Palace of Silver

by Hannah West

  I located the materialization spell: aphanis od. I’d never heard any of my friends say the spell aloud; Valory had explained that competent elicromancers could communicate with their elicrin stones using thoughts, that a stone could learn to anticipate the will of its wielder. But of course I had to memorize basic spells before I could even dream of that. Meanwhile, she had promised we would tell the others everything soon so that they could teach me to materialize.

  She hadn’t warned me not to try it on my own. She would never expect me to do something so rash.

  I shuddered, recalling Valory’s assigned Neutralizer, Brandar, who had been torn to bloody shreds by a materialization trap laid by the Moth King last year. Those who had seen him draw his last breaths could hardly bring themselves to describe his final state.

  Rynna let out a shaky breath and swayed back a step, grasping for the bed frame behind her, nearly sliding off the silk coverings as she lowered herself onto the mattress.

  “Rynna?” I cried, hurrying to her side. Her sun-kissed skin paled, and her violet eyes cooled in hue.

  “I’m so tired,” she said.

  “Do you need fresh air?” I hurried to the balcony doors that opened to the warm night and the vast expanse of starlit sea. “Or hot tea? I can send for tea or dinner.”

  Rynna’s eyelids flickered closed, and she slumped onto her side. I sat with her and tugged the knit blanket from the end of the bed up to her waist, stroking her hair and, for my own satisfaction, lightly tracing the velvety skin of her tapered ear.

  “Don’t try to materialize,” she whispered. “Stay with me.”

  I weighed the risks. Of course it was silly to think I could materialize to the middle of the woods, at night no less. Sometimes I tired of being the only powerless mortal in the group—but I couldn’t let my envy win out. I needed to learn elicromancy properly, patiently, as my friends had. Even Valory had continued to toil and study long after she failed to display a natural magical gift.

  “I’ll stay here,” I promised Rynna. I looked out at the twilight, a deep dread climbing like wild ivy between my ribs. “I hope they come back soon, with answers. And in one piece. Or five pieces…you know what I mean.”

  Rynna chuckled at my anxious rambling. That made me smile. Though she had seen me at my most vulnerable, I hadn’t seen her like this, almost childlike.

  While she rested, I tried to resist glancing at her growth to see if it had spread. I hid the book again, deposited my crown in its velvet case, sent for tea and soup, and asked the cook to keep dinner warm for the others. They would be hungry when they returned.

  The sustenance restored some hope and courage, but I couldn’t coax Rynna to swallow a single bite. I drank fragrant tea and curled up beside her as she slept.

  When would they come back? What would they discover? Why hadn’t Valory resurfaced after leaving for her mysterious mission?

  What if we couldn’t stop the invasion of Wenryn?

  What if it spread through the whole realm unchecked, like the blight disease?

  My dozing mind was cruel. Nightmares hounded me: Fabian and the others returning with horrific growths, blood seeping through lichen on a rotting tree stump, the drained pit in the woods deepening until it became a bottomless abyss.

  A soft knock made me jerk awake. With a light leap and a few soft steps, I answered, expecting news of the boys’ return.

  Falima stood outside, hands clasped and brown eyes wide. “I need to speak with you. Alone.”

  “Have the others returned?”

  “I haven’t heard any news.”

  I blinked away the sleep in my eyes. “What’s the matter?”

  Falima cast a wary glance down the hall and spoke in Erdemese. “It’s about the…gift that you received.”

  I gaped in surprise. A typical lady’s maid knew her mistress’s secrets, but I thought I had managed to keep this one to myself. “You know?” I asked.

  “Yes, and I’m not the only one,” she whispered.

  “Who?” I asked.

  Falima rocked a step closer and whispered, “We shouldn’t talk about it here.”

  “Are you worried someone will hurt you?” I clasped her elbow. “Falima, what do you know?”

  She grasped my sleeve. “Please, come with me to the terrace, where we can speak alone.”

  With a last look at Rynna, I closed the door and followed Falima down the hall to the lounge. This was where Fabian and I ate our meals together when he was landlocked due to weather or business. Sometimes I read books or penned letters while he studied maps and newfangled nautical instruments. Occasionally, he forced himself to frown over administrative documents while I simplified their contents to tether his wandering attentions.

