17. Sybilla
Chapter 17
Sybilla
A man selling fruit from a cart straightened and glanced around, uneasily. Caught.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
Ryn and I sat on a bench in the Umber House courtyard. I blew curls from my face, convinced I’d never learn how to access the minds of others unnoticed.
“No one is perfect after just a few days of training, Princess. Keep trying.” He rambled on. “There are front entrances of the mind and back entrances—the front, most Source-wielders can feel when someone with Reverist magic is accessing them. My guess is you have no idea which way you’re getting in.”
“This all sounds oddly sexual,” I mused, and Ryn cracked a laugh.
I was glad for the large umbrella he had placed in a base beside us. The courtyard was bustling with people, most of whom were visiting the produce markets, which had fewer hot-food vendors than at night. The heat was too stifling.
“It is sort of like having your brain caressed,” he said, wiggling his brow in a way that made me smirk. “It’s how I could tell you were in there when we met. However, it’s said that skilled Reverists of the past could access the mind through less obvious entries...poke around a bit.”
We spent an hour like that—he would point to an unsuspecting person in the bustling crowd and tell me to focus on the threads of their mind and find all the access points. Once he’d helped me visualize it that way, it became easier to determine when I’d failed.
A woman pulling her toddler by hand behind her quickly scooped up the child, looking shaken. I’d gotten it wrong.
The tune of a mandolin stopped, and the musician’s brow furrowed. Wrong again.
I began to pick up on the subtle differences between threads—my mind had never felt clearer, even if I was failing at the exercise. To know how not to just be a passenger in the minds of others was refreshing.
I decided to try one more time on Ryn.
Ryn wiped his brow and muttered, “I can’t wait for the first rain.”
“Why’s that?” I asked. He still hadn’t noticed me there, slipping into his head.
“It’s a night of debauchery, and I could use a good fuck to get her off my mind.” His unspoken words made me smirk. He answered, “It typically brings a short cold front, some reprieve. And a natural reason to drink and celebrate. There’s usually a festival.”
“Lovely. And who are you trying to get off your mind?”
Ryn’s eyes widened. “You did it!”
My smile widened at his excitement.
“Now try that again on someone else —stay out of here. I assure you my love life is not all that interesting.”
I doubted that but laughed anyway. My next few attempts failed.
As the sun became too hot to bear, I sighed. “Where is Darvanda this morning?”
“Miss him?” Ryn said in jest.
I scoffed. “We’re to be married,” I blurted out, and Ryn’s posture straightened.
“You don’t say.”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
He smiled and said, “He is addressing some cases—there was a murder in Sahlmkar while he was gone and some complex land disputes we needed him to weigh in on.”
I stood and put my hands on my hips. “Then why are we not present?” He tilted his head, and I added, “I would like to see how things are accomplished around here.”
“He’s going to hate this,” Ryn warned.
I was counting on it.
Part of me was just curious to see how he appeared before his people.
When Ryn led me to the throne room, there were guards present at the doors. They stepped aside to allow us through, bowing their heads.
The throne room was simpler than I’d imagined, with drab brown curtains and white stucco walls. Krait was perched on a large wooden seat at the center of the room. Guards held the chains of a kneeling man. His hands were extended, clasped together in a ball, and his wrists were cuffed together with what I recognized as magic-binding cuffs.
“Please, my King—it was an accident!” The man leaked spittle onto the ground, unabashedly crying.
Krait’s gaze landed on me, and he frowned. He didn’t interrupt his dealings to greet us, and Ryn gently guided me toward the far-right wall, where we found a seat beside Elsedora. On the other wall, a row of unfamiliar faces, in neatly pressed and expensive-looking garb, sat—lords, I assumed.
“What did he do?” I whispered to Ryn. Elsedora glanced over at me and offered a quick smile that crinkled her eyes.
“He is a Source-wielder, of the Soil. But he Death-wielded. It resulted in the killing of his wife.”
My stomach sank.
“Your crime is grave enough to sentence you to death. But I’ll instead send you to the prisons of Sahlmkar for a minimum of one century.”
“Please, my King!”
I extended my mind to the kneeling man and found the thread that I thought might let me in undetected. The man didn’t react—either too distraught to notice or I’d succeeded.
