Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Golden light unfurls around Alaric like petals of fire, growing taller and brighter until he’s completely consumed.
“What is that? What’s happening?” I whisper to Delphine.
She shakes her head, gilded light dancing in her frightened eyes. “I don’t know.”
We watch, mouths agape, as the light flickers and jumps, burning so hot and bright, we’re forced to look away. Alaric, however, sits calmly in the middle, seemingly uninjured.
After a time, the bright yellow and gold flames cool to deeper shades of ocher and umber, and swirl into an image of sorts.
The walls of a phantom room erect themselves around Alaric, who hasn’t moved from his prayer position.
The details of the room are impressive: walls made of dark-paneled wood, a vast collection of books fill the floor-to-ceiling shelves, and a long black carpet slashes through the center of the room like a crevasse.
“That’s the king’s council chamber,” Delphine whispers. “I’ve cleaned it before.”
The room is every bit as imposing and austere as I’d expect from King Soren, but even more unsettling are the floating wisps of shadow that drift across the strange apparition world and form into people.
“Is this real?” I ask. “A projection of the room in this very moment?”
“How should I know?” Delphine shrugs. “It certainly looks real.”
I turn back to the scene, feeling more uneasy by the second. If Soren and Alaric have somehow learned to manipulate time and space, in addition to the earth, they could be everywhere at once. Always watching. Eternally a step ahead.
I drag myself through the sharp pebbles until I’m just a few lengths from where Alaric sits. Close enough to parse out more details of the room and the people within. But that only makes me more confused.
Instead of Soren and his blue-robed councilors, a little boy, no older than five, sits on a wheeled ladder attached to the bookshelves. He’s chubby and red cheeked with gorgeous black curls that hang in his stone-gray eyes.
It’s so clearly a younger version of Alaric, I gasp.
Thankfully, grown Alaric doesn’t stir from his prayer pose in the center of the light.
A second boy, slightly older, with paler skin and a thatch of brown hair pops up on the other side of the ladder, grinning.
Delphine slithers up beside me and stammers, “Th-that’s Besnik. The king’s eldest son who died years ago.”
“So this is the past?” I whisper. “Like a memory?”
Delphine shrugs again, and we watch as phantom Besnik throws his weight against the ladder, and the two boys giggle as it zips down the track, crashing to a stop at the far end of the shelf.
“Again, again!” little Alaric cries, and Besnik happily obliges, pushing them back and forth until they both topple off onto the rug, laughing.
From the center of the light, grown Alaric says something, and the glowing images smear.
When they reassemble, the boys are still running wild around the same wood-paneled room, but now they’re noticeably older, leaping from armchair to armchair and chasing each other with swords that look disconcertingly real.
They laugh and parry, taking turns attacking and defending.
A harried-looking man without a speck of hair watches from the corner, begging them to calm down and keep quiet—their father is in meetings on the other side of the wall.
But that just makes Alaric and Besnik shout louder and laugh harder.
When they finally slump onto a settee to catch their breath, their eyes are wild and exuberant, their bodies a tangle of smiles and laughter. They are happiness and completeness. Friendship and solidarity. Two parts of the same whole.
Like Rowenna and me.
The tightness in my throat is almost strangling, and I breathe a sigh of relief when grown Alaric mutters again, causing the scene to blur and reform.
This time, it depicts the two boys as adolescents, but now neither is smiling. And no one is laughing.
A leggy, long-haired Alaric stands in the center of the same room, staring down at his hands, which are cupped around a walnut-sized gemstone the color of an apricot.
“It was an accident,” he whispers frantically. “I didn’t mean… I would never!” His hands tremble around the jewel, which is riddled with spiderweb cracks.
Besnik paces in front of Alaric, glancing nervously from the gemstone to the double doors. “It’s fine. The stone is meant to be divided. That’s how Father received his portion, and Grandfather before him. It was going to be split again soon for me anyway.”
“It’s going to be carefully chiseled for you.” Alaric’s voice cracks. “Not splintered like the stained-glass window we broke in the music room when I was four.”
“The Flesh isn’t going to shatter like that.
” Besnik waves a dismissive hand, though his eyes dart back to the double doors.
“We’ll sneak it back into the royal coffers and never speak of this again.
No one needs to know you took it or that it fractured in your care.
