Chapter 9
SKY-SIGNS
LEILANI
THE WATCHER’S brEATH is warm on the back of my neck as I rap on the door to Izarius’ chambers the following night.
I straighten my mantle to better cover my hair and reach for the Celestial Chain, looping it around my fingers for ballast. The Observatory’s scent of rosemary used to conjure the warmth and ease of my tutor’s rooms, but after my imprisonments in the Sanctuary, it only makes my stomach clench, transporting me back to the dark vaults beneath my feet.
I place an ear to the door, listening for Izarius’ shuffling footsteps. Hearing nothing, I push against it and find it unlocked.
‘You can go now. Come back in two hours,’ I say to the guard.
Two hours should be enough. Any longer would rouse suspicion.
The Watcher nods and turns for the entrance, white cloak billowing like smoke. Along with the Bindery, my tutor’s rooms remain one of the few places I’m permitted to visit, provided I’m escorted there and back. Thank the Sister they didn’t question my coming here before dawnrise.
The musty scent of old parchment drowns out the bitter aromats as I cross the threshold. Craning my neck, I search the double-height domed ceiling, painted a deep shade of indigo, my gaze lingering on the star-atlas chased in silver across it.
According to the origin myths so beloved by my mother, Arcelia’s ten constellations are pictures traced by the Dawn Sister in the diamond-dust left over from her creation of Arcelia’s sun on a cursed veil, the barrier separating the old world from the new.
They tell the story of the Dawn Sister and her Beloved, remembrances of the love lost when her jealous twin cast her from the Cradleworld hoping to keep their helpmeet – Want – for herself.
My eyes linger on my favourites: the twinkling circle of the Troth Ring, the constellation I was born under, and the dense spread of the Jewelled Orchard, herald of Thaw – Estelia’s growing season – and the place the divine lovers once met in secret.
If you choose to believe the old stories, to view them as more than allegory, as creed rather than cautionary tale, the stars may be beautiful, but they were also our undoing.
The holes those diamond shards tore in the Veil were the means by which the Dusk Sister’s shadow creatures entered Arcelia.
The start of all the troubles.
As I edge past slumping piles of manuscripts and diagrams covered in my tutor’s untidy scrawl, my elbow knocks a forgotten goblet.
I catch it before it spills over a deck of lunar oracle cards.
Izarius is woefully absent-minded. It’s one of the quirks I love best about him.
I hope my tutor knows what his lessons have meant to me – bright sparks in my benighted subsistence here.
Despite the early hour, I expect to find Izarius sitting before the fire in his wingchair, a book in one hand, a mooncake in the other. But his chair’s empty, the mooncakes untouched. I peer around an astrolabe and there he is, by the window, consulting his star-glass.
He straightens, smudging a page of freshly inked notes with a rumpled sleeve, and frowns. ‘How fares the Queen?’
‘No change.’
The healer’s confirmation last night that my mother’s lungs are failing hardened my resolve. It’s time to put the idea that came to me in the Orbium into action.
Izarius covers my hand with his, pats it gently. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’
‘Officially, I’m here to practise my star-scribing. Unofficially, I need to ask you something…’
Izarius eases himself into his chair, motions for me to take the one opposite, and offers me the plate of mooncakes. I shake my head. Those two hours will be up before I know it.
I meet my tutor’s level gaze. ‘I need the key to the Flarestone.’
Izarius flinches. ‘Leilani, no. You know I hold that key in trust. Only your father is allowed to use it.’
‘I can’t ignore Noelani’s letter. I have to use the stone to summon the leaders of the enemy realms.’
Izarius leans forwards. ‘The King refused with good reason – the Outrealmers are dangerous. I’d not put you in harm’s way.’ His eyes dart to the window. A shadow passes over his face.
‘What is it?’
He sighs, threading gnarled fingers through his beard, then heaves himself from the chair, and shuffles back to his star-glass. ‘There’s something I ought to show you, if only to convince you of the folly of this idea.’
