War of the Bastards

by Andrew Shvarts

  “Sure, yeah,” I said, my eyes on those clouds. They were so much worse up close, shifting and writhing like waves in a crashing sea, those bursts of light within accompanied by thundering blasts that sounded an awful lot like screams. “Why would I leave the circle?”

  “This is no ordinary storm,” Trell said, and like, no shit. “You may see things. Hear things. Feel things. In the heart of a storm, you cannot trust your senses. You can only trust the rope.”

  “Please,” Lyriana pleaded. “There must be something we c—”

  But before she could finish her sentence, the first bolt struck. It scorched out of the sky maybe fifteen feet outside of the circle, a jagged spear of crackling light, and hit the sand with an explosion of sparks. I screamed and fell back, Zell just barely catching me, as Ellarion gasped and my father shielded his face.

  “Now!” Syan screamed, and she and Trell sprang to position, folding their hands together as they turned to face the surging storm. Their zaryas zipped up above us, the four orbs spinning together over our circle, and a shimmering dome of fire stretched out above us, branching out from all the pillars to form a canopy over our heads. It reminded me of the Shields mages made, but where those were purple bubbles that moved like veils in the wind, this was more like a skin of flame, a sheer shell of burning light. It was bright, so bright, and I raised a hand to cover my eyes.

  And all at once, we were in the storm. The hungry clouds enveloped the sky, blotting out the sun and swallowing us in a darkness like the dead of the night. Winds swirled around us, thick gusts that blew sand into my face and made me squint my eyes. Rain poured down, and while the dome of fire kept it from hitting us, I could see it outside the circle, the droplets hitting the sand with bursts of steam and ash. And the sounds, by the Old Kings, the sounds: the howl of the wind, the crash of thunder, and voices calling to us from all sides, screaming and sobbing, gibbering in unknown tongues and shrieking my name over and over again.

  “Hold strong!” Syan shouted to Trell, and it looked like it was taking all of their effort to keep their zaryas up and working above us. The dome of fire buckled and trembled, shock waves cascading through its veil like ripples in a lake. The pillars of flame around us swayed and shook, bending in the increasingly violent gusts of wind.

  My heart was in my throat, my lungs burning. I clutched my rope tightly with one hand and grabbed Zell’s shoulder with the other, digging in my nails as I held on to him. He wrapped an arm around my waist, holding me tight, and I could feel his heart thundering. My father lay before us, teeth gritted, eye squinted, and Ellarion stood in front of him, stunned, arms at his side.

  “Look!” Lyriana shouted, drawing my attention away. She was pointing outside the circle, at the spot where that first lightning bolt had struck, and once I looked I immediately regretted it. The sparks that had shot off the blast hadn’t fallen. They hovered in the air like fireflies, flickering and crackling, wafting about like a dandelion tuft in the breeze. But it was the ground below them, where the bolt had struck, that was the real problem. There was a blackened spot there, a scorch mark, and the sand in it was…moving. That darkness snaked out like tendrils, spreading, and tufts of it were growing, reaching up into the air with twitching branches and sinewy sprouts, wobbling and grasping and covered in bristly little hairs. It was like looking at wrongness itself, something that fundamentally shouldn’t be, a feeling that twisted my stomach with profound revulsion, and of course because that wasn’t enough, one of the tendrils swiveled to me and I could see now in the fist-sized clump of sand an eye, a thick red eye, staring at me through a yellow pupil that dripped like the yolk of a runny egg.

  “Titans protect us,” Lyriana whispered, “Titans protect us, Titans protect us,” but it wasn’t the Titans that were protecting us, it was Syan and Trell and their dome of fire, a dome that was looking weaker and weaker every second.

  Then another lightning bolt hit, this one closer, just a few feet from the circle, and a huge jag of stone shot up out of the earth where it had hit, a slab of red crystal covered in bulbous barnacle-y growths that opened and closed like sloppy mouths. That was the last straw for the terzans, I guess. They jerked away, horrified, letting out panicked braying wails.