His memories flooded mine— a woman lying in bed in a dark room. She was so pale, so thin, coughing, shaking. Her gray hair was plastered to the sweat on her forehead.
“Please, make the pain stop,” she asked him.
“I will, love. I will.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, my sweet.”
A dead pig lay on the ground beside the bed. The man drew back his hands, and when he extended them, an amber smoke flowed from his fingertips. It filled his wife’s nostrils, ears and eye sockets. It worked so quickly, blackening skin and bone until there was nothing more than dust. His fingers looked stained with coal. A sign of Death-wielding I recognized from the attack on Luz. It’d happened quickly; she had not suffered.
The chair screeched below me as I shot up, surfacing from the dreadful memory as guards began to drag the man away. “Stop!”
Krait leveled a look at me that raised the hair on the back of my neck. Ryn tugged on my elbow, urging me to sit.
I blurted, “It was not an accident. It was a mercy kill.”
The man’s eyes widened as they landed on me. I stepped closer to the bound man, drawing sideways glances and side conversations from the lords on the other side of the room. I could feel the sensation of their confusion.
“Wasn’t it?” I asked the man.
Tears leaked down the man’s cheeks, and he nodded. “It matters little—I knew the cost.”
“Your wife was mortal.” It wasn’t a question.
“This end offered her less suffering than any other option.”
The guards carried the man away, and I was left staring at an insufferable, unjust King.
Krait clenched the wooden armrests of his throne with white knuckles.
“She wanted to die,” I said to Krait, and the room quieted. “He killed a pig in order to Death-wield, hardly a punishable offense.”
Krait’s Shadows were whipping around him violently, as though they craved striking out at me. “Death-wielding is always a punishable offense. Be seated, Queen Wymark.”
Fuck no, I would not sit down.
“A century? For doing as his wife wanted?” I spat.
“Leave us,” Krait commanded the rest of the room, and the lords bowed, seeming eager to exit the room. Krait’s growing Shadows vined up the ceiling, and a lump grew in my throat.
Once Krait and I were alone, he rose and crossed the room. He stood so close that I had to tilt my chin up to meet his gaze, so close that there seemed to be no light left in the room. He leaned into my space—still not touching me. I had to fight the urge to back away.
“You cannot walk into my throne room and dictate how I deal with my realm’s matters,” he snarled. “I would not interfere in your rulings if it were the other way around.”
I stiffened and he withdrew a step.
That was what I wanted, wasn’t it? A King who would leave me to my own devices.
“It wasn’t murder. It was done out of love , Krait.”
“As I’ve stated, Queen Wymark,” he said, seeming to throw formality back at me like an insult. “It does not matter. Death-wielding is outlawed here. It strengthens Caym. It weakens us whether done out of love or hate, or indifference.”
My hands balled at my sides. I wanted to argue.
But this was his court, his home, his law.
“You Death-wielded in Luz. I saw your hands—they were coaled at the fingertips when I met you.”
At the accusation, Krait’s Shadows snapped around my feet. I finally lost composure and flinched, blinking hard once. He noticed and took another step backward, the angry lines in his brow fading abruptly.
“That night, we used the energy of the dead already on the battlefield. That is different. While it is still dark magic, it is not the same as creating new death. That is what Death-wielding is, killing for the sake of harvesting energy, using death.”
Darvanda’s whole life had been devoted to stopping the Death Origin’s rise, and that was exactly what he’d been up to in Luz.
“You didn’t come to help us, to save Luz,” I realized out loud. “You simply came that night to stop those who were Death-wielding.”
“Among other reasons,” he snapped back.
The weight of his gaze unnerved me. I nodded. Instead of spitting more fire over this, I spun on my heels and went to find Ryn.
Ryn and Elsedora were waiting in the main hall. The smile and slap on the back I received from the silver-haired warlock snapped me out of my anger.
“You did it again. You got into that man’s mind unnoticed.”
My shoulders deflated as he squeezed them. I had.
Little good it had done for him.
Elsedora offered me a sad smile and said, “You meant well. But our laws are in place to prevent Caym from gaining strength before his Reverist abilities are returned.”
“Does Death-wielding risk giving him the power of compulsion too?” I tried to remember what Krait had told me outside the holding cell, but all I could recall was the way his warm spice scent had surrounded me.
“No, not yet. He will not have that power until the next black moon. He took that power from Isolde—he forced her into a bargain,” Elsedora explained. “It’s all in the book.”
