The Forever Court

by Dave Rudden

  “Our parents.” Ambrel laughed, the sound choked in bitterness and rage. “Two strangers whose only useful act was creating us. You’re not going to sway me with them. They tried to keep us from our destiny. From Her.”

  She spat at his feet. “And so are you.”

  “I’m just trying to keep you safe—”

  “I know,” she whispered, and suddenly her voice was raw and soft, anger draining away like pus from a wound. “I know you are. That’s the problem. We don’t matter, Uriel. Nothing matters but the War. That’s Family. The salvation of all, not just one. Tabitha was right about us. You and I have been dedicated to each other. And we’ve been wrong. That’s why I have to do it.”

  Uriel went cold. “What?”

  “I have to prove I’m worthy. I have to prove I’m Favored.”

  He took a step toward her. “Ambrel, what are you—”

  She punched him in the jaw.

  Uriel staggered backward and she followed, robes fluttering. He dodged her second blow and caught her third with his palm, but he was injured, and anger had given her a desperate strength. She’d always been faster than him. Always quicker to violence. Ambrel was a Croit to the core.

  She jabbed the file at him like a blade.

  “It was supposed to be us,” she snarled. “We were supposed to be strong together. Why did you have to let me down—”

  Uriel’s fist killed the rest of her sentence, and suddenly they were on the grass, his fists hammering her temples while her fingers found his throat. There were no more lies now. Every betrayal, every slight, every way in which they had ever failed each other—it all came out in a flurry of bone and muscle.

  And Ambrel was winning.

  This was the fight for which Croits had been made. Believer and unbeliever, one strong in their faith and one weak in their doubt. Uriel’s vision clouded as Ambrel’s iron fingers dug into the meat of his neck. Her voice was acid in his ears.

  “Why couldn’t you just believe?”

  Because it’s wrong.

  Fire rose through the pain, spilling into half-numb limbs. Ambrel’s grip loosened, just for a second, and all Uriel wanted was the words to end this, to escape this place that they had come to—

  And the Art of Apertura slipped out.

  Uriel’s shadow tore along a seam, and suddenly the tombs and the grass and the undimmed stars fell up. Ambrel went rigid against him, and black water closed over them both.

  Don’t open your eyes.

  Cold.

  Cold.

  Cold.

  It was several centuries before Uriel could think anything else. When he did, each thought came slow and stiff with ice. Denizen had warned him, but ... the unworldliness of it, the immensity ...

  A humbling cold, one that told Uriel just how small and unimportant and alone he was.

  Alone. Ambrel.

  Uriel sluggishly became aware of hands still wrapped round his neck, the fingers frozen claws. A knee bumped against his stomach, robbed of any momentum by the water, and he lifted his arms to grab her, fighting the tug of Transgression-riddled hands that now weighed as much as planetary cores.

  The iron will drag you.

  Who had said that? Uriel dismissed the thought. Up and down didn’t matter anymore. His only direction was her.

  He tried to tangle a hand in the brittle seaweed of her hair. They had lived their lives just a half-second apart, and if he could save all those half seconds, use them to talk to her, to make her see—

  Something brushed against his back. It wasn’t Ambrel; her hands were pulling free from his neck, her legs feebly beating against his. No, it moved too quickly, too confidently—

  Like I used to, Uriel thought, dreamy with hypothermia.

  There are things in the ...

  The Tenebrae. That’s what this was. That’s where She came from. Panic bloomed like frost in his head as Uriel imagined hundreds of Her, diving round them with hideous grace, trailing their tendrils for struggling prey ...

  Uriel’s Transgression dragged him down, and he fought to hold Ambrel close even as she fought to kick away. Stop it, please, stop—

  He’d explain it to her. He’d hold her. She’d be angry, so angry, but they were brother and sister, two people sharing a life. He just had to make her see. Numb, his fingers began to close—

  A half second too slow.

