The Forever Court

by Dave Rudden

  In that tone. With that raised eyebrow.

  “Who?” Denizen asked, knowing full well who the who was, but very much wanting another few seconds in which to answer.

  “Mercy. The Endless King’s daughter.” Simon shot Denizen a sidelong glance. “What’s she like?”

  His first thought had been of stars.

  Underneath Crosscaper, beneath several floors of bad dreams and beige wallpaper, Denizen had made his way through fear and doubt and a pitch-black basement only to find a star waiting for him.

  No—not a star. Denizen was a stickler for accuracy, even in his complimentary metaphors. Stars changed, but that process took hundreds of millions of years, so long that the only thing that could observe the process begin and end was the star itself. Mercy had changed with every heartbeat—a writhing skein of light and girl.

  There weren’t words for what she was. Incandescent. Terrifying. Beautiful. They were just human noises in the end. You might have been able to describe her with Cants, but only if you didn’t mind breaking the world apart.

  “She’s ... nice.”

  “Nice?”

  Denizen thought furiously. He’d never speculated about the size of his vocabulary, but suddenly it seemed depressingly small.

  “Yes. Um. Nice.”

  “Oh,” Simon said after a moment. “Well, that’s ... good.”

  The next few minutes were filled with the industrious sound of chips being eaten. Denizen ate all of his, even the inexplicably green chip that somehow always ended up in his bag. Why is there always a green chip? He focused on keeping his mouth full, but there were only so many chips in his bag.

  Denizen knew that. Simon knew that.

  It was just a matter of time.

  “What kind of ... nice?”

  Denizen began to seriously consider the fact that his best friend might be evil.

  “Hmm?” he said, busying himself with folding the grease-stained paper.

  “Mercy,” Simon said. “What sort of nice is she?”

  He was innocently scraping the last of the garlic sauce out of its tiny plastic cup, his expression calm and torturously disinterested.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, you know,” Simon said airily, “is she ... funny-nice? Scary-nice? Bit-weird-nice? There’s different types, you know.”

  Are there? Denizen shut the thought down. He already categorized his frowns. That was bad enough.

  “Mercy wants to talk to you, Den,” Simon continued. “Anything you can tell us about her could be vital. The Order didn’t even know she existed. You’re the closest thing to an expert we have. You must be pretty freaked.”

  “Yeeeess,” said Denizen. “I mean, I suppose.”

  “Especially because you fancy her,” Simon said, and then burst out laughing.

  Denizen went scarlet. Blazing bright red. Visible-from-space vermilion. His fingers tingled as every available drop of blood abandoned the rest of his body, turning his face an unhealthy shade of puce. Nothing should ever be puce, Denizen thought before his mental faculties overheated entirely.

  It took a long time for Simon to stop. There was guffawing, chuckling, a brief detour into cackling, and then finally a sort of dry creak.

  “Ahem,” Simon said when the wheezing had finally dissipated. “Sorry. Ack.”

  Frown No. 9—You Are Making Fun of Me. Denizen wasn’t fond of that frown. It only narrowly missed out on being a glare. Simon recognized the look and stopped.

  “How long have you ... Is it very obvious?”

  “I’ve had an inkling ever since Crosscaper,” Simon said. “The way you talked about her. Or didn’t talk about her. Like you weren’t sure you knew what to say and didn’t want to get it wrong. And the look on your face when her name comes up ...”

  “Ah,” Denizen said, cringing slightly. “Right.”

  “No, look,” Simon said. “I’m not judging you. I’ve just never known you to like anybody before. Ever. And the first time you do it’s the inhuman princess of a shadow dimension. I don’t even know if I’m surprised or not.”

  “I’ve liked people—” Denizen began, and then stopped. He hadn’t really. He’d grown up with everyone of his own age in Crosscaper. They were as close as cousins. And, if anyone else had shown up in the orphanage at the right age and at the right time, well ... you’d have to be soulless to see that as an opportunity to date.

  And he didn’t fancy Mercy. He didn’t know how he felt about her at all. Fancying someone was supposed to feel good, wasn’t it? That was the point, surely? That was biology. If fancying people felt bad, they’d presumably stop doing it.