  One of them, the gray one Syan and Trell had been riding, pulled hard enough to break free. Its rope tore with a loud snap and even as Trell screamed “No!” it took off lumbering in the other direction. With a low, keening warble it smashed into the net of fire, its tough hide darkening with scorch lines in the flames, and then it was out, alone in the storm. For one second it seemed fine, like it would actually make it. And then…it changed. It stumbled forward and screamed, and its scream warped, from a husky bray to a wet sloppy gasp, like it was vomiting and choking all at the same time. Its body shifted and twisted, the back legs ballooning with a rubbery stretch, its front limbs atrophying into skeletal husks. Chunks of crystal stabbed out through its back, and its eyes burst open as flowering vines shot out of the sockets. The whole thing vibrated and trembled and then it exploded in a massive burst of chunky blood and crumbling bone.

  Zell had been wrong. I’d take a sword over that any day.

  The dead terzan was the least of our problems, though. The bigger issue was the protective net. There was a hole where the terzan had smashed through, the strands of flame between the pillars broken, and that meant the storm was getting in. A blast of wind shot through, swirling sand into our faces, our eyes, and with it came a cold, a chilling cold even though we were surrounded by flame. My skin burned and my stomach roiled and my mouth flooded with the taste of rotting food and spoiled milk. I fell forward, gagging, which meant I’d lost Zell, the only thing keeping me from totally freaking out. And as I looked up at the hole, I saw something else, something moving in the dark of the storm, something alive. It was a man, sort of, like if you buried a man up to his waist in the sand, and it was dragging itself toward us with its hands. It was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen.

  “Seal the gap!” Syan screamed at Trell. “Now! Before it gets in!”

  “I can’t!” he sobbed back, and now I could see tears in his eyes. “If I let go here, the whole roof will collapse!”

  With a roar of her own, Syan pivoted toward the gap, one of her zaryas whistling down to try to rebind it. It zipped frantically between the pillars, pulling together new strands, but they were thin and weak, buckling with the wind, extinguishing before they could bind. Up top, without Syan’s help, the dome of flame was giving in; a spot tore open, a hole the size of my fist, but it was enough for rain to pour down into our circle, scorching-hot rain that hit the sand with bursts of sulfurous green steam. There was too much all around us, too much happening, too fast. Lyriana was crying and my father was screaming and Trell let out a desperate sob even as Syan cursed and the hole at the top was tearing open wider and wider, more rain flooding in, and that thing was still out there, that crawling man-thing, getting closer and closer, and I could see now it didn’t have a face, just a wide shrieking hole lined with teeth, and no, please no, not this, anything but this, anything but this!

  And then…there were two new zaryas.

  They shot past me, streaking like hummingbirds, glowing with a radiant white light, and zipped around one of the pillars, and when they emerged they were pulling a thick strand of flame, one they wove deftly around the next pillar over. That crawling thing recoiled, stymied by this new barrier, and I just sort of stared dumbstruck as these new zaryas flitted back and forth, patching the holes and dragging new strands, and then they stopped for one second, hovering still, twitching from side to side like they were looking for a task. I got my first good look at them and suddenly it all made sense.

  These zaryas weren’t orbs.

  They were hands.

  Mechanical prosthetic hands, made of the finest bronze in the Kingdom. Floating in the air, the fingers dancing, tugging strands of flame like they were ribbons in a fair.

  I spun around and there
was Ellarion, standing upright, his jaw clenched and his eyes hardened with determination. His arms were outstretched, moving, guiding his prosthetic hands through the air, and in that moment, he looked more like an Archmagus than ever.

  Syan stared too, mouth agape, but only for a moment. Then she spun back to business, pulling her own zaryas up to help Trell patch the dome overhead. “Seal the wall!” she barked at Ellarion, like it wasn’t an absolutely enormous deal that he was helping at all. “I’ll hold the roof!”

  “I’m on it,” Ellarion responded, his flying hands getting back to work, but I could see it on his face, underneath the determination and focus, a twitch in his lips he couldn’t hide: a smile. His hands, his zaryas, flew through the air gracefully, bending flame and winding strands of light, securing against the howl and the fury.

