Amor and More

by Radclyffe

  Crowe nodded and hobbled to a lever set in the wall. He pulled the handle down, and the dummy careened back and forth with the aid of springs. Starbride chucked her pyramids at it, one after another, staying behind a line on the floor. Archers used this same contraption to practice their skills, and Starbride wondered if they had the same difficulty she did. She didn’t manage to hit the dummy until it began to slow, eventually coming to a stop. Once it did, she caught it on the head.

  Starbride cried out in triumph. Crowe hadn’t lost his frown.

  “What? I hit it!”

  “When it was stationary.”

  She put her hands on her hips and shrugged. “I didn’t hit it at all yesterday. Besides, how many of your enemies were moving back and forth that quickly in the field?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s not really the point, is it? Your aim must improve.” He nodded toward the dummy. “Reset.”

  Starbride trudged over, wondering if anyone in the palace was high-ranking enough to have the servants reset their practice dummies. Knowing Crowe, he would have made Katya do it too, maybe even King Einrich. Maybe it was a punishment for not doing well. Only winners got to have their dummies reset by someone else.

  Starbride pushed the dummy back into place, forcing it against the spring until the latch clicked in place. She collected her pyramids and trekked back to the table. “Ready.”

  On and on it went. Throw the pyramids, miss the dummy, reset the dummy, and throw the pyramids again. Her shoulder began to ache, but she knew she had to keep at it. Unlike most pyradistés, her future work would include incapacitating those trying to attack the Order. She began to envy those pyradistés who worked for counting houses or chapterhouses. Most of what they had to do was make traps and then sit all day, nothing athletic for them.

  “Enough,” Crowe said when she’d finally hit the dummy in motion. Slow motion, but it was better than any hit she’d scored all day. “I’m getting tired, so you must be sore by now.”

  Starbride rubbed her aching shoulder. “My mother should have included this in her courtier training.”

  He pulled a flash bomb from his satchel and pressed it into her hand. “When you finally start using these for the Order, you’ll need to learn to shut your eyes after you’ve thrown.”

  “Wonderful, another step to learn.” When she caught his scowl again, she sighed. “I’m sorry I’m moaning so much. You’re a good teacher, Crowe.”

  He waved the compliment away, but it did wonders for his scowl. “I’m privy to the same recent misfortunes as you. I understand.”

  “It’s Katya I’m worried about.”

  “Hmm, I’m more worried for Einrich.”

  Starbride blinked at him. “But he’s been through so much in life.”

  “My point exactly. Katya’s young. She’ll bounce back. How many disappointments in life can one person take?”

  Starbride nodded but thought that applied equally to Katya, youth or no. She hefted the pyramid in her hand. “How many potential problems has this solved for you?”

  “It’s the pyradisté’s best friend,” he said. “It’s not going to go out of control and kill anyone, and it catches most everyone unawares.”

  Such a simple thing, but she could feel its power. Anyone could use it. It only needed to be broken to blind an opponent, or an unwitting comrade, which was why a pyradisté usually shouted a code word before throwing it. “What does it feel like?”

  “You’ve seen its effects.”

  “People stumbling about, grasping their eyes.”

  “Blinds and disorients, that’s what it says in the pyradisté handbook.”

  She turned the pyramid over. “It must hurt.”

  He shrugged. “If you’re that curious, you could find out, but I don’t recommend it.”

  “Have you ever—”

  He chuckled. “Turned it on myself? Well…”

  Starbride brightened. “You didn’t!”

  “I was young and foolish once too. It was a bet while at the Academy, and I didn’t want to look cowardly in front of…well, someone I once knew.”

  “A sweetheart?”

  He just shook his head. “I stood entirely too close to it and broke it open, and ten thousand red-hot needles dug through my eyes and into my brain. At least, that’s what I would have sworn to at the time.”

  Starbride set it carefully down on the table. “And the person you once knew?”

  “Left with somebody else. But I won the bet.”

