in the stuffy tent. There wasn’t a target she couldn’t hit.

  Merion’s eyes did his terrible work for him, inching from Yara to the regal figure sitting tall at the audience’s heart. He felt the frost reach his innards and shivered. Lincoln.

  This was bigger than him. Much bigger indeed.

  Understanding came like a landslide. The shadows of Yara’s machinations were drawn back. Dizali. Victorious. Lincoln. How had he not seen this? Merion slapped a furious palm to his forehead, making a nearby guard flinch warily. The guards!

  The young Hark scrabbled to his feet, kicking dust, and worked some saliva into his dry mouth. He would spill it all if he had to, or weave some lie, anything to make them understand Lincoln was in danger.

  The nearest guard regarded him suspiciously as Merion sidled up to him. Before he could open his mouth, a figure appeared from the shadow of the stage. Itch, a finger bending towards him, his eyes fierce.

  ‘It’s time, boy,’ he mouthed over the roar of the audience.

  Merion felt stuck in treacle. The guard just raised an eyebrow questioningly. All Merion could do was flick a glance at Lincoln before Itch put a wiry arm around his shoulder.

  ‘What exactly you doin’, boy?’ he hissed.

  ‘Nothing,’ Merion lied. ‘Just wanted to ask if he was enjoying it.’ He had to give him something.

  ‘Don’t you worry about that. You just worry about your finale.’

  Merion clamped his jaw shut, feeling the cold sweat drip down his chest. He was led to the stairs, where one of the girls dabbed the sweat from his makeup and brushed the dust from his costume.

  He was shoved in the small of his back as the audience jumped to its feet, applauding madly for the Lightning. Her knife-play was over. It was Merion’s turn. His heart tried to keep up with the pounding drums. He put his feet to work and crept slowly into the blinding light. A vial was pushed into his hands and he threw it down, using the magick to distract him from the panic.

  Yara was holding her hands up for silence. ‘They call me the Lightning,’ she announced when she received it, her voice low and brimming with intrigue. ‘But it gives me the greatest pleasure to introduce to you a young boy who is far more deserving of that name than I. A boy born in the middle of a storm. A boy struck by lightning more times than his fingers or toes can count. A boy favoured by the old gods of thunder and dark nights … Introducing Cirque Kadabra’s newest wonder, your final entertainer for the evening, Master Harlequin!’

  The audience stayed standing, raising its hands high and its voices higher as the boy took to the blinding lights of the stage. Merion’s heart might as well have belonged to a hummingbird. Every inch of him shivered as trepidation and blood burnt his insides. A score of different emotions fought for space in his crowded head. His thoughts bellowed at him.

  How dare they!

  Save him!

  Bring them to their knees!

  Destroy them!

  Run!

  Don’t choke!

  Merion forced a grin onto his face as Yara stole his arm to wave with. He felt close to passing out.

  ‘Do not be scared, Merion. Trust the Bloodmoon, and you shall do us proud,’ she whispered in his ear over the adoring applause. Merion didn’t bother to temper the scowl he gave her. Pretences be damned.

  ‘I’m not scared,’ he hissed. And he wasn’t. A thousand things, but not scared. Angry. Nervous. Vengeful. Full of doubt, but not afraid. He relished that as best he could.

  Yara shrank back to the edge of the stage and Merion was left alone. Just him, the stage, and the bubbling audience. They had now taken their seats, and they watched and waited expectantly.

  A stage is an odd thing. For all its simplicity of wood and nails and varnish, it holds a terrible power. It can prickle the skin. It can send the blood rushing from cheeks. It can set a tremble in the bones that is tough to shake out. But outride those dark charms, and it’s a magnet for the eyes, a tower from which to rule. He had the audience in his palm, to do with how he wished. Failure, shock, or awe, it was all up to him. And he knew exactly what to do. ‘Just stick to the plan,’ he muttered to himself.

  Merion let the magick burn.

  He raised a hand and showed its emptiness. There was a showman in him, that was for sure. He recalled the fire-pits and held onto that memory as his other hand moved around in a mystical circle. A few murmurs rose up from the audience.

  A spark shocked them silent. A bright flash between his fingers. The magick had snuck out, truth be told, but it was welcome. Merion let another crackle, longer this time. The audience began to swap looks, suspecting a trick. The young Hark found himself smiling.

  Time to let them have it. Merion held his hands apart, flat-faced, and let a stream of lightning burn between them, fiercely bright. The audience cried out in wonder. The boy feigned difficulty, even though the magick longed to burst from him.

  Merion looked up, meeting the curious, dark eyes of Lincoln and pulled out a few more stops. The lightning began to wrap around him like the ropes of a prisoner. Coursing veins of blue-white light wandered like tentacles across the stage. They never stayed still, pausing only to dance, to char the wood. A few bolts snuck up to tickle Cabele’s ropes. More flicked across the backdrop of the stage, where the drums were now pounding. Merion tried to drag it back, feeling the Bloodmoon pushing him.

  The audience could not quite believe their eyes, and that alone was enough to fill him with fierce pride. He grinned as he toyed with the lightning, juggling it from one hand to the other and tossing it here and there across the stage, like Spetzig with his brands, or Yara with her knives.

  Her knives.

  Merion reined the power in, abruptly conscious he was wasting time. He held his breath as he built the crackling of his electricity to a fever-pitch. Bolts and sparks spun around him like a school of piranhas around a drowning goat. With every flick of his fingers he could feel it trying to burst out of him, tiptoeing along the brink of control.

  With every muscle clenched as tightly as he could manage, before his teeth cracked and his eyes threw themselves from their sockets, Merion turned on his heel. He wanted to look Yara in the eyes before he unleashed his magick. He wanted to see the curve of her smile crumble like wet sand. He wanted to see her lying on the flat of her back, wheezing and confused, as he stood over her. For all the lies. For all the hollow hopes. For al
l the poisonous audacity in her heart. He would start with her before burning her circus to the ground, before saving Lincoln.

  Only it was not Yara’s eyes he met, but an entirely different pair indeed. A pair Merion had never expected to see again in his life.

  One was green, and one blue, and they both squinted in smug derision. Merion almost let his magick loose right there and then through shock alone. It was not Suffrous. He could see that now, as he stared goggle-eyed, as the audience whooped and cheered at his back. It was another man. This one was taller, thinner, and had subtle differences in his attire—a brother maybe. And in his hands, he held his own blinding ball of lighting, mirroring the young Hark.

  Merion knew he had seconds to act. He could see it in the coiled spring of the man’s body: a snake ready to pounce. But practice is the road to perfection, and in the face of decades, mere months collapse. It was a simple, aching fact. This ghost of Suffrous was faster. Much faster.

  Before the boy could bring his lightning crashing down on the man and the others loitering on the steps, he was seized in a searing grip. He cried out as the man’s spell coursed through his veins, defiling his own magick. Electricity burst from him like lashing whips. A few frightened yells could be heard over the roar of the battling spells.

  Merion felt himself being manoeuvred against his will. It was the lightning, manhandling his muscles. His face crumbled into a mask of horror as he was turned back to the audience. He glowed like a stolen sun. All he could do was stare at them, silently willing them to run. Some still thought it part of the show, clapping and grinning. Others were swapping wary glances as the magick grew and grew.

  He was powerless. A pawn. The man held him in a cage and made him dance. Merion felt his hands creeping out, powerless. Dread grew fierce as his fingers bent to claws. Merion struggled with all his might and magick, but was found wanting. Even in the heat of the spell, he grew ice-cold with the fear of what he was being forced to do. A shrill cry escaped from his throat, as useless as his struggling.