Chapter 29
At the crack of dawn, I wake to Lucetta pummelling at the door for Akilah to get up and play.
I dress, grab my cloak, and chase Lucetta all the way to Mother’s chambers.
My niece sits glued to my lap while Mother fusses around me in delight.
We breakfast together, and I escort her as she prepares, reluctantly, for her herb collecting excursion.
Akilah is serving Quin breakfast at an outside table, for once impeccably dressed with a respectful sort of countenance I’ve never seen on her before.
I drift towards them and halt when I realise Mother has followed.
She’s eyeing Quin curiously; there’s no way Mother will believe me if I introduce him as an aklo.
Not with the way he angles his chin like that. Not with the way he looks at me.
“Who is this beautiful man?” she whispers.
Akilah’s perfect composure wavers as she chokes on a cough. I yank my gaze away from Quin and pull my mother in another direction. “Never mind him.”
“Is he courting Akilah? I’d happily welcome him into the family.”
“He’s already married. Let’s go.”
“Such a shame. Why is he here?”
“He’s a . . . ah . . . He came with me.” I kiss her cheek. “I’ll visit again soon.”
She has tears in her eyes as the wagon moves away; I wave until she’s out of sight and when I turn back, Akilah has disappeared and Quin is watching me. The closer I come, the more his eyes glint. “A what? A friend?”
I scowl and flick my finger at him. “You were not acting your part.”
“You take after her—the blond hair, your eyes, your smile.”
“She has Iskaldir allure.”
“She called me beautiful.”
“I’m sure she was drawn in by your godlike jawline.”
Lucetta flings herself against my side, Akilah chasing after her once again. “Can you come camping with us?”
Akilah catches her breath. “We’ve been planning the trip for weeks.”
I kiss the top of Lucetta’s head. “That sounds like so much fun. I’ll come next time, alright?”
She nods and makes me promise to visit again soon before she dashes off. Akilah embraces me hard. “By the way, how’s our Florentius?”
Florentius! I stiffen. “I may have left him in a canal full of toads.”
She laughs and disappears after Lucetta, and I’m left with Quin and an entire day before us.
Quin, possibly reading the apprehension on my face, raises a brow. “I have people to see at the dance academy. You can explore the market.”
“Cael!”
I twist to see my father crossing the courtyard with three thick books and a sack that smells of sacredbloom. He stops and hesitates before thrusting the sack my way. “You and your aklo can drop this off at the luminarium.”
I groan inside, and nod. “I’ll be on my way.”
I pivot to leave and he clears his throat, halting me. He deposits the books in my arms and I almost drop the purifying sacredbloom. “They’re your grandfather’s. His research.”
I feel the thump of my heart through the books I clutch, like they’re pulsing with life. He kept them?
He steps back abruptly, watching me without so much as a glance in Quin’s direction. After a long moment, he turns and goes back into the house.
I drop my face for a few long breaths against the top of Grandfather’s research. Thank you, Father.
I toss the sacredbloom to Quin, who catches the sack without a word, and wrap the books carefully in cloth so I can carry them on my back when we set off shortly after.
My feet drag as we near the luminarium and after a reluctant bow before it I stop moving.
Quin shakes his head with a smirk and barks at me to hurry inside.
His borrowed cane snaps behind me, forcing me up the seven steps to the arched entrance.
When I cower at the threshold, looking into the empty circular nave, the cane meets my buttocks, pushing me inside.
I rub the offended area and scowl at Quin, who is clearly enjoying himself.
Instinctively, I reach out to tug his hair and pull back sharply, grabbing the sack of sacredbloom from him instead. “Let’s hand this over and head out.”
The snick of his cane on the polished floor echoes as he ventures towards the timber columns holding up the dome.
It might not be as impressive as the one in the royal city, but there is plenty of beauty in here.
Frescoed walls in good repair, and on a plinth under the dome, where the violet oak stands in the royal luminarium, a tithiscar.
Only two luminariums in the kingdom are lucky enough to grow a violet oak; the rest have a coffer carved of the sacred wood—a tithiscar—a spiritual vessel into which the local linea gift magic when paying homage.
Our luminist kneels before that vessel and is summoning magics into it, as he does every morning.
Quin and I respect his space, waiting in a niche across the room. The space holds a bench on which Quin sits with obvious relief. “You’re not happy with your local luminarium?”
“We won’t see eye to eye on this.”
“That hasn’t stopped you before.”