  “Which was?”

  He thought for a moment before laughing. “I can’t remember.” He took the flash bomb back. “Still interested in finding out?”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Smart. Here, take it. Study it. When we begin construction, you should be familiar with how the various pyramids feel. You’re very familiar with the light pyramid, but you should get to know the pyradisté’s best friend, too.”

  Starbride nodded and took the pyramid back to her apartment. She dutifully reported her training to Dawnmother, who’d spent most of the day shopping in Marienne and fending off eager courtiers and nobles determined to win Starbride over with gifts.

  “I’d rather have spent the time watching you practice,” Dawnmother said. “But at least we now have soap and more of that silk you like.”

  “I wish you had been there. Crowe obeys you.”

  “Is he trying to do too much again?”

  “At times.” She let the flash bomb rest on the table in front of her and trailed one finger down its side.

  “Is that really as dangerous as he said?” Dawnmother asked.

  Starbride eyed her. “Do you want to find out?”

  “No, I can learn from a fool’s story as well as you can.”

  “He was probably in love.”

  “Fools can fall in love, often do.”

  Starbride laughed. “Well, I should fall into this pyramid and explore it as he asked. The better I do, the happier he is. Maybe it will make him live a little longer.”

  Dawnmother kissed the top of her head. “I shall be as quiet as dust.”

  Starbride smiled at Horsestrong’s saying before she took the pyramid in hand and let her mind fall into it. Unlike a light pyramid, it didn’t respond to her, but waited to be used. She felt its potential. She could almost see the pathways within it that had been manufactured by Crowe. No, not pathways, fractures, unseen by the eye but felt by the mind—like pieces being held together, waiting to splinter, wanting to break and let something out.

  Starbride dug deeper until she reached the something, a giant nimbus of light, like the sun, but contained in this tiny pyramid in her hand. The light that flashed after it broke couldn’t possibly be this big, though, this unfathomable. Nothing could contain such brightness, not even her. She couldn’t pull her gaze away, even as she knew it was in her mind.

  That was the problem. It was in her mind. The light pulled her closer, filling her mind, trapping her. “Dawn,” she whispered, all she could manage.

  The bright light began to burn, blinding her, sending shards of pain ricocheting through her skull, blotting out all sight, making her pulse pound in her ears. Still, she couldn’t back away, couldn’t do anything but be drawn inexorably forward. “Dawn!”

  Something knocked into her hand, and the light pulsed even brighter, though that couldn’t be possible. Agony filled her, and she screamed as she passed from light into darkness.

  *

  Someone was shaking her shoulder. “Starbride.” The voice was male, insistent. Her father? But he’d never sounded so stern, even when she’d gotten into his jewelry tools and scattered them over the carpet.

  “Starbride. Wake up.”

  She opened her eyes; the voice wouldn’t tolerate anything less. When she saw the white void, she gasped. She was back in the pyramid chamber underneath the palace, and Katya had just become a greater Fiend, turning the world to white. If that was so, then the male voice m
ust be Roland’s, it must. Starbride whipped her arm around. “Get away from me!”

  “Softly now,” Dawnmother said. Starbride would know her voice anywhere.

  “Dawn?” If Dawnmother was calm, everything was well.

  “Here.” Soft hands gripped her shoulders. “You’re safe, Star.”

  No, she couldn’t be, not in the white void. She opened her eyes wider. “Where are you?”

  “Do you see anything?” the man asked. Crowe, it was Crowe.

  “White,” she whispered. She knew by his voice that it shouldn’t be so. “The pyramid.” She couldn’t stop her lips from trembling, but she couldn’t let herself lose control, not yet. “Did it…am I…blind?”

  Dawnmother’s arms went around her. “Softly, now, dear heart, hush. We’ll fix it.” Her voice had steel at the end, and Starbride knew the look she gave to Crowe. If he didn’t fix it, not even Horsestrong could save him. Starbride clung to her as if she were a raft.

