Chapter 14
14
N YX STARED IN the silver mirror at the miracle before her.
“It suits you,” Jace said. “Like you were always meant to wear it.”
Nyx smiled shyly, smoothing a palm down the ceremonial robe. One side was starkly white, so bleached that it ached the eye in bright sunlight. The other was as black as burnt coal, so dark it seemed to draw shadows to it with every swish. She had never imagined she would ever wear such finery, certainly not a robe of Ascension.
In three days, she and the other aspiring ninthyears would climb the steps to the summit. Starting down at the first tier, their ascent would begin with the dawn bell and take until the final ring of Eventoll. They would traverse the course on their hands and knees, contemplating where they had started and where they were headed. Only once they kissed the ninth step leading up to the top could they stand and take their place at the summit of the Cloistery.
For seven years, she had watched the procession from the side, both envious and proud of those crawling skyward.
And soon I will be among them.
“I can hardly believe it,” she mumbled to the mirror.
“I never doubted it,” Jace said, grinning broadly.
She smiled back at him in the reflection, but her expression was strained by guilt. Jace had failed his fifthyear. He would never wear this robe. Yet, over the past span of days, he had never once showed a flicker of jealousy or spite. Even now, she read the pride shining in his bright round eyes, in the genuineness of his smile. He also showed no resentment for the crick in his healing nose. The break was surely still sore after the pummeling he had suffered because of her.
The wound tempered her jubilation, reminding her that she had enemies.
With the midsummer break ending in three days, many of the students who had left for home or escaped the hottest part of the year for more pleasant climes were already returning. The stairs between levels had grown more crowded. The noise and bustle of the school increased each day.
During this time, Nyx had kept wary watch for any of her former classmates, especially those who had hunted her, one in particular. So far, there had been no sign of Kindjal, the sister of Byrd. She glanced down to her palms, expecting to see blood there.
Jace must have sensed the darkening of her mood. He shifted and rubbed his ink-stained hands. He had come straight from the scriptorium to review her final fitting. He still wore a leather apron from liming fresh hides this morning.
“Now that we know your robe is properly hemmed,” he said, “you had best return it to its chest until the ceremony. I’ll step outside. Once you’re done, we should start on that last volume of Hálendii histories and review those geometrical theorems that you were struggling with.”
“Of course,” she said, but it came out like a groan. She apologized with a warmer smile at Jace. “I’ll be right out.”
Jace met her gaze for a breath, then turned away, his cheeks blushing nearly as bright as the red locks that poked from beneath his leather cap. He hurried out of the dressing chamber. Once alone, she faced the mirror again. She chewed her lower lip, reluctant to take the robe off. She had worked so hard to obtain it. She feared if she slipped it off that it would vanish away, like in some taunting dream.
She pinched the rich linen, testing its thickness and solidity.
“This is mine,” she whispered, staring at her face, watching her lips move. “I’ve earned it.”
She tried to force those words into her heart, as she had every day. But again, she failed. She knew the only reason she was wearing this robe was because Prioress Ghyle had convinced the others that her survival was some portentous blessing of the Mother, marking Nyx as worthy of Ascension.
Unfortunately, Nyx could not convince herself of the same.
Especially considering how far I’m behind in my studies.
She glanced back to the door.
Jace had spent most of the past fortnight instructing her here, in a set of rooms near the fourth tier’s healing wards. The space—abandoned by a physik who had left for the jungles of the Shrouds in search of new herbal medicums—had been granted to her by the prioress. Nyx had no other place to go. She was no longer a seventhyear, and as she was skipping the eighth, she had no room on that level. Even the ninth was forbidden to her until after the formal ceremony.
She could have gone home to her dah and brothers, but the prioress had wanted her close to Physik Oeric in case her health worsened. Plus, she had a slew of studies she needed to complete, to fill the gaps in her knowledge from skipping her eighthyear and to do her best to catch up to the ninthyears.
Ghyle had given Nyx and Jace a long list of assignments, the essentials of the eighthyear lessons. The prioress had also sent over a bevy of novitiates and alchymical students to help with this task. Still, most of the work had fallen on Jace’s considerable shoulders.
Up until now, Nyx had been proud of her accomplishments, confident that she could tackle any thorny problem if given enough time. No longer. She felt like a firstyear again, unsure, lost, struggling. Jace even had to teach her to read. He had always been her eyes in the past. Now that she could see, she needed to learn to read on her own, and she still fared poorly at it.
It was all too much, too daunting.
She covered her eyes with her palms, letting the darkness calm her.
I can do this.
Her only hope of making that come true was Jace. Even after she ascended, he would continue to aid her. The prioress recognized that Nyx would need his ongoing support—both in her studies and as a friend. All the other aspiring ninthyears had climbed through the tiers together as a class. She would be joining them as a stranger, an interloper, and likely viewed as someone unworthy to be among them.
She took a deep breath and lowered her hands. As much as she might wish to return to the comforting familiarity of her clouded vision, she had to learn to live in this new world.
