Fos’s breath misted out as he gazed over the pattern of splinters. “Looks a little like a flower, in a prickly sort of way.”
“A supernova, I should think.” Hiresha picked up one splinter. It was pale like bamboo, except for one side lacquered black. “Which is fitting, since the minister tells us a nova is a star’s death.”
“What? Oh, this was her staff.”
Hiresha tucked the splinter in her pocket and closed the button. “I was not lying when I told Sheamab I should’ve liked to meet her before she became a Bright Palm.”
The enchantress and spellsword walked around the outermost wheel of splinters. The moonshadow fell over the street of the Academy guard tower. Fos jogged off to bang on the barred door, to shout the good news to the spellswords inside. They yelled back but would not open the door, due to an Academy provision to protect against Feasters. It was just as well because at that moment Hiresha spotted the Lord of the Feast striding down the Skyway.
Her heart trembled in her chest, beating against her ribs as she moved onto HalfBridge. He strutted from horizontal to upright onto the same curve of stone. An endless cape rippled outward from his shoulders, trailing him all the way up the Skyway where it folded into the fabric of the night.
Gone were his wings, and he wore the same triangular-cuffed jacket with the crimson vest from when she had walked with him in the Ballroom, three nights ago. Hiresha wondered if she could ever bear to so accompany him again, or if she could stand not to.
Tethiel and Hiresha faced each other at the center of the bridge, both at a slant. Neither sideways toward the cliff nor right-side up toward the ground. The enchantress parted her lips three times to speak, but words deserted her.
Tethiel’s hair flowed about him like spidersilk. His skin had a crystalline gloss. The black triangle in his brow seemed an opening to a dimension of hidden realms.
Hiresha suspected her fingers trembled from anger, or disappointment, or relief. She covered the shaking by petting the fennec.
His eyes lingered on the back of her hand. “My heart, the Reaper constellation is most becoming on you.”
“It is a crescent moon,” she said. “I see someone plucked off your wings.”
“By my own choice. I am convinced that every bird in the sky longs for a sturdy pair of walking legs.”
“I find that unlikely.”
“My heart, it is ever the wings of our design that trap us. Flying daily would become most tedious.”
“By your walking here,” she said, “I presume the keystones were returned, that the Academy is whole again?”
Tethiel inclined his head. “Was that ever in doubt? I call it cruel of you, my heart, to have played with the Bright Palms for so long. Just because they cannot feel does not excuse giving them false hope. Not that I judge you. The only thing in life I ever judge is judgment.”
“You would, for instance, never judge a traitor who brings Bright Palms to a woman’s home, her refuge, her temple.” Hiresha found the red diamond and shoved it from the sash pocket. Its edges dug into her fingers. “Knowing the Bright Palms would try to destroy that sacred place. That they would escort her friends forcibly off cliffs.”
“A traitor? There was no treachery, only necessity. The spark cannot betray the fire. Ice cannot betray winter, and night never betrays the stars. We share the same fight, my heart.”
Her thumb pinched the red diamond beneath her hand. She expected to throw it at his feet momentarily.
“In Morimound I warned you not to look upon the illusion I crafted of you. But it happened,” he said. “Ever since, I knew it only a matter of time until you became a Feaster yourself.”
“So you came here to break the Feaster in me free? To give her full control?”
“I came here to hunt Bright Palms, my heart. Before they could hunt you.”
Her hand clenched into a fist, entrapping the red diamond. “You are wrong. I am an enchantress. The Provost of Applied Enchantment and without need of Feasting magic. Reining in that preening falsehood within me will be more difficult now, yet I will remain her master.”
“She is not false. She is you, unbound.”
“She is an illusion, a thief of consciousness. Do you understand me, Tethiel? I will never be a Feaster.”
“‘Never’ is not so very long.”
“For me it is a long time indeed, and for that you should be thankful. The Feaster wanted me to remove you from the Lands of Loam.”
“She is most welcome to try.” As he studied Hiresha, the stars behind him faded. Snow at the top of the mountains lit pink from the nearing sun. “If ‘never’ is as long as you say, then I was wrong. You are altogether stronger than I thought.”
She tipped her head to him in a nod. “I trust you won’t be wrong again. Wrongness does not wear well on you.”
“But, my heart, it’s the only thing that fits me.” He squinted past her to the threatening light. The cliff above them turned to gold. “I see I must soon be gone with the dawn.”
Unclenching her hand, she balanced the red diamond on three fingers. She hated to give up so rare a gem for a mere gesture. No petty statements of revenge will bring back what I lost over the last days. What remained was her belief that Tethiel was the best of all possible lords of nightmare. And if I refuse to become a Feaster myself, might it not sometimes be useful to know one?
She knew another thing, too. If Tethiel’s sole wish had been to slaughter the Bright Palms, he could have allowed Sheamab to choke Hiresha in front of the Crystal Ballroom. The spellswords would then have stormed the plateau. Instead, Minna had been urged to save Hiresha, and the spellswords had been forced to turn back.
He cared more for my safety than his revenge.
She said, “I never thanked you for giving me this diamond.”
“It has been three years, so ‘never’ is almost up.”
“And I never will.” Hiresha snapped her hand closed over the jewel. It fit back into her sash pocket.
She strode over the bridge, and set her foot on the cliff.
“My heart,” Tethiel called behind her, “are you certain you should go back? I fear your associates will know you battled alongside a Feaster.”
“They will also learn I smashed Academy records, broke windows, and used enchanted jewels in most unorthodox manners. If it bothers them, then that means they’re still living and able to experience annoyance and ought to thank me.” She cast him a sickle smile. “After all, forbidden is what you make of it.”
The Lord of the Feast bowed to her, shadows swirling after his hand in a dark flourish. Behind him a horse trotted by itself to the base of HalfBridge. Its long face turned to the side to gaze at its master. It blew and stomped.
Hiresha shifted the fennec to her other arm and started up the Skyway. The air was clear. The path was straight, the enchantment restored, the horizon a spectrum of brilliance. Moon and darkness clung to one side, breathtaking grey above, and to the east a new day was catching fire.
Thank you for reading Gravity’s Revenge
a tale told of the Lands of Loam.
Take a voyage with Hiresha
on her next adventure
through waters flourishing with magic
and monsters:
As an independent storyteller, A.E. Marling
lacks a corporate advertising budget,
but your recommendation is more powerful
than any ad.
~
Continue to be a patron of fantasy storytelling
by recommending this book to a friend
and reviewing it online.
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On Twitter: @AEMarling
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Cover illustration by Eva Soulu
Internal illustrations by Bartosz Milewski
ty's Revenge
Gravity's Revenge Page 33
