I tensed at that.
He swept a hand through the air between us, and a wispy map appeared. I'd seen this very image posted on the back wall at the helm of the Flying Fish. Four major sections were blocked off and labeled the Northern Kingdom, the Eastern Kingdom, the Western Kingdom, and the Southern Kingdom. The area where I knew Haven to exist was depicted as a solid mountain range like many others bordering the kingdom. I was careful to only look at the area as long as I looked at everything else.
Prince Raserion pointed to his cities on the map, indicating those that housed a Monarch. When he pulled his hand away, each mark glowed. Thirteen. There were thirteen war machines. “Experimentation is complete, each Monarch is functional. All they need now are Lodestones to arm them. I know where the Lodestones have gone to hide. I have everything I'd need to permanently cripple the North and see my brother take his final breath at last.”
I felt the Spark prickling in my chest. “So you'll use my people as hostages for bargain?”
“Hostages? No. You misinterpret my intention. I do not desire to harm your Lodestones. I never have.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I cut in. “One of my countrymen was strapped to your Monarch, drained of all life, all color– withered as a raisin. You killed him, I know you did, so you can save your pacifistic monologue for someone stupid enough to believe you.”
If I was testing his patience, he didn't show it. Yet.
“I am at war. I have resources to manage, lives to preserve. More confrontation means more death. I wish to leave your Lodestones to their own lives. I even wish to spare those fools who follow my brother. They are my people by rights as much as his. I do not wish to see them to a violent death by Monarch. I've brought you here to offer you this chance at peace. Helping me will benefit us both and save countless lives.”
I didn't believe a word of it. I couldn't. There was something about the way he said things that was a little too perfect. He was manipulating me. I knew he was. “Actions speak louder than words, Prince.”
“My, but you're a bold one.” He sounded amused. “Everything that I've done, using Lodestones to power the Monarch included, has been out of necessity. I do not take pleasure from repurposing lives.”
The three-headed warhorse began to graze on shadowy grass, and a pair of shadow chasers wriggled into the stream. This place, the Shadows within Shadows, was a thriving ecosystem as tranquil as the Prince's voice. But it wasn't natural, and neither was he.
A dark laugh slipped from me. “Did you really just use the word ‘repurposing’? You kill people!”
“If you wish to speak in crude terms. My brother must be brought to justice, no matter the cost. It is my responsibility to see that it is done and I will use any measure necessary. This war will not end until he is cleansed from the face of Lastland.” His hand cut through the map and it vanished.
“Does that justify your being a murderer?”
He looked sharply down at me and I could feel anger pour off of him even if I couldn't see it on his face. The strange sky churned behind him. His voice took on a gritty tone, and he made his statement slowly, so I could feel the weight of each word. “I am only what I must be.”
Way to go, Kat, you've successfully poked an immortal bear with a stick. Genius move.
I knew I was in for it, I just didn't expect the particular consequences that followed.
Chapter 6: What We Want
Everything went black. Not just the silhouettes, or the stream, or the mist. The entire sky. The glowing shadow chasers. Every point of light was extinguished. Reflexively, I pulled my arms close to my body and held my breath.
Prince Raserion's voice was all that seemed to exist.
“Once, the entire world had been rich with life, teeming with culture and industry, and technology that far surpassed even my own imaginings.”
The hazy blue light of the horizon returned like watercolor paint seeping over paper. I could see again. The world of shadow chasers and warhorses had vanished. All that remained was a flat, dark expanse and the wispy black shadows that curled around my ankles. All at once, the shadows leapt around me, shooting up into the empty sky. They took the shape of pillars with the girth of twenty houses, and they stretched, and stretched, and stretched. So tall.
They were all around me. Some seemed to have a thousand windows. Some were crowned with flags or rooftop gardens. As structures grew to their varying heights, puffs of darkness trumpeted from the ground to shape the visages of people. Crowds of them.
I stumbled, nearly tripping over myself as they burst to life, bustling past me, trailing black smoke behind them.
“Much like my subjects, some were born with a single Ability, others were mere carriers of the recessive gene that granted Abilities, but had no actual power. They thrived for ages immeasurable.” His voice deepened. “That was before my time. Those cities are long dead.”
And so they were. I gasped as the colossal buildings bubbled and burned, crumbling in on themselves like corroding metal. The people cowered and withered to the ground. I couldn't hear the destruction, I didn't hear any screams, but watching all of it happen around me with life-sized realism, I was horrified and shaken to my core. This nightmare was too real, too powerful. I needed to wake up. I needed to escape this place.
“When I was a boy, we were all survivors of a plague that had nearly brought humanity to its extinction. Ragged, starving, desperate, the living suffered without direction. Slowly, even the strongest fell to exhaustion, starvation, violence.”
Just like that, I was standing in a crowd of silhouettes again. They shambled past me, bent-backed and limp-limbed, like they barely had the strength to move one foot in front of the other. There were shapes of men, women and children alike, and all were equally weak.
“My father saved a broken remnant of humanity three times,” Prince Raserion said, stepping out of the darkness to stand beside me.