  Something snatched Ambrel from him so hard its backwash hit him like a slap. Uriel screamed, and the cold that had gone before was nothing compared to the dark water in his mouth. It washed out the fire in his stomach, froze him solid from the heart outward. He felt teeth shatter in a scream—

  Ambrel ... Ambrel, NO—

  His sins dragged him down, but Uriel fought against them—his sister was gone, his sister was taken; there was burning heat on his back and the aching chill of space on his cheek.

  AMBREL!

  And icy blackness became the smell of smoke. Uriel stepped out onto unexpectedly solid ground, and then his legs simply went, spilling him onto his face. His skin prickled as beaded black liquid left in a thousand tendrils of smoke, but inside him a lump remained, frozen solid—the space where a sister used to be.

  People were shouting. His arms were grabbed and twisted behind him. Sunlight seared his freezing skin.

  Uriel barely noticed.

  There was a clump of hair in his hand. His fingers had finally closed.

  “MOVE,” THE GIRL SAID, her finger pressed to Uriel’s temple, “and you burn.”

  Uriel just stared at her. Details drifted through his head—the amber cast of her skin, the strange clothes, and the pinned-up knot of black hair—but none found any purchase. None sank in. He was nothing but a message now. A message and half a heart.

  “I need to speak to Edifice Greaves.”

  “We know,” the boy snapped. “You said.”

  With Tabitha’s darkness long dead, Uriel could see just how much damage the Long Room had sustained. The bookshelves were chewed skeletons of wood and char, the floor lacerated by broken glass, and various sections had been cordoned off with black tape.

  It looked like Eloquence, and dimly Uriel wondered if this would be the world if the Croits were to win—just ruin and ash, stamped with the Crow and the Claw.

  “Edifice Greaves,” Uriel repeated hoarsely. “I need to speak to—”

  “We heard you,” the angry girl said, her finger pressing down painfully. Simple yet effective, came the dry and distant thought. All it would take was a word and Uriel’s skull would be leaking smoke.

  It hurt to talk. The inside of his mouth was cut to pieces from where teeth had cracked, his tongue like a frozen brick since he’d gotten a mouthful of ... whatever it was between here and Eloquence. It wasn’t water. Water didn’t fight its way out of your mouth to become ribboning smoke. Water didn’t deaden your thoughts as well as your skin.

  The only thing it hadn’t numbed was the pain.

  She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.

  Had Uriel any strength left, he would have spoken the Art of Apertura and flung himself back in, again and again, until he found her. But he didn’t. There was nothing left. Fire guttered in him like a wet candle struggling to burn. Maybe it would return. Maybe it wouldn’t.

  He was surely out of Favor now.

  Another girl stood farther off, a long blue coat folded over one arm, her eyes wide behind dark lenses.

  “Where is Denizen?” the boy said. He could have been a Croit—pale and skinny—though Uriel’s practiced eye could tell he didn’t know one end of a sword from the other. “You took him. Tell us where he is.”

  “Edifice Greaves,” Uriel croaked. “I need to speak to—” The boy’s eyes were shining with tears. Uriel could feel the girl’s iron finger trembling against his skin. They were afraid. Not of him, though Croitly pride said it was.

  They were afraid for their friend.

  “He’s alive,” Uriel said. “He sent me here. He—”

 
; The door at the far end of the hall opened and footsteps rang out. Uriel didn’t turn, not wanting to spook the finger at his temple, instead watching relief mingle with frustration on his captors’ faces. Finally, hands slid under Uriel’s armpits and set him on his feet to face the leader of the Order, the Adversary he’d been raised his whole life to hate.

  “Edifice Greaves,” the man said. “And you are?”

  He didn’t look like a vast and terrible mind living in a host of iron bodies, but at this point that didn’t surprise Uriel. There were five other Knights surrounding him, each radiating violence.

  “You’re in charge,” Uriel said. It wasn’t a question.

  “It doesn’t feel like it,” Greaves said, and there was nothing pleasant in his smile. “I’m told you just fell out of the air.”

  “They’re a lost bloodline,” the boy snapped. “They have to be.”