None of this explanation helped calm the churning feeling in my stomach as I thought of the man’s desperation to end his wife’s suffering.
“How do you know so much about the Reverists?” I asked, wanting to move the subject away from what had happened in the throne room. Away from having uncovered my soon-to-be-husband’s motives in Luz.
“We saved many of the Reverist texts that Phynx wanted destroyed,” Ryn answered. “Despite being a Source-wielder, my father strongly opposed the spread of magic. He wanted it moderated, controlled and only accessible to the wealthy. My earliest memories are of the rebellions that followed some of those laws going into effect.”
To think of a realm even more torn than it was today saddened me. “And you have Reverist texts here?”
“Yes—they’re mostly written in old Brennac, which Krait knows well,” Ryn answered. “He’ll be able to help you.”
Of course, I’d need him. “Where might I find these texts?”
“In Krait’s hole,” Elsedora chimed in.
“Excuse me?” I gasped out.
Ryn smiled wide, which told me I’d delivered the exact reaction they’d been hoping for.
“It’s what we call his private library—his hole. I can show you his hole,” Ryn carried on.
“Stop that.” I would have a fit of giggles if he used the word “hole” one more time regarding the King of the Sahlms. “But also, I would like to see the texts .”
“C’mon, Princess,” Ryn said before offering me his hand. He pulled me further into Umber House.
My ankles felt like an inferno of pain as I followed him. I’d think about that later—maybe I could find a cold compress somewhere in this Source-forsaken desert.
“I will swing by your room later,” Elsedora called after Ryn as he whisked me away.
Before I could react to Elsedora’s comment, Ryn stopped just beside a stairwell—there was a small door there that was my height. He leaned over and whispered into my ear, “Say the words ‘In the Shadows we trust.’”
“In the Shadows we trust?” I asked. Before he could answer, the door’s lock clicked open.
“I knew he liked you,” Ryn said as he ducked through the entry.
“What do you mean?”
He answered, “It won’t open for anyone Krait doesn’t trust.”
“You’re mistaken. That man hates the ground I walk on. You saw him in the throne room—he wanted my head on a platter.”
The Prince shrugged and formed a ball of white moonlight in his palm. The light cast beams down the stairwell into a windowless chamber that was lined with the most beautiful wooden bookshelves I’d ever seen. I was not much of a reader, but this looked like a sacred space for Darvanda.
There was a small portrait on the desk of a woman with silver hair and the most stunning blue eyes.
“Speaking of people who Krait trusts...your sister, the Princess of Phynx? You told me to come back to you when I’d pieced things together—they were in love.”
“Aren’t you a sly little fox? You get that out of Elsedora?”
I smirked while running my hand over perfectly dusted tomes. “Is it all that hard to get gossip out of Elsedora?”
Ryn laughed. “Fair point. Yes, they were married.”
My brows rose. “Married? Someone agreed to a life of eternal grumpiness? She must have been angelic to deal with that.”
“You’re one to talk,” he said in jest. Ryn leaned with one forearm on a bookshelf. “She was angelic—our people loved her. She was their fiercest advocate. Yet still somehow the calm in any storm. Unfortunately, she and my father never saw eye to eye. He always pushed me to take the crown, but I didn’t want it.”
I glanced over at him as I trailed my hands along the rough canvas book spines. He would have made an excellent King, had he wanted it.
“I’m sorry for your loss. It sounds like she was lovely, all jokes aside.” I let sincerity carry through my tone, not wanting him to feel as though I took his disclosure lightly.
“I know it’s hard to imagine, but beneath all the spiky edges, there is a lot of gentleness in Krait too. I think it is what initially drew them together—that and their Source Match.”
I sucked in a breath. “They were Source Matched? I didn’t know Origins could be Source Matched.”
Ryn shrugged and casually crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back against a shelf. “He isn’t Desidero. He is still subject to the whims of the Origins just like the rest of us immortal Source-wielders. Source Matches and all.”
“How do two Source-wielders know that? That they are matched by the Origins?”
Ryn smirked, but a hint of sadness flashed in his expression. “You feel most powerful when together, depleted when apart. For some it feels as though something has snapped into alignment—like the last puzzle pieces of your souls have been found and placed within you.”