“He was a nobleman, a scientist, a physician. Following the deaths of his mother, father and beloved sister, he vowed to never allow the plague to take the lives of his wife and children. He searched for a cure but found none. It was a dark time. Lost, lawless, and frantic, people were as dangerous to each other as the plague itself.”
A fight between shadow men broke out before my eyes. To my left, two women fought over a bundle. At my right, three people overwhelmed another, piling atop him. Brawling coursed through the crowd like a wave.
“When other leaders failed or died, my father took up the burden of their responsibility. He gathered the survivors and established order with a balance of hope and discipline.”
The crowd parted ahead of us, and the shape of a man strode forward. He was tall, broad shouldered, and strong. The fighting around us stopped, and the people all turned to face him.
“That was the first time my father saved us. He spent long nights researching a cure to no avail, so he studied countless maps and reports. Eventually, he found a nearby section of land untouched by plague. A final safe haven.”
Hearing the name of my own home nearly stopped my heart.
“He led the survivors here, to what would become this very kingdom. That was the second time he saved them.”
The crowd of people turned and began walking without moving. Insinuations of scenery brushed past us. When the refugees stopped walking, the scenery stopped moving. The detail Prince Raserion could conjure using his shadows was incredible. We stood at the crest of a ridge, and there was a whole landscape around us, with mountains, fields and rivers.
“How did he save them the third time?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“They settled in the East, the heart of the greater region. Towns were built, farmlands were grown. Word traveled. Soon, refugees beyond the initial group began to pour into our new home. My father had a place for all of them.”
The landscape blurred and twisted into the image of a freshly built city. A palace was being constructed. It looked very much like
the first one I'd seen beyond the herd of warhorses.
“But our safe haven wasn't enough. The plague was still being carried and passed from victim to victim. When it claimed my little sister's life, my father threw all of his efforts into finding a cure to protect us. He did. That was the third and final time my father saved a piece of humanity. My father wasn't just a man. He was a great man.”
Raserion didn't speak of his father with respect, but with reverence.
I shook my head, confused about his purpose. If what he was telling me was true, this was how all of our ancestors arrived here in the first place. Such a rich retelling of a lost history wasn't only fascinating, it was invaluable. I believed his story, against my better judgment. Still, I couldn't grasp the relevance. “Why are you showing me all of this?”
“When my father created a cure, he first tested it on himself and my mother. The combination was unstable. It overwhelmed my mother. She died within hours. Heartbreak and his own cure very nearly killed him too. His formula was too potent and there were side effects. Nearly blinded, he recovered his sight to discover that his green eyes had gone quicksilver. His single Ability to heal had mutated and multiplied. His body had the capability to regenerate. A deep cut could vanish in a matter of minutes. More importantly, his capacity for healing others had improved to a near god-like potency. He found that he could resurrect the dead.
“The moment he was well enough, he saved countless victims of the plague, prolonging their lives until he could find a cure for them too. It was too late for my mother; she was already gone and buried. Though he left her at rest, he learned that he could bring any creation that he could devise to life. Other Abilities surfaced in him too; Abilities that hadn't appeared in our family line for generations, and my father had them all. Light, stone, metal, wax, bone, sound projection, to name but a few. Each one was just as unnaturally powerful as the last. It may have seemed like a gift, but he knew that if he administered the vaccine in such a state, countless people would share my mother’s fate. So, he diluted it, altered it.
“A cleaner, safer cure was offered. My brother and I were given it once he was as certain as he could be that it wouldn’t cause any harm. Eighty-five percent of the population was healed seamlessly. Five percent died. My father never forgave himself for that. Ten percent changed. Not to the same overwhelming degree as my father, but entire families obtained multiple hereditary Abilities and silvery-gray eyes. My brother and I were included in that minority.”
“You're Lodestones.”
“At one time, perhaps,” he admitted.
His comment was alarming at best. If he wasn't a Lodestone anymore, what was he?
The scene changed, raising us up onto another ridge until we could see the lands below. Cities were built, farmlands were squared from the land, towers stretched from keeps, and roads snaked between settled areas, right before our eyes. A false sun and a hollow moon rose and fell over us like they were being juggled by some unseen entity.
“Our people rejoiced. They called my father Deverend the Argent, for the silver in his eyes, and they named him king. The Kingdom of Lastland was born, giving us a second chance at life. Drawn to the cultivation of the land, other plague survivors trickled in, filling our towns until they were cities, growing our borders until we had regions and provinces within regions. By the fifth year, they ceased to come and it was said that all others must be dead. The Plagueland boundaries were placed. My father insisted that the plague could mutate to circumvent his cure, so here is where we have remained.”
Looking down at the image of a landscape illustrated by an Ability powerful enough to form its own space, standing beside a Prince who had nearly witnessed the destruction of all human life in his childhood, was more than I could cope with. I didn't know what to say.
“As a boy of ten, I had a newfound aptitude for my added Abilities. Shaping shadows was my specialty. My brother Varion, two years my elder and heir to my father's earned throne, didn't excel as I did.”
The world melted and we were in a room with vaulted ceilings and comfortable chairs. Mist licked the floor where a boy sat, legs tucked beneath him. He looked like he was playing with something. A toy?
