The Forever Court

by Dave Rudden

  But here ...

  The fire came with danger. It came when it tasted the Tenebrae in the air. It came when its wielder was angry, and it came when they were afraid.

  No wonder the Croits were insane. This place hungered to be burned.

  How far would he get? How far would the Cants take him if he really, really cut loose? Denizen could feel them perched on his nerve endings, waiting to be called. It’d have to be something big, he thought. In his head, the Cants rearranged themselves, and Denizen felt the fire tremble at each new path it could take.

  The cold of the castle seemed very distant now. Denizen knew that the second his skin began to heat, the wire would contract, but maybe if he drew on as much power as he could ... maybe if he drank it all in and became a sun himself, a walking solar flare ... then maybe the wire would burn instead of cut, and he’d be free to burn with it.

  Denizen.

  The Cants could be combined. Knights did it all the time. Words became phrases became sentences, each syllable changing the one before. That was what language was. Cants moved in his head like soldiers marching in step. Ten, fifteen, twenty—how much skin would he have to give to speak all of them?

  Would there even be a Denizen left?

  Stop.

  The fire lapped at the bottom of his heart, above it circled the Cants, and in between was Denizen—just a knot of thoughts and worry and frowns, and if he let the three meet, he’d cease to exist. Wouldn’t that be better? Just let them have one another and ride the updraft of his own immolation.

  “Adversary.”

  Denizen opened eyes he didn’t remember closing. For a moment, his brain heard his name and rejected it as unimportant. You couldn’t set fire to anything with those syllables. Curlicues of fire danced across his vision, begging to be made a reality, outlining the walls, the floor, and the girl holding something sharp.

  Wait. Go back.

  “What did you do to my brother?” she hissed.

  Denizen suddenly realized he had no idea how long Ambrel had been standing there—how long he’d been standing there, swaying on his feet, listening to the music of seventy-eight stars. Even in the Lucidum’s washed-out shades, he could tell her eyes were sore from crying, her hair a tangle down to her shoulders as if she’d been tearing at it.

  Her grip on the knife was rock-steady.

  This must be what having an office is like, Denizen thought distantly. People just drop in to see you. Admittedly, everyone so far had pulled some kind of weapon on him, but that was apparently just his life now. That’s why the Knights were so calm all the time. You ended up just navigating the sharp edges on autopilot.

  “What did you do to him?” she snapped again, each word punctuated with a jab of the knife. Denizen tried to focus. Autopilot or not, that was an extremely sharp knife. No, not a knife. Something sharp with the same shape.

  Focus.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he said carefully. “And I thought the plan was to not kill me?”

  Ambrel paced back and forth. “I don’t have to kill you,” she said.

  “Oh,” he replied. “Good?”

  Suddenly her fingers were tangled in his hair, yanking his head back to expose his throat. Denizen’s hands rose to grab her—then stopped as she nestled the point of the blade right in the hollow of his throat.

  They both stood there, very still, and Denizen realized that he was in fact in no way used to life-or-death situations at all.

  “What did you do?” she whispered. “There’s something wrong with him and I don’t ... I don’t know how to fix it ...”

  A drop of blood made its slow progress down Denizen’s neck. Adrenaline pounded through his system, speeding his thoughts, urging him to act.

  No. Denizen might have had an unparalleled understanding of the Cants, but he still needed a working throat to use them. And, in the unlikely event he managed to take down Ambrel before she cut his throat, he still had the Redemptress’s noose to worry about.

  So instead Denizen stayed very still and hoped human words would be enough. “Ambrel.”

  He was one hundred percent sure that speaking had widened the wound at his throat, but he continued anyway.

  “I didn’t do anything to your brother. Honestly. I’m just a kid.”

  His voice broke on the last word and he swallowed it back. He was, wasn’t he? In the last six months, he had been flipped, kicked, punched, and exhausted by his training, but he’d endured because a secret part of him had known that the Cants gave him a get-out-of-jail-free card. Mess up a kick? Grand. He had half a dozen Cants that could do far more damage. Miss a target for the thirtieth time? Fine. He could obliterate it and half the wall behind with a thought.