  Fancying was the wrong word. It was a ridiculous word. It wouldn’t be the right word even if Mercy were human. Denizen just ... thought about Mercy all the time. There were dreams where he was in the dark and she wove trails of light in the distance—an unreachable firefly glow. He’d analyzed every single word she had ever said to him, over and over again, sometimes to look for hidden meanings and other times simply to remember that summer-thunderstorm voice. They’d only met once, but somehow she’d invaded his head and set up permanent shop.

  But that wasn’t fancying someone. Was it?

  And now she was coming back into his life. Into everyone’s lives, actually, and she was bringing a pack of the most ancient and deadly Tenebrous in history with her.

  All in all, it wasn’t an amazing basis for a second date.

  “What am I going to do?” he asked. “The Palatine is involved now”—Denizen had no idea what the leader of the Order was like, but he was imagining Vivian in a bigger hat—“and the Forever Court. The Forever Court. What am I supposed to do? Make conversation? Maybe if it was just Mercy it’d be—”

  He cleared his throat.

  “Well, maybe remember that, then,” Simon said gently. “There’s a lot riding on this. Maybe don’t ... get feelings all over it. You know, in case we end up with an apocalypse.”

  He had a point. The Endless King had been fully prepared to attack this world when he thought the Order had taken his daughter. They’d been lucky to survive.

  Sadness made its cold way through Denizen’s chest. Not everyone had been so lucky.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll just keep thinking about the imminent threat of death. That’ll keep me on the straight and narrow. Perfect.”

  “Exactly.”

  There was a pause.

  “I can’t believe you fancy her.”

  “Shut up.”

  URIEL STARED OUT INTO the Garden of the Waiting. A thousand marble eyes stared back.

  They gleamed in the noonday sun—a host clad in white stone, an army forever denied its War. Not that most of them hadn’t died violently anyway. It was a given, in a world constructed of us and them. There were always going to be far more of them than us.

  Uriel looked down from his perch on a low tomb—

  EREBUS CROIT

  ~ DIED IN FIRE ~

  —to where Ambrel stood with one leg behind her head, arms held out for balance, her slim sword at her feet.

  “Dare I ask who they’ll send?”

  Without wobbling, Ambrel bent and picked up her sword. “Guess.”

  Uriel thought for a moment. “Tabitha. Definitely Tabitha. She was saying ... things at dinner again. And she’s been dying to test her Prayer against mine. Don’t know who else.” He sniffed. “That’s fine. Makes it an actual challenge.”

  Ambrel gave her brother the ghost of a smirk. She had the same Croit wanness and graying hair, but, where his eyes were almost colorless, hers were the bright green-white of a smashed emerald.

  “Meredel? No ... you sprained his wrist last week.”

  “Sprained?” Uriel said with mock-indignation. “I’m not an amateur. If you’re going to do something, sister, do it right.”

  “Broken?”

  “In two places.”

  “Nice.”

  Uriel didn’t bear his cousin any malice. Merede
l was Family. They all were. The second the Redemptress woke, every Croit would march toward their destiny in lockstep. But this was training, and training was supposed to hurt.

  Tabitha was another matter, but any reason she had to hate them should have been excised on their thirteenth birthday, when they had been shown to be Favored. Then again, Croits weren’t very good at letting go of the past. That was sort of the point.

  “What are you going to ask for?” Ambrel said. “If you manage to cross the Garden?”

  “Haven’t thought about it.”

  “What do you mean you haven’t thought about it? Grandfather said if we cross, we get something from Outside. I’ve been thinking about what I’d get for ages.”

  Uriel shrugged. “I don’t know. A book, maybe? There’s a couple of new ones Grandfather just approved. What would you ask for?”

  Ambrel hmmed as she slid her blade once more into its scabbard. “I would ask for ... hair dye.”

  Uriel frowned. “What?”

  She quirked a gray eyebrow. “Apparently, Outside girls dye their hair different colors. Blue. Green. Purple. Can you imagine?”

  He couldn’t, as it happened. “What for?”

  “Haven’t a clue,” she said. “But doesn’t it sound grand?”