“A prodigy myself, I made the very first shadow chaser. Varion loved all crawling things. It was a gift for him. A creature that enjoyed feeding on displays of energy. With the shadow chaser's help, and mine, he learned to make the chaser sing.”
I saw the boys together, playing among several shadow chasers. The smaller of the boys touched them, and the chasers grew wings and spines of shadowy smoke. It seemed a happy memory.
“It sounds like you were close, why would you want to kill your own brother?” It just wasn't connecting.
“Patience. By sixteen, I had learned to wield shadows with a complexity that rivaled the most skilled adults. Creating lightning is a challenge, controlling preexisting lightning is more difficult, but most would say that giving life to a creature made entirely of the energy is impossible. But it wasn't, not for me. When my horse, Mimic, broke his leg and the veterinarian put a bullet in his brain, I remade him with shadows.”
“The warhorses,” I said, understanding.
The boys disappeared, replaced by the mighty warhorses. They climbed out of the ground like they'd pulled themselves up atop the crest of a hill. Hundreds of them circled us, snorting and tossing their heads, white eyes gleaming.
“The perfect animal. A horse I could call from anywhere. It wasn't a simple thing. I had to create the skeleton first, so that the body could hold weight. Sloppy, amateur work, now that I look back at it. I've learned so much, but I'll not bore you with the details.”
He was way off the mark on that one. I was deeply fascinated by the concept of creating a living creature entirely from lightning.
“I made a horse for Varion too, and for my father. At a point, I could barely keep up with the demand for Mimics. When I was twenty, I created Shadows within Shadows, a world for my chasers and horses to inhabit. They are living creatures and need their own environment when they're out of use. The complexity was beyond the comprehension of most people, but not my father, or my brother. They called me a genius. I was proud of myself, like a fool. I thought I'd done right, like a child.
“I may have been the good son, studying, working to impress my father for the wellbeing of the kingdom, but Varion, my own brother, was the antithesis of my kind nature. All along he'd been seething with jealousy. It ate away at him, killing the boy that was my true brother. The more I succeeded, the more devious he became.
“By my thirty-first year, a storm the likes of which none had seen before or since, cut across the Whispering Sea, and cleaved through the heart of the kingdom. My brother aligned his foul plans with the catastrophe, and when my father was three days without sleep from healing the injured, he drove the needle of a hand-sized syringe into his back, and drained him dead.”
The scene played out before me just as Raserion had described it. I didn't know this King, but seeing him fall dead beside one of his own patients was heart wrenching. His hand grasped the bed sheets like he was trying to stand, and then he was still. He lay there as the rest of the vision blurred away, leaving us to look upon nothing but the corpse of an extraordinary hero.
“Good gravity.” A son killed his own father. I was shocked and disgusted. I couldn't help but imagine my own father lying there, and at once I was awash with denial and rage at the concept.
“The device my brother used had been stolen from my father's own design for healing the dying.” The scene around us grew dimmer with each word. “Varion may have been depraved, but he had his own intelligence, his own cunning. Not only did he kill our father, not only did he drain him for his power, but his device transferred all of my father's Abilities directly to Varion. Seamlessly.” Raserion's voice became as dark as his shadows, and every word dripped with emotion. “All that was left of my father, the savior of humanity, the healer, benefactor and king, was a lifel
ess gray husk, and my brother,” he spat the word. “My brother consumed his very soul and walked away to take the throne. Well, I will never allow it. Never! I vowed not to allow him to ascend to kingship that very day. I vowed that I would not stop until I saw him dead, and my father's essence freed of him. I vowed that I would take any action necessary to see it done.”
The world went black again. I caught myself trembling in the void. If I couldn't see anything, could he? Did he know how afraid he'd made me? I dug my nails into my arm to remind myself that I wasn't dead, or dreaming. The pain helped me focus.
“My brother still lives. After seven-hundred-and-thirty-four years, he lives. If not for his treachery, I'd have died of age long ago. Varion would surely too, but my father would still be here today, protecting us, guiding us, seeing our people to a future of peace.
“But that's not what happened, is it? That's not what we are, is it? Nothing is more important than history. The truth is we're here, now, and there is no good left in humanity. Honor and virtue, compassion and sympathy– all tactics to selfish ends. I have proven that much to myself. I've done things I never imagined I could. There is no good in this life, there is only desire for ourselves, what we desire from others. There is only what we want.”
Raserion's voice wasn't soothing anymore. It wasn't tranquil or reassuring. It was terrifying.
“And I want my brother dead.”
Chapter 7: Open
We returned to Shadows Within Shadows. Gauzy, layered strips of sky wafted in their rotations like a sleepy ocean current. Delicate turquoise light belted the horizon, blending up into deep shades of cobalt and ebony. Low-lying mists separated the silhouettes of silently rustling trees, fields of fine tall grasses, and herds of proud warhorses. An equine skeleton occasionally gleamed when the creature moved at one particular angle or another. Shadow chasers swam in the ghostly white stream, and I spied a pair of shadowy dogs loping through a shrouded glen.
Monarch (War of the Princes Book 3) Page 3