  The lounge lamps had been extinguished, but I could easily navigate my way through the dark room to the moonlit terrace. Falima worried her small hands as we emerged in the night, the corner of her headscarf trailing in the wind.

  A briny ocean breeze mingled with the spicy, clovelike scent of pink dianthus beds bordering the terrace ledges. The familiar fragrance dispossessed me of the fresh memory of Rynna’s more intoxicating one, so that as I drew even with Falima I wondered whether Rynna had truly come or I had dreamed her.

  “What’s happening?” I demanded. Without the warm glow of the glass lanterns that usually lit the terrace, I could see nothing but Falima’s wide, fearful eyes. “Has someone threatened you? Tried to extort you? Give me their name. I’ll see to it.”

  She hesitated. I shook her by the shoulders. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. Please, tell me!”

  Falima parted her lips to speak, but her eyes darted over my shoulder. I felt the warmth of another presence behind me, a breath tickling the hairs at my nape.

  I whipped my head around just as a hand attempted to close over my mouth. The brief warning from Falima allowed me to push away the wrist, duck under the arm, scramble to the balustrade, and turn to face my attacker head-on.

  SEVEN

  KADRI

  HE was a swift shadow, already covering the ground I’d put between us. Without a weapon, wearing a long skirt and sandals, I was no match for an armed fighter. The elicrin enchantments I’d studied became a snarled web of nonsensical words in my mind.

  The flash of a curved blade foretold a violent death, a quick death. In despair, I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see it coming.

  But the whir of steel slicing through air ended with a shrill clang, weapon against weapon. When I dared open my eyes, I found Rynna gripping an ornate display sword, which she must have dislodged from a plaque on the lounge wall. The old but well-kept blade chimed as she slid it away from the curved saber she’d blocked before it could strike me dead.

  I looked at the attacker. He wore black garments that left only the upper half of his face exposed, but even that small glimpse of him chilled me to the marrow. His eyes glinted like obsidian pebbles, reflecting sharp spears of moonlight.

  Rynna reeled back to take him down, but he thwarted her with ease. Falima pressed into the far corner of the balcony where the balustrade joined the palace wall.

  My mind stuttered until I grasped at the memory of an elicrin spell, Old Nisseran words that would summon magic from my stone. I scrambled to pull the jewel out from my collar, glared at the attacker, and shouted, “Matara liss!”

  The heat of supernatural power thrashed through my chest and erupted from my elicrin stone in a stream of white light. But the shaft of hungry fire I directed at the man instead split into four distinct flames and flew to the glass lanterns hanging overhead, catching them alight. My inexperience had rendered the fire enchantment harmless.

  By the lanterns’ glow, I caught sight of another figure in black creeping over the balustrade. A grappling iron clung to the stone lip of the flowerbed.

  I swore. I was unarmed, helpless, and inept at wielding the magic I’d had to practice only in secret. I had survived worse—had held my own amid the chaos of the full-scale, bloody battl
e at Darmeska’s gates—with my weapon of choice: the bow and arrows Rynna and Theslyn had crafted specifically for me.

  Now I was empty-handed.

  But another sword hung on display in the lounge. While Rynna fought the first attacker, I dashed through the open door and leapt onto a velvet chair, reaching for the sword of King Nicolas Veloxen. The emerald eye of the sea serpent hilt glittered at me as I ripped it off the wall. I burst back onto the patio and hoisted the heavy weapon high to block a strike from the newcomer that was so fierce it made my teeth rattle. I reeled back and stabbed at his middle.

  I felt power muster in my elicrin stone again, and miraculously, my blade pushed through his flesh and lodged under his ribs, prying a guttural cry from his lips.

  He staggered back. I yanked the sword clean, stunned by the effectiveness of my marksmanship gift.

  Rynna was parrying with her opponent, and Falima still cowered in the corner behind them. Why hadn’t she run to find a guard?