Now my heart ached. My friends Asterie and Fenris had recently uncovered their Source Match. They had a strong pull toward one another and a devotion that trumped any example of love I’d ever witnessed.
I’d seen Fen’s reaction when he’d thought he’d lost Asterie during the battle at Luz...
A large brown leather chaise sat along one wall; it was covered in plush suede pillows. Bronze ornate sconces hung from the walls, and the whole space felt warm and lived in. Only it was the coldest space I’d felt in Umber House.
Clearing my throat, I voiced that observation instead of lingering on that dreary topic. “It’s cooler in here.”
Thoughts of a younger Krait in love with his kingdom’s enemy still swarmed my mind.
“Right under this are the underground baths, and it helps keep this space a bit cooler during the summer,” Ryn answered. “Practically a cave...”
“Or a hole,” I joked as Ryn crossed the room and flopped down on the chaise with a flash of a smile and a nod.
I walked around the oval-shaped library, to a rolling ladder that stretched to the ceiling. There were ten or so shelves that I couldn’t reach by hand. I stepped up onto the ladder; a particular collection of texts had caught my eye.
“Like a moth to a flame...” Ryn mused as he kicked his feet up on the chaise. “Those would be what you’re looking for.”
I hummed triumphantly. “What are they?”
“It was said that Isolde, the First Reverist, wrote many tomes by communicating with scribes of her lineage through the years. Legend is that within some of them she hid clues about where her weapons against the Death Origin lie,” Ryn answered. “They’re hard to decipher though, as she didn’t want Caym to find her relics.”
I pulled out the far-left tome. “Darvanda can read these?”
“Yes. I can.” A deep, smooth voice startled me. “Some of them.”
I teetered on the ladder. Krait’s Shadows reached out and looped around my waist. They steadied me before recoiling as quickly as they’d come. I shivered at the cool sensation left in their wake.
“ This is not where I expected you to be,” Krait noted while staring daggers at Ryn, who simply rose and crossed the room to us.
I stepped off the ladder and blurted, “We shouldn’t have intruded.”
Having already pissed him off once today, I turned to leave.
“You’re welcome in here,” Krait ground out. Despite his tone, the statement rang sincere. He still seemed pissed—though, that was the way he perpetually looked.
I caught Ryn smirking as I asked, “You don’t fear that I’ll use these texts against you?”
“That would require knowing how to read them,” Krait droned without amusement. “And these are not meant to teach you how to kill me .”
“It seems that you are already a far better teacher than I am,” Ryn teased and squeezed Krait’s shoulder. “And as I recall, you agreed to train our Queen on how to use that wondrous mind of hers.”
“Ryn,” Krait warned, as though being alone with me would be the worst situation he could imagine. But the silver-haired Prince was up the stairs before either of us could fully object.
Krait plucked the blue text from my fingers and leaned against the bookshelf next to me. His jaw was tense as he leafed through it.
“I shouldn’t have questioned you earlier, not in front of your court,” I admitted. I’d overstepped. If he’d done the same to me in the presence of my nobles, I would have been livid.
“ Mhm ” was all he offered.
I huffed in frustration and said, “I still don’t agree with the ruling. But I handled that disagreement poorly.”
He avoided my apology. “This text would actually be a good starting place for our training—you should know where your power comes from.” I couldn’t even feign annoyance at his change in subject because what he’d said intrigued me. “It’s the full texts of Isolde—we call the collection The Book of Isolde . But it’s actually many prophecies that my family has distilled down to one true guide. Would you like me to read this one to you?”
His anger with my intrusion in the throne room had passed. If the tables were turned, I wasn’t sure that my temper would allow me to be so collaborative.
I motioned for him to read, skeptical of his altruistic-seeming intent. He pointed for me to sit down on the chaise. I obliged, crossing my ankles and resting my clasped hands in my lap. On the opposite side of the narrow room, he crouched and slid to rest on the ground against a bookshelf.
That somber, deep voice read the text for hours. Occasionally, he’d slip into Brennac instead of translating, and I’d have to ask him to stop and re-read. He glanced at me over the book to ensure I was still engaged.
I was.
But the tomes of legend and lore, full of revelations of my origins, were not what fascinated me. What fascinated me was a man devoted to stopping Death himself, one willing to marry me to keep me here for reasons I didn’t understand.