  Uriel leapt to the grass, mentally running over their chosen route. It was two kilometers straight across as Eloquence’s murder of crows flew, but, where they had the advantage of altitude and freedom, Uriel and Ambrel would be zigzagging through fifteen centuries of dead relatives. He wondered who they’d cheer for if they could.

  “Hair dye it is, then,” he said.

  Now it was her turn to frown. “Don’t be rusted, Uriel. Two kilometers. Start thinking of something good.”

  “Sister ... are you sure you want to do this?”

  She grinned. “Stop asking me that and run.”

  He obeyed. There was a direct path through the necropolis, but direct was expected, and so the twins dodged between mausoleums, temples, and shrines, freezing and running and freezing again.

  Two steps forward, one step back. Dolmens scaled, pyramids slid down, statues and shadows used as cover. Marble shapes loomed round every corner, and only training and reflexes stopped Uriel from drawing his Prayer and slicing them to pieces. This was a test of restraint as much as anything. Grandfather would be checking the Transgression in their palms when it was over.

  A third of the way across and ... nothing. No opposition. Uriel had to resist the urge to bolt, trusting their quickness to carry them the rest of the way. He could see the same impatience in Ambrel’s movements too—no longer carefully checking intersections but just running, and Uriel racing to keep up. He wanted to call out to her, but sound traveled too well in these avenues of the dead. Sprinting beside her, he tried to catch her eye—

  Just as Cousin Magnus tried to take it out.

  His Prayer was as ugly as the rest of him: a dirty gold lattice that spat sparks as it whipped at Ambrel’s head. Only its scorched-air whine gave Uriel warning. He grabbed his sister by the hand and yanked, and the two went down in a tumble.

  The world rang with the gravel of Magnus’s laughter.

  Ambrel was first to rise, gripping the cold marble ankle of

  ALANYA CROIT

  ~ ASSASSINATED ~

  and, to her credit, she didn’t lash out. Light danced beneath her skin, turning her eyes into spotlights, her other hand hot on Uriel’s wrist—but she didn’t strike. They turned, back to back, but Magnus was nowhere to be seen among the white marble shoulders of hunching tombs.

  Typical, Uriel thought. He knew each of his Family like the back of Ambrel’s hand. Not just their Prayer—the shape their fire took—but their strategies, strengths, and weaknesses. Magnus was a coward. He favored the kind of fight where his opponent didn’t know it was a fight at all.

  A shared glance was all they needed. Ambrel went high, Uriel went low, and, where he had previously been careful, now he was sloppy, sword loose in his hand, his face flushed and panicked. Magnus had scared him, obviously. He was weak. He may as well have had a target painted on his—

  Cousin Barstrel, on the right, forgoing Favor to simply lunge at Uriel with grasping, spade-like hands. He made it three steps before Ambrel flung herself from above to wrap her legs round his neck like a bola whip. Barstrel’s huge eyes got huger, he reared—and Uriel’s terrified scramble became a cobra strike.

  Thank Her for that, Uriel thought, as the older man’s lanky form folded. Running like an idiot was actually a lot more strenuous than doing it properly.

  They loped on.

  Uriel usually felt at home among his Family’s dead. They were inspiring. Their lives, their scars, even the delicately painted coils of black on their skin—a constant reminder that only through serving the Redemptress could a Croit be saved. Now, though, the cold stone faces had taken on the feel of enemy territory.

  Eight hundred meters to go.

  Statue after statue after statue. Uriel’s vision blurred with names and deaths.

  ABADIU CROIT

  ~ DIED IN BATTLE ~

  His eyes flicked back and forth, hunting movement.

  WULFSTAN CROIT

  ~ DIED IN GLORY ~

  Fingers flexing on the hilt of his sword.

  “Wait,” he whispered. Ambrel gave him a sharp glance. There was something—some detail he had registered but not understood. He turned back to

  ISKOR CROIT

  ~ DIED IN SHAME ~

  and took in the hunched posture, the wringing hands. They had all learned about Iskor, his cowardice, the rust in his heart, and the black on his skin.

  It moved. The painted Transgressions on Iskor’s statue began to coil upward, the dark rising like wires hungrily seeking—

  Tabitha.