  “Tanglearches,” the girl with the blue coat said. “Or perhaps Kenns. We’ve been going through the Incunabulae since before the attack; we haven’t slept since—”

  “Of course they’re a lost bloodline,” Greaves said sharply. The teenagers abruptly shut up, their faces twisted in shock. He turned to one of the Knights beside him. “Get them out of here. Now.”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” the boy said. “You think you were our first call?”

  The door’s hinges hadn’t been in the best shape after the battle, and the woman’s entrance proved to be the last straw. She had crossed the room before it clattered to the floor, her movements as mechanically graceful as the unsheathing of a sword. Her short-cropped hair was silver against her skull, scars dribbling down the side of her neck. The glare she gave Uriel made his rib ache.

  “You took my son,” she said. Never in history had there been a clearer declaration of war.

  “Yes,” Uriel said. “Would you like him back?”

  The boy abruptly sat down on the floor, his hands wrapped round himself like he was freezing. The girl with the blue coat put both arms round his shoulders and for a second they just stayed there, swaying back and forth.

  Uncomfortable, Uriel looked away.

  “And we’re not a lost bloodline,” he said. “You are. All of you. We were the first. The First Croit met the Redemptress in the dark, and together they stole a great fire and brought it back to this world. An Adversary came, men and women of iron, and they flung our castle down. The Redemptress slept and we waited. For now. For this.”

  Even after all he’d been through, his throat still rebelled at the words he was about to say.

  “But it’s lies. She’s not our Redemptress. She’s a Tenebrous. A monster. And She has to be stopped.”

  Uriel wasn’t sure what he expected. Shock, perhaps, or disbelief. Why should they believe him? They had no proof of anything but how his Family had attacked them.

  “OK,” Greaves said.

  “OK?” Uriel repeated. Confusion finally dented the black miasma in his head enough for him to feel something. “Is that ... it?”

  The Knights separated with military precision, some slipping out of the door, others on phones talking quickly and quietly. The teenagers were caught between eyeing each other and staring at Uriel.

  “No,” the woman growled. “Where is Denizen?”

  “At Eloquence,” Uriel replied. “He taught me how to get here. The uh ... the Art of Apertura—that was what he called it. He said you’d help me.”

  The boy winced. Both girls’ eyes went wide. Denizen’s mother’s face was granite. Uriel had the sudden sense that everyone was pointedly trying not to look at Greaves.

  “Did he?” the Order’s leader said. “Interesting.” He fingered the sword pin on his tie. “Well. You’ll tell us everything you know about this Tenebrous. I want a profile on each of your family, location, defenses—”

  “I’ll tell you everything,” Uriel said. “On one condition.”

  He didn’t look at Greaves as he said it. Instead, he watched Denizen’s mother and his friends. Strange as it sounded, Uriel understood their anger far better than he did Greaves. Retaliation was what Family was about.

  Us and them.

  “You have to save my Family.”

  Greaves’s smile disappeared.

  “I know what I’m asking. They won’t go down without a fight. But we’re like you and we don’t deserve to die for being lied to. I want your promise that, if I give you what you need, you won’t kill them. You’ll help them.”

  “Strange sentiment,” Greaves responded, “from someone willing to betray their family.”

  “I am not betraying my Family.” The void in Uriel’s head shivered, as if something underneath was trying to push its way out. “I am betraying Her.”

  “You realize, of course, that they’ll be trying their best to kill us.”

  Uriel nodded. “Those are my terms.”

  “We could just make you tell us,” Greaves said mildly. He didn’t bother making more of a threat. He didn’t have to—Denizen’s mother was radiating menace enough. Just being in her presence was like being held over a precipice.

  Uriel almost laughed, but the bitterness of it closed his throat. “No you couldn’t.”

  Greaves’s eyebrow lifted.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m a Croit.”

  It had been so long since he had felt the vicious certainty of his heritage, so long since he had seen it anywhere but in the eyes of his sister. It drove cold fury into his words. “We are raised to hate. We are trained to kill. You think this”—he jerked his head at the destroyed library—“was a battle? This was an opening salvo. A stretch of muscles long asleep. You don’t remember where you came from, but my history has been beaten into me since the moment I drew breath. There are fifteen centuries of Croits behind me, fifteen centuries of praying for war against you, and, when we come, we will win, because you have rules and we do not.

