Chapter 29
DARK POWERS
LEILANI
DAWNRISE REVEALS THE thick coat of grime shrouding the chamber the others forced me to accept last night when we occupied the Silver Palace. What I mistook for a haven is reduced to something more akin to a horrorscape the longer I look at it.
Cobwebs drape over cut-crystal chandeliers and silvered mirrors, so foxed and filthy it’s impossible to see your reflection in them.
The stuccoed ceiling is peeling like a blistered fever corpse, the once-fine furnishings and tapestries, dusty and moth-eaten.
Lighting fires in the grates last night was a mistake.
A rancid fust of mildew now rises from the spongy mattress beneath me, pulling me fully awake.
Every part of me hurts. I sit up slowly, trying to avoid the sudden movements that send shooting pains up my back.
I told them to let Delphine have the bed.
I was more than happy to take a chair; so tired I would have settled for a fur on the filthy marble floor.
But they insisted I needed rest more than any of them.
And rest I did, despite the putrefied mattress.
I slept like the dead. Summoning starshine that last time has drained me in ways I still don’t understand.
I search for the thread connecting me to Orthriel. Still nothing. It’s like I’m missing a limb.
Hushed voices drift from the next room. I stand and move towards them but almost trip on a large silver vase lying on the floor.
I pick it up by a handle shaped like a curved spray of heartflowers, the dainty blossoms dangling on tendril-stems, and place it on a crescent-bookcase.
There are dents all over the vase, like it’s been dropped several times.
There’s something oddly familiar about the bookcase.
I slough my finger through the dust caking its surface.
Something sparkles beneath. I wipe away more dust, using my sleeve this time, to reveal delicate carvings of the lunar phases.
I recognise the engraver’s hand – the same that etched the constellations into my desk back at the Crystal Court.
A pair. Hairs rise on the back of my neck.
These were Noelani’s rooms.
‘When will you leave?’ Maris’ voice in the next room jerks my attention back to the present.
She and Delphine stand huddled in the far corner of the central dressing chamber, their backs to me.
‘Straight away.’ Delphine’s voice is sweet as nectar, but her shoulders hang limp and her hair is the brownish-grey of smoky quartz.
‘Astrophel says the map shows a spring north of the city gates. Even if I only spend a few hours in the water, it will build my strength for the next phase of our journey. I won’t let you down. ’
Maris strokes Delphine’s arm. ‘You could never do that.’ They exchange a look that speaks of past intimacy – the embers of a love that’s more than simple friendship.
‘Can’t you wait? I don’t want you travelling these mountains alone, especially when frostfangs might be roaming about.
But I promised Tansy I’d help her dress Briar’s wounds. ’
I follow her gaze to the upturned wardrobe lined with furs. Briar is cocooned inside, Tansy curled beside her. Several of the sylvanmare’s scabbing wounds weep yellow pus. I clench my jaw till my teeth ache. The Arx Magnum best pray we never meet again.
‘After that, I told Blayze I’d walk the city with him. Scavenge supplies.’
Delphine rolls her eyes. ‘I’ll be fine, Mar.
I’ll hold my own hand. Tides forbid you disappoint the Clanschief…
’ She tosses her hair, affecting indifference as she twists from Maris.
But as she steps into the receiving chamber where I presume the boys bunked last night, her hair turns the deep green of malachite.
I move into the dressing chamber, place a hand on Tansy’s shoulder. ‘How’s the patient?’
Tansy turns to me with a weak smile, then lets her watery eyes fall back to Briar. ‘She’s bearing up.’
I don’t need my gifts to know this is a lie – Tansy wears feelings like tattoos.
Maris comes to join us. ‘You look better, at least,’ she says, assessing me up and down.
‘Are Blayze and Astrophel still sleeping?’ I search over her shoulder, peering through the door Delphine just walked through.
Maris shakes her head. ‘Blayze can’t sit still. They went hunting at dawnrise.’
‘Together?’
Maris rolls her eyes. ‘Wonders never cease.’
‘You left out the best bit.’ Tansy’s lips twitch as she gets to her feet, though her eyes are still pained. ‘Blayze swore some sort of ink-oath to your betrothed after you fell asleep last night. Knelt down and everything.’
‘An ink-oath?’ I frown.
‘Said he owed him a debt and swore to ink the Vesparion sigil into his arm. Apparently, his honour demanded the pledge after… after what Astrophel did for us in Galtair.’
Maris turns to look out the grimy window. ‘They should have been back by now.’
I look too, but the courtyard is deserted.
‘Serafine and the cragstalkers are with them. They’re fine.’ Tansy squeezes Maris’ shoulder. ‘There’s not much to hunt, that’s all. I’d wager the frostfangs have picked the mountain clean.’
Through the window, I can see more of the Starshrine. Three of its seven silver points are visible in the distance, behind the rambling thicket and high walls.
‘I’ll set off soon,’ I murmur.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
Tansy’s question pulls me up short. I expect that snowberry-sharp tone from Maris, but not from her.
‘The Starshrine. Noelani’s letter said—’
Tansy exchanges a tight look with Maris. ‘Surely that can wait till tomorrow, when you’re feeling stronger?’
I draw myself straighter. ‘I’ll take it slowly. I’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t think you should be going anywhere,’ Tansy mutters. I open my mouth to protest, but she silences me. ‘We still don’t understand what happened to you in that tower.’ Her gaze travels from my face to my hair, settles there. Worry lines furrow her brow.