  Rynna’s opponent bared his teeth and slammed a fist into her side. She howled, and when he withdrew, I saw a row of metal spikes protruding from a four-finger ring on his knuckles. The points dripped with Rynna’s blood.

  I heard myself yell her name as if from a distance. The fay’s sword dropped hilt-first to the stone underfoot. Blood seeped between her fingers as she swayed on her feet.

  Her opponent used my horror to fling my heavy sword from my hands. I staggered back, broke a sandal strap, and fell hard on my hip. I had no option but to grasp Rynna’s fallen sword by the sharp end, which I did with a yelp of pain, slicing open the creases of my fingers.

  But I wasn’t quick enough. The attacker’s curved blade brushed my throat, rendering me motionless. I tried not to tremble as its edge skimmed upward, hugging my flesh, as delicate as a barber’s razor. I dropped the bloody sword tip as the cold steel forced my chin upward and my gaze with it. He continued to drive my movement until I shifted cautiously to my knees.

  “What do you want?” I asked, watching two more identically dressed shadow-men climb over the balcony. Their garb concealed their features, though I could tell their brown complexions more or less matched mine. Who were these men?

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rynna stumble back and lean against the wall. If she survived, the palace physician could tend to her until Tilmorn returned. Perhaps Mercer had foreseen this attack and would lead the others back from their mission to aid us. Maybe they were on their way, would arrive any second.

  The man didn’t reply to my question. The tip of his saber traveled down to my collarbone and snagged on the chain around my neck. He lifted the elicrin stone until it was dangling in front of my face, the point of his blade between my eyes. How had he known?

  “Your scarf,” the man said in Erdemese, beckoning Falima with his free hand, the spikes of his rings still wet with Rynna’s blood.

  Falima unwrapped her scarf with shaky hands. She surrendered it but kept her distance. Why was she still here? She could have escaped during the fight.

  The chain rubbed my skin raw as the man snapped it.

  He caught the elicrin stone in the scarf, staining the peach fabric with blood as he wrapped it and tucked it inside a leather pouch on his belt.

  “Give this one a quick and merciful end,” he said to the others with a nod toward Rynna.

  “Don’t touch her,” I growled in my first language.

  “They have to bring you to Erdem unharmed!” Falima blurted out. “You can strike a barg—”

  One of the fighters hit my maid hard across the face, cutting her off.

  The realization made my rage burn hotter than a forge fire: Falima had lured me into a trap. She had knocked on my door to recite lines and lead me into danger.

  But my anger toward her paled in comparison to my fear for Rynna.

  “I’ll go willingly,” I breathed. I jerked my head in Rynna’s direction. “If you leave her be, I’ll do whatever you ask.”

  “No, Kadri!” Rynna barked. Though she did not speak the language, she seemed to understand the tone of the interaction enough to realize what I was offering.

  The man, who was clearly the leader, dropped his blade from my throat. “You have a deal.”

  I gulped in an overdue breath of relief.

  “To your feet,” he ordered.

  Rynna struggled to straighten as well, but the leader turned his blade on her instead as a warning.

  The other two men advanced toward me. Within seconds, I was bound and gagged and utterly at their mercy. One shoved me toward the balustrade.

  I offered Rynna a farewell nod that I hoped would encourage her. The wound wasn’t fatal. She would survive.

  An arm dense with muscle reached around me to seize the rope attached to the grappling hook. With three slapdash motions, one of the men in black tangled me up and slung me over the balustrade, gripping me under one arm. He held a clamp in the other. Squeezing the release lever, he pushed off the craggy cliffside with the soles of his boots, and we soared downward until we landed upon soft sand.

  He slackened the rope and I stumbled forward, tripping and falling flat. Through the sting of sand in my eyes I saw the bodies of two royal guards just paces away. Blood stained their emerald tunics.

  A hard wrench of my elbow set me back on unsteady feet and propelled me toward an oared vessel poised in shallow waters. The boat rocked as my captor pulled me aboard and sat me down. Soon after, another shoved a grim-faced Falima down beside me with such bruising force that she struck her jaw on the thwart before struggling to sit up.