From a small table, he lifts a sky-disc charting the Flaming Hellebore constellation – named for the burnished bloom gifted to the Dawn Sister by her Beloved at the start of their courtship, a secret token of his ardour.
‘A comet, here.’ He points to a location on the star-map.
‘Given its appearance in the fire constellation, the portent surely relates to the Eastern Realm. The stars whisper of fresh troubles among the Fire Clans, but it could just as easily be a warning against summoning the Clanschief to our borders.’ He motions towards the star-glass. ‘Take a look for yourself.’
I stoop, the metal casing cold against my eye-socket as my vision adjusts to the magnification. A rubied ball of light with a sweeping tail comes into focus. My skin pebbles and I step back. But I won’t be put off by vague sky-signs and the starscribes’ guesswork.
‘I have to do this. Perhaps I’m making a mistake, but I have to try.’
Izarius places a hand to his temple. ‘And if I give you the key? If you do this, how do you think your father will respond?’
‘I’ll tell him I stole it. You won’t be involved.’ I remember the hiss of the whip against Elvi’s back and grit my teeth. ‘I swear no harm will come to you.’
‘Child, I don’t worry for me, but for you…’ His gaze slides to my wrists, where the fading bruises are still visible.
I tug my sleeves lower. ‘I have a plan. He won’t hurt me again.
’ I grip my tutor’s hand. ‘My second-sight has shown me things, Izarius. Things I mean to use against him. He’ll have no choice but to fall in with my plans.
’ Not unless he wants the entire court to learn of the Northern rebellion, how precarious lies the crown upon his brow.
Izarius shakes his head. ‘There’ll be a terrible price for disobeying him.’
‘If it comes to it, Orthriel will protect me,’ I say. ‘Give me the key, that’s all I’m asking. You’ve seen the mountain, how dim it is. You know what will happen if we do nothing… This is my chance, Izarius. Help me prove myself.’
He looks at me for a long moment, this man more my father than the cold, hateful king who sired me.
With a heavy sigh, he turns. Skirting past stacked papers and discarded astronomical instruments, he takes something from a drawer and lumbers towards me.
‘Do you even know where the Flarestone is kept?’
I nod. ‘My father let me see it once.’
I was seven. We’d gone to the Observatory to inspect a new star-glass in the main viewing dome, but I was more interested in a wooden chest, hidden in a dark alcove.
My father told me it contained an ancient treasure that hadn’t been used in generations.
I begged him to unlock it. He indulged me, fetching the key from Izarius, opening the case an inch to allow me a glimpse.
The last kindness my father ever showed me.
The Flarestone had been enormous to my child’s eyes: a tower of pure white crystal.
I wasn’t permitted to touch it. Too much exposure to light, and the stone would ignite, emitting a beacon bright enough to summon the leaders of the enemy realms. But the smooth, glistening surface begged to be stroked.
My visions started that very evening. My mother left for the Asteum a moonscycle later. Life was never the same after that.
Izarius opens his hand, revealing a tarnished silver key. It looks like I’ll finally get to touch the Flarestone after all.
I snatch the key before he can change his mind, and my elbow jogs a heap of scrolls, which tumble to the floor. I stoop to pick them up. ‘What are these?’
‘Maps.’ Izarius bends to help me restack them.
‘I consulted them last night after learning of Noelani’s letter, hoping to find a detailed map of the Astral Mountain.
But even in the Lustrous Age, few navigated its perilous heights.
The only records we possess are those drawn by your liegemaid’s forefathers during their excavation of the Ice Steps to reach the site of the Starfields.
They’re crude I’m afraid, and far from detailed, but better than nothing. ’
I turn to look at him. ‘How did you know that’s where—’ I stop myself.
Izarius cracks a wry smile, nods slowly. ‘So, my instinct was right, that is where she hid the sceptre?’
‘It’s buried in the Crystal Caves,’ I whisper.
‘Noelani’s letter said further instructions await me in the Silver City.
Perhaps they’ll reveal some way to scale the mountain.
’ I don’t add that even reaching Estelia’s old capital, high in the Desolate Peaks, is likely impossible.