  “We are ... we are fanatics.”

  His words silenced the room. Even Denizen’s mother looked taken aback.

  “And yet you’re here,” the angry girl said. “Why?”

  The dead blackness in Uriel’s head was cracking. His hands were trembling and he squeezed them into fists.

  “I was trying to save my sister. My twin. I did all this for her, and I ... I ...”

  Tears burned his eyes. He could barely force words past them.

  “I lost her in the darkness.”

  Greaves and Vivian exchanged glances. Uriel felt like the cold had taken up permanent residence in his chest. His heart was missing every second beat. It took a while for Greaves’s words to reach through that aching systolic gap.

  “…get Denizen out before the attack. It’s the best way. If this boy can ...”

  “I can’t do it,” Uriel said, his voice still hitching. “None of them trust me. And, besides, the Redemptress—” Hate flooded through him as he said Her name. That was good. Hate was stronger than sorrow. It would keep him upright until this was done. “The Tenebrous is made of wire. She keeps one around Denizen’s neck at all times.”

  There was an audible creak of iron as Vivian’s hands clenched into fists. Uriel remembered Abucad’s desperate words.

  “And there is another prisoner too. An UnFavored…a normal person. I can’t get close to them. Ambrel could but ...”

  Hold on to the hate. Uriel was still shaking, but now it was with rage. It was Her fault. It was.

  Greaves was frowning. “It’s a hostage situation. A perfect one. We can’t charge them; they’ll take us apart. We need some kind of an in.”

  “Umm ...”

  The tall, thin boy had raised a hand. Greaves’s features twisted in annoyance, but Vivian’s glare shut his mouth before he could speak, a fact that seemed to surprise even him.

  “Simon?” she asked.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he said, eyeing them nervously. “But I have an idea.”

  THIS TIME, WHEN DENIZEN was dragged into the Sh
rine, there was no one to greet him but the arachnoid geometry of the Tenebrous Herself. Denizen flinched as Her umbra washed over him, wringing sweat from his skin and tears from his eyes. It was bad everywhere in Eloquence. Here it was almost intolerable.

  Her pin-thin pupils gleamed.

  “You will be taught our ways. The true ways.”

  Denizen hadn’t noticed Grandfather lurking between the shattered pillars. He swept by Denizen and, with no little care, propped something on the broken stone.

  “And, in return, you will teach me. I will take on the burden of your dark knowledge and decide where it can be put to best use.”

  He’d set down a little blackboard on an easel. It was the saddest thing Denizen had ever seen.

  “OK,” Denizen said. “But where’s Uriel?”

  The old man’s eyes narrowed.

  Denizen forced some iron into his voice. “I told you I’d help you if you didn’t hurt Uriel. Where is he? I want to see him before we start.”

  It had been a long and sleepless night for Denizen. He’d had ample time to think about what his conversations with the twins might have set in motion. The best-case scenario was that Ambrel had teamed up with Uriel and they’d used the Art of Apertura to escape. Unfortunately, there were a whole lot of other possible scenarios, and in quite a lot of them Denizen Hardwick was basically a murderer.

  How could I have sent him?

  “Grandfather!”

  One of the other Croits—Osprey?—entered the Shrine, panting and sweat-streaked, and behind him came the rest, at least twenty, crowding the stone doors. Denizen’s heart sank.

  “Where’s Ambrel?” the old man said. “She was supposed to—”

  Osprey shook his head. “We searched the necropolis for hours. They’re not—” He fixed his eyes on Denizen and stopped talking so abruptly it would have been comical had the situation not been what it was.

  Not in front of the prisoner ...

  So it was bad news. Had Uriel escaped? Had Ambrel helped him?

  No. Denizen had dabbled in hope before. Every orphan in Crosscaper had. Maybe someone will come along and tell me it’s all been a mistake, that I don’t belong here—that there’s a family and a home and love waiting for me outside these miserable walls.