  But take that away and he was just a boy. A tired boy whose life could be snuffed out without anyone breaking a sweat.

  “I’m just like you. We grew up different, that’s all. I don’t have some special power or anything. Well—except for the magic. And I didn’t corrupt Uriel. He just ...”

  Ambrel withdrew the weapon far enough that Denizen no longer grazed it with each swallow, but not far enough that for a second he felt safe.

  “He just what?” she said.

  This was the second Croit he was giving emotional counseling to in less than twenty-four hours. He wasn’t even surprised. Who else would they talk to? They’re just kids too.

  “He’s afraid for you,” Denizen said. “That’s all. I could see it in that chamber.” Because we definitely haven’t been plotting his escape behind your back. “I know what that means. So does Uriel. You’re family. That’s what’s important.”

  Ambrel stared at him for a long moment and then nodded slowly.

  “It is,” she said. “You’re right.” She abruptly let Denizen go. By the time he managed to look up, she was gone.

  HOW LONG DO I have? Who will they send?

  The questions distracted Uriel from the grinding pain of his broken rib as he leapt between the spires and slabs of his Family’s dead. The two were inextricably linked, after all. Each run of the Garden had been preceded by an analysis of his brethren’s abilities. Not just their Prayers but the strategies of their hearts.

  Uriel knew exactly how long it took Adauctus to screw up the strength to be violent, how vicious Clothilde was when cornered. Even the Afterwoken—the only thing Uriel hadn’t bothered learning about them was their names.

  He had bolted for the Garden as soon as Denizen had been dragged away. No order had been given to stop him, but it wouldn’t be long coming. He was insurance now, for Denizen’s good behavior.

  Uriel kicked off from a slanting tower of marble, twisting in midair, measuring how much the rib pulled him up short. He’d need to know that too. Better now than if it came to blades.

  The twins had never really been tolerated by the Family. Grandfather trained them twice as hard to make up for their parents’ mistake, and that same mistake had made them a target. Even being Favored hadn’t brought them any peace—though those that had attacked them afterward had very swiftly learned to regret it.

  And then She’d woken, and everything changed. He’d been part of something—or Ambrel had and, as always, that meant he had too, a mere half second behind.

  And now that precarious prestige was gone.

  Uriel scaled his grandmother’s spire, practice compensating for the grace his injury stole, and counted the figures walking from Eloquence’s gates.

  One. Castabel, a nasty piece of work. He was mostly a stranger—Grandfather used him to assassinate anyone who threatened Croit holdings out in the world.

  Two. Hagar. Hagar? Ungrateful ... What about the time Uriel had caught her using her Prayer on the beach alone? Practicing, she had said, as if it wasn’t obvious that she was simply giving in to the temptation of the flame. Uriel hadn’t said anything to Grandfather and yet here she was.

  Two, then. Two wasn’t a problem, even if one was Castabel. Hagar was useless if you came at her head-on, and Castabe
l enjoyed himself far too much. Uriel would frustrate him by striking at her and then Ambrel could—

  Oh. He wasn’t used to thinking of himself in the singular. Getting used to a broken rib had been the easy part.

  Uriel clamped down on the tremors before they started, digging his nails into the iron-streaked meat of his palms. Don’t think about it. He had to do this. The Redemptress would use them without a thought—leave them like Tabitha. She didn’t care.

  But Uriel did.

  He swung himself higher, careful to use the spire to hide the outline of his slender form. It was strange: only now, on the cusp of betraying them, did he truly understand what serving the Croits meant.

  They wouldn’t forgive him. None of them. If what he did became known—and it would; he was done with lies, even to himself—Uriel would be a traitor. Maybe Denizen’s people would offer him some kind of asylum, but not as a Croit. He’d be disowned. Nameless.

  It didn’t matter. A Croit was required to sacrifice everything to keep the Family safe.

  Even the Family itself.