  “One in a thousand,” Crowe said with a growl. “This happens to one in a thousand students, if that, and the only way to know it will happen is after it has happened!”

  “And then they recover,” Dawnmother said carefully. “These ones in thousands.”

  Starbride hung on that word, “recover.” It was temporary, like a blindfold, a white blindfold, and soon it would fall from her eyes. “What happened to me?”

  “Some students,” Crowe said, “when they first encounter a flash bomb, like you did, get…sucked in by it, for lack of a better word. Most just fall into it, see how it works, then come out, but sometimes, there is a…chain reaction.” Whatever she was lying on creaked as he got up, and she could hear his footsteps going up and down the room. “I should have been with you, I’m sorry. In the Academy, there’s always someone around, and I never expected this to happen. A pyradisté could have guided you out, but Dawnmother…”

  “Oh, Star, I broke it. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s…Dawn, are you all right?”

  “I looked away, but you were…”

  Starbride hugged her tighter. “I’m frightened, Dawn.”

  Dawnmother patted her hair, too fast for comfort, a sure sign that she was frightened too. “What does this mean, Crowe?”

  “It’s not the first time it’s happened,” he said. “Not the first time someone has been drawn in with no one around to draw them out, but I’m afraid it might mean that the effect will last a little longer than usual.”

  The feeling of being blindfolded tightened, as if it would never go away, and pain pounded through Starbride’s temples. “How long?”

  He paused a heartbeat too long. “A day at most.” But the pause told her he wasn’t as sure as he sounded.

  “I’ll tell Katya,” Crowe said. “So she’ll know who to blame.”

  “No!” Starbride tried to sit up, but Dawnmother held her too tightly. “She can’t know about this.”

  “Star?” Dawnmother asked.

  “She’s…already nervous about having me join the Order. She’s already so protective.” Starbride latched on to the excuse, her fear so sudden and immediate it almost choked her. “If she knows about this, she might forbid me from training.”

  “She can’t exactly forbid you,” Crowe said.

  “Would you like to make another wager? I guarantee you’ll lose this one.” Yes, yes, that was it. If Katya knew, if she tried to forbid, things would become too tense between them. Katya already had so much on her shoulders, and a blinded consort would only add to that. And having Starbride continue her training would add even more anxiety. As Crowe himself had said, how much could one person take?

  “I don’t think this is wise, Starbride,” Crowe said. “If you keep this from her and she finds out, it’ll hurt her even worse.”

  “Then she can’t find out.”

  “And how do we keep it from her? You almost live together, Star,” Dawnmother said.

  Starbride shook her head. “We’ll have to think of something.” They had to. Because if more people than the three in this room knew about her blindness… “We’ll think of something,” she whispered.

  *

  “She’s getting impatient,” Dawnmother said.

  Starbride nodded. She sat on the settee in her sitting room. She’d spent the entire day there. One down, who knew how many to go. “What did you say to her?”

  “It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t want to hear anything from me. The princess either thinks you don’t care for her or she thinks I’m holding you against your will.”

  “Katya knows I love her,” Starbride said, but that didn’t ease her guilt.

  “You should tell her, Star.”

  “No,” Starbride said softly, but she was beginning to see why she might have to. Her vision was still lost in a world of white, and how she could have used Katya’s arms around her. She just didn’t want…

  She felt the settee dimple as Dawnmother sat. “I don’t like leaving you alone to keep putting her off. I feel like I’m committing two betrayals.”

  “No word from Crowe?”

  “You know as much as I.”

  Starbride nodded again. There was nothing he could do to help her, nothing a healer could do either. The blindness would either wear off or it wouldn’t. She wouldn’t be able to read or go anywhere alone. She’d never see Katya’s beautiful blue eyes again.

  Starbride mashed her lips together and curled her hands into fists. There was no use crying over something that would cure itself in time. She tried to summon every ounce of steel her mother had instilled in her.