When Father eventually discovers the damage, he’ll think it must have split naturally.
Maybe he’ll finally admit we’re excavating the mines too quickly and carelessly.
Far more than a single gemstone will crumble if we continue carving up the mountain without thought for its long-term stability. ”
Alaric still looks pale and stricken, but he nods as he considers the damaged gemstone. “Do you think its power remains intact?”
“Of course,” Besnik says—a little too quickly. “And, anyway, the Flesh is only one third of the triad. The others will make up any difference.”
My ears snag on the words Flesh and triad, but I don’t have time to work out their importance. The council room doors fly open with a bang, and King Soren strides into the room.
At the sight of his sons, he skids to a halt.
His eyes fall on the apricot gemstone in Alaric’s hands, and his craggy face twists and reddens.
A vein on his forehead bulges like a bloated leech.
He levels a finger at Alaric, but he doesn’t bellow his accusation.
He whispers, which is far more terrifying.
“It was you?”
“It-it isn’t what you think.” Alaric stumbles toward his father, his fear so visceral my own hands feel damp with sweat.
I can’t imagine being so frightened of my own family.
Mother and Rowenna could be a bit ruthless and single-minded, and Father was often overly emotional and disappointed, but I never had cause to fear any of them.
I never doubted, for even a second, that they would meet my mistakes with compassion rather than anger. With love rather than threats.
Poor Alaric is so focused on his garbled explanations and apologies, he trips over his ungainly legs and the gemstone bobbles in his grip.
I hold my breath as he dives to catch it, but the jewel slides through his fingers and hits the ground with a crack.
Daggers of tangerine light slash across the walls—flash across Soren’s livid face—as the pieces scatter and spin.
“What have you done?” King Soren roars as he lumbers across the room.
Alaric flops about like a fish on land, frantically trying to gather the shards into a pile.
Soren thunders closer. “You know the sacrifices my grandfather made!”
Besnik darts between them, holding up his hands. “Father, have mercy. This is a misunderstanding—”
Soren flings his oldest son aside and looms over Alaric. “The Flesh of Callahan goes missing—no, is stolen from the royal coffers—and I find it in the possession of my own son? Irreversibly damaged!”
“Father, I can explain.” Alaric scrambles back, wincing as fragments of the stone dig into his palms.
“There’s no good explanation for stupidity.” Soren bellows and raises a hand.
The room begins to shake, infinitesimally at first, like hundreds of dancers in a hall.
Then it builds to a rush of galloping hooves and, finally, to earth-wrenching tremors, like the quakes that shook the fields of Tashir the day Soren raised our protective mountain range.
Quills and inkpots rattle and the bookshelves lining the council room walls spit their massive tomes to the floor.
Alaric yelps with each heavy thwack.
“Father, stop!” Besnik pleads. “The structural integrity of the palace—”
“You disrespect our ancestors!” Soren booms over his sons. “You spit upon our most sacred relics—the very source of our power. Power you have no right to wield as a second son.” He stabs a quivering finger at Alaric.
“It isn’t like that,” Alaric wails. “I wasn’t trying to take it. I just wanted to look at the stones and feel close to the power, just once, before it’s rightfully given to Besnik.”
Soren’s laughter is loud and merciless. “If you’re so desperate to feel close to my power, I’ll happily oblige.”
He thrusts both hands toward Alaric, but Besnik moves at the same time, crashing into Alaric’s side and sending the younger boy sprawling into the ladder they rode as children. The floor crumbles at the same moment, directly beneath where Alaric stood.
Where Besnik stands now.
Each second plays out in slow, excruciating detail. Splinters of wood explode into the air, Besnik’s arms pinwheel, and his feet churn as if running. For an impossible moment, he seems to hang there, suspended like a bird, before the laws of nature reclaim him.
I scream as he plummets, and Delphine slaps her palm over my lips.
We watch in silent horror as the tail of Besnik’s velvet jacket catches on one of the jutting, broken floorboards.
Unfortunately, it isn’t strong enough to stop his fall—only to change his trajectory.
The snagged garment pitches Besnik heels overhead, flinging him down, down, down into whatever lies below.
Before I can ask Delphine which room lies beneath the council chambers, the sharp sounds of smashing china and tinkling flatware ring out, followed by a wet, heavy thud.
Then silence.