  If you took a winter sunset and packed it into a few short seconds, made what should be beautiful into an assault, that was the Prayer of Tabitha Croit. The twins turned in unison to see the tombs, the grass, and the summer sunlight simply disappear, swallowed by an avalanche of black.

  Ambrel’s hand found Uriel’s half a second before it hit.

  It was as if the day had never existed. Uriel knew he hadn’t moved. They still stood at the same intersection under the same sun, but he could no longer see his hand in front of his face. Sound was muffled, fractured. Bright curlicues of nothing burst against his eyelids as he blinked, but it didn’t make a difference.

  Of course it didn’t. Real darkness had no hold on a Favored Croit. That was from where their Redemptress had come, and She had polished it to a Luster so they could see. This darkness had a mind behind it, and that meant it could be beaten.

  The Favor came quickly. It always came quickly, but Uriel was trained not to take that as a sign of approval. It wanted to be used, and there was only one shape it could flow into, a shape he’d spent years building in his mind.

  Uriel took a deep breath, squeezed Ambrel’s hand, and pulled a sword of fire from the devotion in his heart.

  The darkness didn’t like that—swarming back to reveal a circle of grass and daylight—before Tabitha redoubled her unseen assault. Uriel’s tiny sphere of respite caved in beneath the black, and he was blind; blind as he’d been that first time he had walked into the Shrine beneath Eloquence.

  He had been afraid then. He wasn’t afraid now.

  Uriel charged, blade a roaring line of fire in the air. It was searing in his hand, but soon the pinch of cooling iron made the pain a distant thing. He swept it in a circle, and grinned as he heard someone curse. The blade sliced and sliced again, cutting the darkness to sections, to ribbons, to shards.

  Iron Transgression was creeping across his skin, and for that Uriel would pay Penance, but he knew it must be racing across Tabitha’s as well. Maintaining this globe of night was far more draining than a simple sword.

  Think of all that sin, Auntie, and break.

  Tabitha broke.

  Uriel threw himself through falling c
urtains of night—and there she was, perched on a dolmen, wide silver eyes blinking in the sudden sun.

  Ambrel recovered first and charged, but she hadn’t taken two steps before Magnus’s lattice drove her to her knees.

  She shrieked into the dirt. Uriel raised his sword, but a trailing frond of gold struck him so hard across the face he saw stars. His grip on the Favor vanished, searing his mind as it went. By the time his vision cleared, sickly yellow bonds had snared him as well.

  Tabitha Croit was taller than Grandfather, and while she did not possess his air of terrible grandeur, she made up for it in sheer bulk. Her arms were monstrous with muscle, her every movement a terrible, audible flex of sinew. A waterfall of gray hair swept down to hide the beads of iron pushing through her cheek.

  Magnus was dwarfed beside her, rodent face crunched in concentration. Lassoing gold was fused round Uriel’s fingers. He could feel the heat of it, like a pot of boiling water lifted with a towel.

  What would happen if I—

  No. Even if he summoned his sword, he wouldn’t have been able to hold it.

  Another loop wrapped round the lower half of Ambrel’s face, blocking the song of flame Uriel knew would be building in her throat. They’d both wear burns tomorrow. Anger pulsed through him and he tensed, gathering his feet underneath himself to leap.

  Ambrel gave a tiny shake of her head.

  “And I always thought Uriel was the smarter one,” Tabitha murmured. Magnus chuckled by her side, a little too late to convince Uriel he actually found her funny. Magnus always had been a suck-up. “Maybe you should listen to her this time, boy.”

  The leash of light tugged at Uriel and he staggered. It didn’t stop his sneer. “Barstrel still unconscious?”

  “I think you misunderstand who is doing the gloating here, nephew,” Tabitha said, her smile disappearing. “You didn’t make it. Didn’t even get close. And that was with her cheating.” Her eyes burned gold. “You were supposed to be hunting him with us.”

  Ambrel shrugged. Uriel couldn’t see her mouth, but he was sure she was smiling. Tabitha hated being disobeyed, or ignored, or anything that wasn’t groveling respect.