  Working together, the three of them managed to keep our little circle safe until the storm had passed. The whole thing lasted maybe a total of fifteen minutes, though of course it felt like an eternity. Winds howled, lightning bolts shot down, and I saw more shapes moving through the billowing sand: slithering serpents and lumbering giants and something huge and awful that flew overhead at one point, a ten-winged beast with a tentacled maw.

  But then it ended, just as quickly as it had come. The clouds passed, and sunlight appeared again, soft rays more wonderful than anything I’d ever felt. The howling of the wind left, and the chittering sound, and that awful feeling in my stomach. The horrors inside it, if they were even real, left with it. When the storm had gone, there was no sign of anything strange around us, save a few chunks of charred terzan and a single slab of still orange glass.

  When it was all settled and done, when the last rush of wind had vanished, Syan collapsed down into the sand, panting, and her zaryas plopped with her. Trell did the same, collapsing to his back, gasping like he’d just surfaced from the depths of the ocean. The dome flickered and vanished, and half the pillars went out, blown out like candles. Only Ellarion still stood, the muscles in his neck taut, wrists pressed together. And only when he saw the others relax did he do the same. He toppled onto his knees, breathing deep. His hands flitted toward him, puttering out halfway, hitting the sand fast and leaving long skids.

  Lyriana was the first to move. She sprinted toward her cousin and wrapped him up in a hug so intense it nearly knocked him over. “Ellarion! You did it!” she said. “You did…did incredible magic!”

  “I…I guess I did, yeah,” he said, staring down, and he sounded more surprised than anyone. “All this time, I was so focused on not using my hands…but they were the key after all.” He shut his eyes, but that didn’t stop the tears streaming down his cheeks. “They’re my zaryas.”

  Syan walked over, shaking her head, and her expression was somewhere between stunned, proud, and embarrassed. “That was the real problem,” she whispered. “You couldn’t connect to my zaryas. You needed your own.”

  “And you saved us all.” Zell walked over to clench Ellarion’s shoulder, easing him to his feet. “You’re a hero.”

  Ellarion made a sound, a sob so joyful it broke my heart, and then I was hugging him, and Lyriana pulled Syan in, and my father stood and clapped, and we were all together, crying and holding each other and laughing, letting it all spill out. We’d made it, made it through the blazing hell that had been the storm, and come out the other side.

  If we could get through that, we could do anything.

  WE DIDN’T ENCOUNTER ANY OTHER storms on our journey, which, thank the Titans and the Old Kings and everyone else. It was just three quiet days of steady trekking over crimson sands and sleeping under gentle skies. And after that, we finally came to Benn Devalos.

  I couldn’t see it at first, not until we’d hiked to the top of a long, sloped dune. Then we reached the summit, and I looked down and actually gasped out loud.

  It had been ages since I’d seen anything but desert, since my eyes had seen a natural color besides bright red. But sprawled out there between the dunes was a hidden valley of vibrant green and sparkling blue, an oasis paradise. At the center was a lake, wide and bean-shaped, its surface slick and reflective as a mirror to the sky above. Plants flourished around it: tall palms and leafy papyrus and patches of jutting reeds. But I barely noticed any of that because I couldn’t stop staring at the cluster of buildings all around the lake, at the full-blown city.

  I don’t know what I’d been expecting from Syan’s benn. A camp, maybe, like the Unbroken had? A tent-village, like you saw in the history books? But this was so much more than that. There were at least a hundred buildings below us, elegantly laid out around the lake like rows of plants in a garden. I couldn’t tell what they were made out of, a slick tan material somewhere between sandstone and crystal, but it shone like gold in the bright sunlight. They had domed roofs with skylights made of translucent green stone, and they ranged in size from small family homes to a massive three-story building on the lake’s edge. Gazing down from the dune’s crest, I could see the people of the benn going about their day: artisans bartering goods in the market, cooks turning skewers lined with vegetables and fruit, children running and laughing while fishermen labored on boats dotting the lake.