I sigh deeply. “When have I ever sworn to the Arcane Sovereign and meant it?”
Quin turns his head slowly towards me and blinks, twice, drily.
Must’ve used that line with him a few times. I flash him a fool’s smile. “I’m not afraid of luminariums, I’m frustrated by them. They are beautiful but shallow. Look at this space, so large and sheltered. Yet it remains empty while so many crowd around fissures under bridges to keep warm.”
Quin grimaces and curls an impatient hand for me to continue.
“Luminism also should not mix with the judicial system.”
“Only misuses of magic are judged based on the teachings of the Arcane Sovereign. Other infractions are judged under civil law, based on Goffridus—”
“Why can’t all infractions be judged under civil law? Luminists should not have the right to execute entire families because par-linea dare to use higher magics.”
“What else?”
“Those who want to believe in the Arcane Sovereign and his beliefs should, but it should not be thrust upon all.”
“It’s not thrust upon all. Everyone has a right to choose.”
“You pay fewer taxes if you can prove you regularly attend your local. How is that a choice? The working class are forced to pay homage with this. And when we come here, we’re to reflect on spiritual teachings.
‘Moral teachings’ propagating the idea that if we live virtuous, modest lives and follow the rules of the linea, then in a future life we’ll be reborn as linea.
” I laugh hollowly. “Is this not simply a way to keep us under control?”
“Without rules, there’s chaos. In chaos, the kingdom would collapse, we’d be taken over by neighbouring powers; violence, death, submission. And the rules in those other kingdoms? No better—even more rigid than our own.”
“So the answer is to live with it? To count ourselves lucky?”
“You will not change everything, Cael.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Doesn’t mean others won’t. Luminariums offer comfort. Hope. Community. Friendship. Support. They are part of our culture and our identity. Who are we without them?”
I don’t have an answer to this and am relieved—possibly for the first time—to see our luminist approaching. I stand abruptly and my cloak plummets towards the ground. Quin catches it with the end of his cane and holds it out for me. I grab it with a silent groan and knot it hastily at my throat.
“The Amuletos family donate sacredbloom,” I say, holding the bag out to the luminist.
He takes it, opens, and breathes it in. “Did you dry it for long enough? We want to purify the air in here, not make it musty.”
I smile tightly. “Have we ever given sub-par sacredbloom?”
“It’s not the rest of your family I distrust.”
My smile stiffens and I give a small bow. “We’ll be on our way—”
“Who is this?” The luminist eyes Quin and roots his gaze on his face, like everyone who sees him for the first time must. His beauty is simply otherworldly, they can’t help themselves. “A new face in our luminarium. And such a pretty one.”
“He’s my aklo. We’re off.”
Quin darts a look my way, which I ignore, and the luminist steps closer. “Perhaps you were born lowly, but follow the teachings of the Arcane Sovereign, embrace the laws of our tremendous king, and you may be reborn into good fortune.”
Tremendous king? I choke and Quin thwacks me on the back.
The luminist swings his head my way, nose flaring. “How dare you!”
Quin speaks, “Caelus is merely . . . curious. Perhaps you can enlighten him why our king is ‘tremendous’?”
“But of course. I’m here for your enlightenment, after all.”
The luminist begins a monologue of praise for His Majesty that is so overblown, even His Majesty finds it unbearable. Quin curls his lips in a mocking smile. “Indeed. That great, is he?”
“He’s the highest born linea. He must have lived an exceptionally virtuous previous life. He can do no wrong.”
I turn my head to Quin, raising both my brows.
Quin clears his throat. My body lurches trying to hold in a laugh and I hurriedly bow my leave and race out.
Quin follows a minute later, after I’ve let out my belly laugh to bewildered passersby. He looks at me warningly, and my lip quivers. “Let’s go.”
There’s a spring in my step as we move away from the luminarium and into the market.
Quin lets me steer him wherever whim takes me.
I flash shiny things in front of his face, curious which will capture his interest. He seems to like the wind chimes, and the puzzle cubes.
When I get distracted by some newly published vitalian books, he spends considerable time conversing with the owner at a jewellery stall.
I peek over my book as he hands over a gold nugget in return for a silky pouch. Something pretty for Veronica, perhaps?
He looks up and I lower my gaze to the neatly inked pages in front of me. I clap the book shut and set it aside, scanning the others on the stand as he nears.
“I’m heading into the academy,” he says.
“Can I visit Skriniaris Evander?”