She opened her eyes and searched her face in the mirror. Her reflection still struck her as strange. It was the face she had always pictured in her mind’s eye, but then again not. When her vision had been clouded, she thought she had a good notion of herself, between what she could read with her fingers and how others described her. But her returned vision added details she hadn’t imagined.
She ran fingers through her brown hair, so dark it could be misconstrued as black, but within its shadows were golden strands, as if a sun lay hidden somewhere within. Her complexion was a richer color of polished amber, her lips rosier, and her eyes bluer, speckled with flecks of silver.
In many ways it was a stranger in that mirror, but maybe therein lay another measure of hope. Maybe she could set aside the girl she was, the meek and beclouded girl. And become the woman in the reflection, the one stranded in gold and flecked in silver.
“I can do this,” she tried again.
She almost believed it.
Almost.
She firmed her resolve to redouble her efforts on her lessons. If nothing else, the hard work had pushed the fear nestled inside her deeper and deeper. Collapsing into bed each night, exhausted and mind-numbed from studying, she slept soundly. No more screams or visions of arcane rituals under a swelling moon plagued her slumbers. She refused to even utter the word moonfall. She certainly hadn’t shared any of this with the prioress, especially as that strange bat had never returned to haunt her rafters. How could she try to explain her inflamed memories, of the sweet taste of milk on her tongue, the spicy warmth of pelt and wing, the red eyes glowing across to her from another nipple?
She wanted to dismiss it all as a fevered dream from her poisoning, to put that darkness behind her. Instead, she concentrated all of her efforts and energies on the immediate task ahead of her.
She ran her hands down the robe one last time. The contrast of black and white represented the choice facing her over the next year. Once she completed her ninthyear, she must pick a path forward. To take the black of alchymy, or the white of religious studies. Once she had chosen, she hoped one day to achieve the status of Highcryst in one order or the other.
Or maybe both.
She pictured the two halves of her robes merging to the gray holiness of a Shrive—then shook her head at such foolishness.
Let me just complete my ninthyear.
Determined and knowing Jace was waiting for her in the next room with a stack of books, she wiggled the robe over her head. Standing in a simple shift, she neatly folded the garment and gently returned it to its lacquered scentwood box. She closed and clasped it, securing all her hopes inside.
She placed her palm atop it.
I can do this.
N YX ROLLED THE nub of sharpened charcoal between her thumb and forefinger, both of which were grimed black as she struggled through the last of the morning. She squinted at the triangular shape that Jace had jotted down, along with the numbers written on two of its sides. She had been instructed to divine the length of the third and the space held within all.
“Remember the dictum of squaring the triangle,” Jace offered.
She huffed out her frustration. “I know, but what damnable use is any of this?”
He reached over and forced her hand down and drew her attention toward him. His green eyes sparked with sympathy and amusement. “Knowledge can often be its own reward, but more often it reveals the inner truths of the outer world. It can raise a lamp and lift the shadows around us to show us the beauty within.”
She had to look away from his intensity, sensing a more personal meaning behind his words. She noted the warmth of the hand still clasping hers, the way his touch lingered. She withdrew her fingers and returned to the problem drawn on paper, a matter more easily resolved than what had grown between them.
Jace straightened. “As to squaring the triangle, it is the magick behind much of everything around us. Used by builders to reckon the slope of a roof and the position of walls. Sailorfolk tap its power to chart their course across the seas. Mappers do the same to draw coastlines and borders.”
Inspired by his explanation, Nyx set about solving the problem with renewed vigor. She scratched her sums with her nub of charcoal and worried her way through to the end. Once done, she turned to Jace, who smiled proudly but with a slight sadness in his eyes.
“Very good,” he said. “In no time, you’ll be leaving me far behind.”
It was her turn to reach to him. “Never,” she promised. “I can’t survive my ninthyear without you at my side.”
“I failed my fifthyear,” he reminded her, the smile dimming. “I think the girl who survived the poison of a Myr bat can face anything.”
She wanted to believe him, but this reminder of the attack, of the nightmares that followed, further unsettled her. Still, she sought to reassure her friend. “Jace, you’re far more than your stumble in your fifthyear. Prioress Ghyle recognized your potential by keeping you here at the Cloistery, working at the scriptorium, aiding me these past years. I wager you know more than most of those who will be crawling alongside me to the top of the school.”
His grin returned. “You are kind to say that. But of late, I’ve struggled to keep abreast of you. I know it. But I will admit that I have learned much on my own, not only by studying beside you, but also by copying faded ancient texts in the scriptorium, preserving them before their ink vanished. Some volumes were shockingly blasphemous. Others so raw in subject that it would make the vilest whoremonger blush. It’s certainly been a tutelage very different than any path up the tiers.”
“And no less important.” She patted his knee. “And that is how you will get me through my ninthyear.”
“But what after that?” Jace asked, his voice going softer. “Where will you go then?”
She heard the unspoken query: What’s to become of us?
“I don’t know,” she answered, addressing all of those questions. “I hadn’t dared look past what’s in front of my nose. I would hate to leave my dah and brothers, so perhaps the prioress would allow me to continue my advanced studies here at the Cloistery.”