  I clearly wasn’t the only one impressed. “By the Titans,” Lyriana whispered. “It’s amazing.”

  “All this time, you had this out here,” Ellarion said, his voice just a little accusatory. “A city like this. A paradise. And we thought it was just a barren wasteland….”

  “How is this possible?” Zell asked. “Does the whole city withstand the storms?”

  “There are soft places in the deserts where the storms don’t go,” Trell explained. “No one knows why. But those places are where we built up the benns.”

  “How many are there?” my father asked. “How many benns?”

  “Twelve total,” Trell boasted, and Syan shot him a glare like, Why are you telling him that? “Mine is about a week’s ride to the east. When the elders learn how much gold I’ve made…”

  “Twelve cities. Hundreds of people. Dozens of mages.” My father let out a low laugh. “Miles has no idea what’s coming.”

  “It’s more than that,” Lyriana said. “The implications of this are overwhelming. This changes everything.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “The reign of the Volaris is justified by the Heavenly Mandate: the Titans gifted us their magic so that we could guide mankind toward greatness, to be the shepherds that unite all the people of Noveris in prosperity and peace,” Lyriana said. “That’s how we justified everything. That we were creating the greatest world possible. That for all our flaws and failings, we were still the best option.”

  Ellarion nodded, clearly on the same train of thought. “We brought order to chaos. We were the clenched fist keeping the world from falling apart. Every war, every law, every jail, and every death, all of it was worth it because there was no better way.”

  Lyriana’s eyes were fixed on the village. “But if this civilization exists…if they’re living out here in peace and prosperity, in the most inhospitable climate in the world…then maybe it’s all wrong. Maybe it’s all a lie, and always has been.”

  I shot Zell a skeptical look, and he nodded, knowingly. It was nice that they were getting it. But had it really taken them this long?

  Lyriana must have picked up on the awkwardness, because she cleared her throat and adjusted her collar. “We can talk more about this later. Right now, we need to get into that city and talk to the elders. This is the moment it all comes together. The moment the war turns. Right, Syan?”

  But Syan glanced away, unable to meet her gaze. I didn’t get it; she’d completed her mission, gotten us all the way down here, survived storms and earthquakes and raging rivers, but here, on the border of her own city, she looked more hesitant than ever.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “I just want to say one thing,” Syan said, staring out. “Whatever happens next…whatever they say down in t
he benn…I am so grateful to all of you. I’ve never really had friends. Not like you all. And I…” She swallowed hard, her voice just a little choked up. “Thank you. For coming this far. For trusting me. It’s meant more than you’ll ever understand.”

  “Syan?” Lyriana asked, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

  But Syan just jerked it away. “Come on,” she said, with an icy resolve. “It’s time.”

  Well, that was ominous.

  We marched in silence down the dune, toward the sprawl of the benn. The closer we got, the more impressive it looked. The buildings were all impossibly smooth, their surfaces so slick I couldn’t make out a single brick or stone, their glistening tan frames decorated with intricate carvings and drawings. Shimmering crystal water cascaded out of fountains, as crystalline rooftops sparkled green and gold. Flowers were everywhere (in the middle of the desert!), wide planters brimming with flora the likes of which I’d never seen before: tall blue stems with prickly yellow bulbs, winding ivy with huge red berries, and what I can only describe as “sunflowers but at the same time roses”? And everywhere, everywhere, were zaryas, whistling through the air, hovering over people’s shoulders, a skyscape of fluttering little orbs like a flock of hummingbirds.

  The scale of it all was hitting me, the scale that had so stunned Lyriana and Ellarion at the top of the dune. Lightspire was a city fueled by magic, sure. But this was a city built entirely out of it, a city shaped from magic itself.

  There was something else off too, something I couldn’t put my finger on until we were almost at the city’s edge. “There are no walls,” I said. “No guards either. No gates. It’s just open.”

  “Why would they need them?” Zell replied in front of me, holding the terzan’s reins tight. “The storm is the greatest wall any city’s ever had.”