  Dawnmother’s arms were around her. “She loves you, she wouldn’t rob you of your ability to train, not if it means that much to you. Though…have you considered—”

  “I still want to be a pyradisté, Dawn. It’s incredible, even after this.”

  Dawnmother was silent, but Starbride could almost hear her thinking. Finally, Dawnmother said, “So you wouldn’t change what happened, if you could?”

  “I’d be more cautious, that’s all.” But without her sight, could she even fall into a pyramid any longer?

  “Whatever happens,” Dawnmother said, “you won’t have to go through it alone.”

  Starbride heard the warning in her voice. And she was right. Katya would have to be told of even temporary problems. “I should tell her before she comes barging in…”

  “I’ll explain it to her. If I take the brunt of her anger, you’ll be left with the love.”

  “You are fearless, Dawn.”

  “For you.”

  After one more hug, she was gone. Starbride sat in the quiet room and waited. Would it always be thus? Hearing about adventure, but never seeing it again? Forget adventure. She wouldn’t be able to see even the mundane. Could she fetch herself a glass of water? Was she truly helpless?

  She stood. This had been her apartment for almost a month. She knew it. It was laid out similarly to Katya’s, and she knew that one too. She took a hesitant step, feeling with her foot first and keeping her hands out in front of her. Maybe she could hire Hugo to guide her everywhere.

  As she took a few more hesitant steps without incident, her confidence grew. Dawnmother always kept some water at hand, near a bottle of wine. Both perched on the cabinet in the corner, opposite the door, and both sounded ideal for her situation. Starbride headed in that direction, hoping to encounter the table to guide her.

  She found the wall and frowned. That wasn’t right. The table should have come before the wall. Starbride turned and walked a few steps away, but she suddenly feared leaving the wall behind. If she’d gotten turned around enough to miss the table completely, who knew where she could wind up? Better to feel around the wall until she encountered the cabinet. It had to be to her right.

  When she found a door, she had to stop again. Was it the door to the bedroom or to the hallway? She couldn’t very well go wandering into the hallway. She felt tears threaten again and forced them down. She wouldn’t let a cursed door make her c
ry!

  Maybe if she listened? Starbride put her ear to the door just as it opened. She stumbled forward, hoping it was Dawnmother catching her, but the person felt too tall for that. Familiar, calloused hands caught her under the elbows, and Katya spoke one of the first words she’d ever said to Starbride. “Steady.”

  Just the sound of her voice loosed Starbride’s tears at last. Starbride threw her arms around Katya’s neck and sobbed into her shoulder.

  Katya patted her hair and made soothing noises until Starbride blurted, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  “Well, how can I be angry with you now?”

  “It’s the bedroom door,” Starbride said through her tears. “You came through the passageway, and that’s the bedroom door.”

  Katya’s cool hands cupped her cheeks. “My poor Star. Let me help you sit.”

  “I’ve been sitting all day,” Starbride said as Katya guided her through the white void.

  “Why in all the spirits’ names didn’t you send for me?”

  “Dawnmother didn’t tell you?”

  “I want to hear it from you.”

  Starbride breathed for a few seconds, trying to face what frightened her. She clasped Katya’s hand and borrowed courage. “I was afraid.”

  “Of?”

  “If you knew, I’d have to admit that it…it might be…”

  “Permanent?”

  Starbride choked down another sob and nodded.

  “Even if it is, I will always be by your side.”

  Starbride shook her head. “You couldn’t be, not always. You’d have your duties and your adventures, and I would be another burden.”

  “Never.”

  “You’d grow bitter having to wait on me, and I’d grow fat from never walking anywhere.”

  “You could walk.”

  “I couldn’t even find the wine!” It sounded so absurd, even to her, that she hiccupped into laughter and pressed her forehead into the crook of Katya’s shoulder.

  “Don’t blame the accident for that. You got lost easily before,” Katya said.

  Starbride laughed harder. “Oh, Katya, what am I going to do?”