The mountain range was renamed after the great exodus.
As its new name suggests, Talini – like all the other ghost cities – was abandoned sunrings ago, its air unbreathable.
Izarius’ gaze drifts to my throat and his eyes widen. He crosses to the bookcase behind me, returning with a silver scroll case.
Izarius unscrews its finial. ‘Do you know what this is?’
I shake my head.
‘One of the Medellan Scrolls – Estelia’s earliest medicinal records. I’—he clears his throat—‘liberated them from the Sanctuary. For safekeeping.’
Izarius unwinds the scroll. It’s brittle, yellowed and almost translucent in places, the script and illuminations faded. So far as I’m able to read it, it describes a range of methods for treating mountain-sickness.
‘Here, do you see?’ He points towards a small annotation, an addendum to the main body of the text. It contains instructions for preparing some sort of distillation.
‘The men who carved the Ice Steps, abetted by the cragstalkers, were given a tincture laced with ground starstone so they could fulfil their duties alongside the great mountain-cats. It was the cielsylphs who suggested the formulation; mirroring their methods of replenishing their heartcrystals; though cielsylphs absorb Star-Aether through a sacred invocation as they can’t imbibe it.
Even before the Sickening, prolonged exposure to the altitude at the summit of the Astral Mountain could prove overwhelming. ’
A chill spreads through my body as I understand his meaning.
Assuming I manage to convince the Outrealmers to form an alliance, assuming by some miracle I make it to the Crystal Caves and Noelani’s sceptre is still there, the Sister-Stones will be the only things standing between my mother and an agonising death.
Who knows what effect removing a fragment of the starstone within the Celestial Chain to make such a tincture could have on the Sister-Stones’ ability to grant that all-important wish.
My mind lurches back to my mother in the Orbium, struggling to draw breath, lips turning blue before she toppled unconscious into Astrophel’s arms. If I hadn’t seen that, if I hadn’t heard the healer’s prognosis, perhaps I’d hesitate.
But I did see. I did hear. And I don’t have a choice.
A compromised chance is better than no chance at all.
I slip the chain over my head. It’s strange not to bear its weight around my neck, like a part of myself is missing. The sensation of lightening is refreshing though, almost like I can breathe easier.
‘Can you recreate the tincture?’ I ask.
Izarius strokes his beard. ‘I think so, yes.’
I press the chain into his hand. ‘Be careful with it.’
He nods. ‘I won’t fail you.’
I whisper my thanks, pull him into a tight embrace, briefly allow his comforting scent of ink and parchment to envelop me. I draw back before my nerve breaks, before Izarius tries to stop me again, and grip the key tighter.
I can’t afford to fail either.
*
THE CHEST IS where I remember it. Forgotten in that same dusty alcove of the main viewing dome. I scan the soaring vestibule for marauding Watchers, wait an extra breath, then fish the key from my cloak pocket and fit it to the lock.
It’s stiff, but turns.
I drink in the Flarestone, skim my fingers across its surface, lustrous and pure as first-snow.
It’s taller than me, I can’t hope to lift it alone.
But I only need drag it far enough from the shadows so the sun can strike it as it rises.
The resulting flare once served as a signal to the leaders of the enemy realms to convene at our borders in time for a Council of Four at the next full moons.
Granted, the Flarestones haven’t been used in generations, but I have to trust the lore persists. That they’ll answer its call.
Clenching my teeth to stifle my groan, I grip the Flarestone and twist, freeing it from the wooden chest and scraping it across the flagstones. It shunts a meagre handspan at a time. With every grating rasp, I pause, expecting the Watchers to sweep in.
My arms are half-wrenched from their sockets by the time it stands square beneath the crystal dome. This should be far enough.
I turn my back on the Flarestone, tripping up the stairs in my haste to return to Izarius’ chambers. Those two hours will soon be spent.
I have to pray this works – that the beacon is seen from across the Barriers before my father realises what I’ve done and orders the stone swathed.
Izarius is right, there’ll be a price for disobeying my father. Stars willing, a price worth paying.