  The leader followed swiftly behind. “You warned her twice, the first time with your eyes,” he said to Falima in a chilling tone as he sat down. The others began rowing us into deeper, darker water, undoubtedly toward a larger ship waiting in the infinite night. “You cost me one of my men. You are fortunate that King Agmur asked us to treat you both with kindness.”

  King Agmur.

  “Ironically, the bargain you suggested did none of you any good.” He raised the fist with the protruding spikes, eyeing the weapon with pride. “Venom from the eastern coilsnake.”

  Bile rose in my throat. Rynna had lived peacefully and quietly for hundreds of years and this was the inglorious end she would meet? Bleeding, poisoned, sick…and for me? Tears burned my eyes, but I blinked them away to glare murderously at the man across from me. He sheathed his weapon and removed the scarf hiding the lower half of his face. I took in the shadowy eyes, the black beard…and the necklace with a snake fang cast in silver.

  Terror gutted me as I realized who he was: the leader of the Jav Darhu, the Red Fangs, infamous Erdemese mercenaries who tortured and murdered at the whim of whoever stuffed their coffers. If you owed a debt you could not repay, if you had wronged a wealthy and vindictive family, or if you had simply bedded the wrong person’s spouse, there was always the possibility that the infamous Captain Ardjan Nasso and his Jav Darhu would pay you a visit.

  Many immigrants who came to the embassy in Yorth had fled our home country because of the lawless mercenaries. These victims had trembled in fear standing before my father, as though wary their stalkers might leap out from behind his cluttered desk.

  But as far as I knew, the Jav Darhu had never pursued a target beyond the mountainous border Erdem shared with Perispos, much less across the Mizrah Sea.

  Until now.

  EIGHT

  GLISETTE

  PERISPOS, TWO WEEKS LATER

  OUR carriage sped past sunflower fields and vineyards bordering the road to Halithenica like the green-and-yellow patchwork squares of a nursery blanket. Spindly cypress trees peppered the rolling countryside, trailing off toward a forest in the distance. I longed to take my aching legs on a tour of the landscape, to pluck sweet grapes from their vines and wander through towering sunflower stalks.

  The fortnight at sea had been mind-numbingly dull. After a few days tossing in the waves, only the occasional storm or molten red sunset had sparked any se
nse of wonder.

  “There’s the palace,” Perennia said, pointing out the carriage window as the road wended. “That dome at the top is the largest Edifice of the Holies in all of Perispos. Citizens can climb the stairs and say their prayers atop the tallest summit in Halithenica.”

  I hunched to peer out her window and found the palace overlooking the sprawling royal city. I groaned. “Can we please just materialize? It will take us a mortal lifetime to get there.”

  “You want to arrive looking like the entitled elicromancers they think we are?” Perennia asked.

  “I don’t have the energy to fool them. I’m your queen and I order you to materialize with me.”

  “We’re not that far.” Perennia settled the matter by opening her beloved book to a page with a folded corner.

  “What if Mercer is right?” I asked, looking beyond the red-tiled roofs of the city to the countless tracery windows and turreted walkways of the domed palace. “What if Ambrosine has begun to court darkness?”

  Perennia closed the book. “We can pull her back from the precipice.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I agreed. “Even if she has strayed, she is our sister.”

  She nodded, her flaxen curls bouncing. “We must do what we can to reason with her.”

  As the road dipped, the city submerged beneath a hill until only the magnificent Edifice of the Holies jutted above thick grasses awash in sunlight.

  “But if for some reason you were forced to confront her…” Perennia added, to my surprise. I did not think she wanted to consider the possibility. “You would prevail.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She fights only for herself. You fight for more than your own happiness. That gives you a power she cannot match.”

  Pride swelled in my chest. I wondered what Mother and Father would think to see me now. Before they had been murdered here in this very land, the last request I’d made of them was to bring me a pair of white leather slippers from Halithenica. Father had asked Ambrosine and me to make sure Devorian attended to his studies in their absence, and Mother asked us to confer with the head maid to oversee the domestic duties. Ambrosine had acquiesced with a saccharine smile—she loved being the most responsible in their eyes.