  What about—

  Uriel strangled the thought before it could grow. He stabbed it with a blade of fire, chopped it to pieces, and buried them in the deepest dark. Ambrel would understand. And, even if she didn’t, she would be alive. Even if she hated him forever, she’d be alive.

  Uriel took one last glance at the gates of Eloquence, wondering whether it was the last time he’d ever see them, and then paled as far as his Croit countenance would allow.

  Dozens of figures were walking from the gates, holding hands up to guard against the setting sun. No, not dozens. Thirty-three. Precisely the number of Favored Croits now resident in Eloquence, minus Grandfather, Ambrel, and himself.

  Not Ambrel. The slightest spark of hope kindled in Uriel’s chest. He didn’t dare acknowledge it, in case it went out.

  Run, Uriel. The words came in her voice, so comforting he found himself blinking back tears. Run.

  He ran.

  Down pathways, between monoliths, under dolmens, and over graves. One side of his chest was in agony, but he ignored it, scrabbling for alien syllables in his head.

  Oh, the Favor was there. With a hateful kind of irony, the less he believed in the Redemptress, the harder it burned. But a sword was no good to him now.

  They would be running too.

  Through the Victorian Age with its army of marble mustaches, via a detour into the ruffs and rapiers of the Elizabethan, in case Osprey was in his favorite hiding spot between

  DAVENTRY CROIT

  ~ DIED IN SERVICE ~

  and

  GOSSIFER CROIT

  ~ DIED INSANE ~

  They would be entering the maze of the dead from all sides, choking off potential routes, running Uriel down like a dog. What would they do to him? He needed to be alive to ensure Denizen’s cooperation, but that was all. What was the price for a Favored speaking out against the Redemptress? Was his blood still too precious to be spilled, or had he gone too far?

  Think. It was Uriel’s only chance to be merely hated, instead of dead. Think.

  Picture where you want to go. Picture it on the other side of a dark corridor, as a painting behind a painting, and lift your fingers like you’re tearing your way through.

  Uriel focused on the splendor of the Long Room in Trinity, picturing the austere marble busts—not difficult, considering his surroundings—and polished wood floors. It was nearly a castle itself, not riven and destroyed like Eloquence but bright and safe and solid. A place that let the sun in.

  Uriel imagined it at the end of a long tunnel. No—he put the salvation of his Family at the end of that tunnel; he put his heart and his soul into that mental image and reached out his hands to pull it home.

  The Favor flickered and boiled, unsure what form to take. Uriel remembered the shape of Denizen’s mouth as he had spoken, the raw and rushing shape of the sound ...

  Come on.

  Fire was burning his throat.

  Come on.

  Was that the first syllable? It slipped and slithered like something alive, and Uriel fought to contain it, to say it ...

  Please.

  He leapt—

  Athelstan Croit—two and a half meters of muscle, scars, and blind faith. He slapped his younger cousin out of the air with no trouble at all.

  Agony. That was how much a broken rib was going to limit him. Uriel’s tenuous grip on the Cant fled as he cracked against the roof of

  KAELAN CROIT

  ~ DIED A MARTYR ~

  He stifled his yell of pain half not to give away his location and half because the agony was just too great. It was hard to hear his thoughts around the shrieking in his chest.

  Athelstan. Athelstan. His Prayer was something like ...

  The giant parted his hands, and twin curves of dripping fire burst from his palms, glowing like the noonday sun.

  Yes, that was it.

  By reflex, Uriel’s mind slid into the particular mathematics of combat. He was wounded. He was alone. His opponent was fresh, uninjured, and guaranteed reinforcements, which would have been more than enough without him also being so large that his every step tremored the ground.

  Uriel had only two points in his favor. The first was that Athelstan had been Outside for years, while Uriel knew this necropolis like the back of Ambrel’s hand.

  The other was that Athelstan still believed.

  Uriel didn’t bother parrying the first downward slash. It would have broken his arms. Instead, he dodged the sizzling blades, staggering backward as Athelstan rumbled toward him. A tiny, cruel part of him shook its head at his cousin’s foolishness. You didn’t need strength when your blades would cut through anything, so all the huge man’s muscles really did was reduce his maneuverability.