Jace drew taller in his seat, hope brimming in his eyes. “I would like—”
A blast of horns cut him off. They both turned to the window of her borrowed room. A steamy drizzle hung in the air, all that was left of a storm that had been blowing through the swamps for several days. As they stared, another bright trumpeting echoed across the breadth of the school.
“What is it?” Nyx asked.
Jace gained his legs with a heave. “Let’s take a break and find out.”
She happily stood. Jace crossed and grabbed her cane, but she waved it aside. She would need to learn to walk on her own. She had to adjust to the strange dimensions and sights of her new sighted world. Plus, she had Jace if she became too overwhelmed.
They abandoned her little cluster of rooms and headed through the physik’s wards. They drew more of the curious in their wake. Once they reached the open air, they crossed toward the tier’s main stairs. Further bursts of horns urged them onward, now clearly rising up from below.
Nyx swiped her wet brow. Under the low weeping clouds, the heat smothered. Over the past days, it had quickened tempers and slowed everyone’s pace. But the strident blaring could not be ignored. The novelty pulled everyone out of hiding.
“This way,” Jace urged.
He guided her through the worst of the gathering throng and over to a terrace just off the steps. It offered an expansive view to the town of Brayk below. The sight and spread of the world transfixed her and terrified her. In the past, her clouded eyes had always kept the world tight around her. Now it spread endlessly in all directions.
Another blow of horns drew Nyx’s attention down to the swamps. “Look!”
Bright torches flickered through the shadowy bower. Scores and scores of them, all slowly drawing toward the island of rock in these drowned lands. The faint beat of drums rose, along with the deeper lowing of bullocks. Hard snaps of whips echoed up now, sounding like the crackling pops of a log in a hearth.
“It seems we’re being invaded,” Jace mumbled.
Nyx glanced sharply at him, all too aware of the tensions with the lands of the Southern Klashe.
He gave her a consoling shake of his head. “This morning at the scriptorium, I overheard talk of a large hunting party coming through Myr. The teeth of the storm had kept them holed up in Fiskur for a while. Still, never imagined there’d be so many.”
The first of the torches reached the edge of the swamps. Crimson oilskin banners were raised, but with no wind to unfurl them, their bearers had to wave them loose. Though the distance was far, Nyx recognized the black crown against a gold sun.
“Sigil of the king,” Jace said.
Despite the heat, Nyx shivered with dread.
What is going on?
A commotion on the neighboring stairs drew their eyes. A long-legged figure flew up the steps, taking them three at a time. Nyx recognized one of her former seventhyears, identifying him by his lanky form and flailing gait. His face now glowed with excitement, practically bursting with barely suppressed glee. She also knew this particular student was the class’s chinwag, always ripe with gossip.
“Lackwiddle!” she called out to him.
The damp-haired youth nearly tripped over himself trying to stop. He glanced around and spotted Nyx. He gave her a hard scowl. With that one look, he revealed what all her former classmates likely thought of her.
“What’s happening down there?” she asked.
He gestured rudely and braced his legs to continue his flight upward.
Before he could, Jace thrust out an arm and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him closer and anchoring him in place. “Answer her!”
As wet as Lackwiddle was, he probably could have broken free, but he was clearly incapable of keeping what he knew bottled up any longer. “It’s the king’s legion, I tell ya! A full mess of ’em. Even some red-faced Vyrllians. Can you believe it?”
Nyx’s chill sank deeper to her bones.
But Lackwiddle was not done. “And who’s marching with ’em? It’s Kindjal and her father, the highmayor of Fiskur. I’d give up one of my hairy bollocks to be sitting there with ’em.”
Nyx shared a worried look with Jace. Her heart pounded. She again felt the weight of Byrd’s headless body atop hers, the spill of hot blood.
Jace finally let the boy go and moved closer to her.
Though freed, Lackwiddle dawdled, his eyes bulging with one last bit of gossip. “And best of all, I heard they captured one of those winged bastards.”
Nyx stiffened, picturing the lurker in the rafters. “What?”
“A big ’un,” Lackwiddle said, holding his arms wide. “All arrowbit and caged. Heard they’re dragging it up top. Gonna burn it alive in the pyre. As fitting vengeance for Byrd.”
To hide her reaction, Nyx turned to the twin fires ablaze in the drizzle. The taste of sweet milk again filled her mouth. She felt the enfolding warmth of protective wings. A keening filled her head, full of grief.
“Can’t wait till that beast be flopping and screaming in those flames,” Lackwiddle said, and darted away, anxious to spread what he knew.
Nyx continued to gaze upward, but she fell back into a smoke-shrouded world of screams and thundering war machines. She found herself again on a mountaintop, running toward a huge winged beast nailed to a stone altar. Her foremost desire in that moment fired through her again.
To free what was captured.
Then she snapped back into her own flesh, standing in the drizzle. The keening remained—both past and future—but it had grown into the buzz of an angry hive inside her skull. It spread through her bones, sharpening her certainty.
She turned to face the approaching legion.
She didn’t have a plan, only a purpose.
I must stop them.