  Heaving his wounded body through the gaps in Athelstan’s reach, Uriel led the giant man toward the towering marble form of Kaelan Croit. Athelstan’s features were twisted in the frustrated snarl of someone trying to stamp on a particularly irritating ant.

  “Stay still!” he roared, and Uriel obliged, freezing just long enough for Athelstan to triumphantly bring both scythes of fire around in an incandescent, unstoppable arc. Had Uriel not ducked, it would have removed everything above his collarbones.

  Instead, it turned Kaelan Croit’s shins to a spray of marble shards.

  The huge statue swept inexorably down, and Athelstan, frozen with horror at what he had done, would have been driven into the ground like a nail under a hammer had not Abucad tackled him out of the way. The two Croits tumbled to one side as the statue crashed to the grass.

  Uriel didn’t know why he hesitated, but for half a second Abucad’s eyes met his.

  “Go,” he said. Athelstan had fallen badly, cracking his head on a plinth. Unconscious but uncrushed. Abucad’s voice was low and fierce. “I’ll draw them off. I don’t know how much time I can give you but—”

  “Thank you,” Uriel said. “I—”

  “Just go,” Abucad said, “and, if you do have some sort of plan, remember Daniel. Remember my son.”

  Uriel ran, and Abucad’s shout rose behind him.

  “NOTHING HERE! KEEP LOOKING!”

  It might buy him a minute. Maybe two. He had to try the Cant again.

  Uriel grasped for that first syllable, cursing as it slipped away. It felt like trying to grab mist.

  He wasn’t even sure what era he was in now. All the marble faces around him were blurring together—disapproving, cruel, reaching down for him with white, cold hands. It showed how desperate he was when seeing the familiar, Transgression-stained face of

  ISKOR CROIT

  ~ DIED IN SHAME ~

  was a comfort.

  Think, Uriel. Think of escape. Think of—

  “Brother!”

  Such a simple word, but relief suddenly pounded through Uriel’s chest like cool water. He turned, forgetting his pursuers, the danger, and the Redemptress.

  She came. She came
to help me.

  Together we have a chance.

  And then he saw her robe.

  Ambrel jumped from the lip of Iskor’s tomb to land lightly on the earth, limbs wreathed in Accusers’ Red. The vivid hue bleached her skin and, with her hood up, she was just a skull, pale and staring, swimming in cloth the color of blood.

  Back in the Shrine, she’d been wearing Judging White. They all had.

  She changed for this.

  “There’s rust in you, Uriel.”

  With horror, Uriel realized Ambrel was holding a file.

  “Ambrel,” he whispered, and was immediately disgusted by how weak his voice sounded. “Ambrel, why do you have a—”

  “It wouldn’t be enough,” she hissed. Golden light was crackling between her teeth. The file was an ugly, toothed thing, built to slice iron like soft fat from bone. “I could sharpen myself, show my devotion like Grandfather, and it still wouldn’t be enough. Because it’s not my weakness. It’s yours. Just one more thing you don’t want to share with me.”

  Every training session, every battle they had shared, and Uriel had never heard his sister in such pain.

  “When were you going to tell me?” she said. “When did it happen—when you stopped believing?” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with—”

  “Stop lying,” she snapped. Uriel couldn’t take his eyes from the eager gleam of the file in her hand. “Grandfather’s right. This is our time. The Redemptress has risen, and we have a chance to rise with Her. This is what we were made for. You’ve forgotten that.”

  “I haven’t forgotten anything,” Uriel retorted. Shouts were rising through the necropolis now. Seconds were ticking away. “I’m the only one who remembers. We were raised to look after our Family, Ambrel. To take care of each other. That’s not what this is about. The Redemptress is just some monster who fed the First Croit pretty words, and we’re so desperate for salvation that we’re swallowing them whole. She’s insane. So is Grandfather. That’s why our parents wanted us to get away—”