‘What is it? Why does everyone keep looking at me like that?’
‘It’s… It’s nothing,’ she stammers.
Maris sighs, folds her arms. ‘She’s got a right to know. You said it yourself last night – she’ll find out as soon as she catches sight of herself in a mirror, anyway.’
I raise a hand to my hair. ‘Find out what?’
Maris searches my face, worries her bottom lip. ‘Something changed after you collapsed. Your hair – it’s streaked. Orthriel thought…’ She looks to Tansy for support. ‘They said it’s a Shadow Mark.’
‘Impossible,’ I croak. ‘I’ve never performed a blood rite. I’ve never invoked Shadow Lore.’
‘No.’ Maris shakes her head. ‘You haven’t.’
‘So how—’
‘Orthriel thinks it’s the starstone. Something to do with you being able to summon starshine. Noelani could only do it after the Blood Bond, once she possessed the Sister-Stones.’
My hands fly to the chain about my neck.
I’ve already made the connection between the ancient relic and my ability to summon starshine, but how does that add up to a Shadow Mark?
Why didn’t Orthriel explain any of this before they dematerialised?
Perhaps they’re mistaken… But as I stare down at the pendant, it strikes me: that faint murky flicker at its heart.
It still contains Shadow after the Elemagi’s blood rite. Something must have happened when we carved it to make the tincture. Somehow, I’ve unleashed the dark powers it contains.
I loop the chain around my fingers, pulling it tight so the diamonds bite my skin.
The urge to rip it from my throat is strong, but something stays my hand.
The starstone is still half the key to my mother’s salvation, and I’ve grown attached to it: the comfort of its strange, crystalline rhythm, the lure of that dizzying power that blazed through me when I brought the mountain to its knees.
A little of the Dusk Sister’s magic must have leached into my body each and every time I appropriated powers not rightfully mine. The splitting headaches, the ash, the numbness in my chest… How much of my soul have I already surrendered? How much of my humanity remains?
That settles it. I’ll never summon starshine again.
Orthriel was right. It’s too dangerous.
And what about the lost sceptre, the other half to the Sister-Stones? Is that why it’s needed to revoke the Sickening – a cursed object to revoke a curse? If we manage to find it, what manner of thing is it I’ll wield?
And that settles that question too. I have to get to the Starshrine – Tansy and Maris’ objections be damned.
Searching for Noelani’s last clue, and perhaps finding the Book of Mysteries while I’m about it, is even more important now.
I want this over with – to complete my task, then find a way to free myself from this star-damned magic, once and forever.
A normal life. Is that too much to ask?
Thudding boots sound on the stairs. The double doors leading from the hallway into the receiving chamber crash open and Blayze and Astrophel burst through them, Serafine swooping behind.
Their shoulders are dusted with snow, and Blayze swings two hare carcasses by the ears.
It’s pleasing, seeing them together, working as a team.
Relief flushes Astrophel’s face as he enters the dressing chamber and pushes back his hood. ‘Ah, Leilani, you’re awake.’
Maris points to the hares. ‘Is that all you caught? You’ve been gone hours.’
‘Slim pickings,’ Blayze says. ‘We’re lucky the frostfangs left anything at all.’
‘I told Leilani what Orthriel said when she collapsed,’ Maris blurts out.
Astrophel’s face darkens. ‘Peak’s sake! We all agreed not to say anything till we know for certain.’
‘She’s not a child. Everyone needs to stop treating her like one,’ Maris lashes back. ‘You’ve all seen what she can do.’
‘Yes,’ Blayze mutters. That familiar look of fear mingling with disgust that accompanies any reference to my magic once again contorts his features.
‘She’s going to the Starshrine to hunt for clues.’ Tansy shakes her head. ‘We’ve tried stopping her. Perhaps you two can knock some sense into her.’
‘I feel fine.’ I try to force conviction into my voice.
Astrophel’s mouth thins. ‘If you’re really set on going, I’m coming with you. Orthriel said—’
‘I can’t share the sceptre’s location with you, remember? I have to go alone.’
‘I thought… After what happened at Galtair, I thought…’ He draws himself straighter. ‘Haven’t we proved our loyalty?’
Maris sniffs. ‘I agree with Astrophel. Why shouldn’t we be trusted with the location of your precious sceptre when we’re all risking our lives equally in pursuit of it?’
‘I want to tell you,’ I say. ‘But I can’t. Especially after what happened in Galtair. There are those who would blackmail, torture, even kill for this information. For your sakes, I have to keep it secret.’
My words are met with raised eyebrows, cold stares and even colder shoulders, each one hurtful as a slap to the face.
The air is thick with their disappointment.
Maris turns away in disgust, Astrophel won’t meet my eye.
He wears a pinched, wounded expression, and all my previous reservations about him and our future life together, the ones that mellowed after his actions in Galtair and that conversation in the cave, come flooding back.
It’s Blayze who breaks the silence. He steps close to Maris and takes hold of her chin.
‘Look, I was as angry as anyone about not being told the sceptre’s location.
Made my feelings pretty clear at the Council of Four, and none too politely if memory serves.
’ He snorts. ‘But we’ve gone past the point of pettiness, Mar.
So, let’s back off, give Sparkles the space to do whatever needs to be done to give us the best chance of finding it, eh?
Because that’s what we all want, isn’t it? For this to be over.’
Maris scowls. ‘Fine, side with her. You do live in a pit, maybe you like being kept in the dark.’ She storms into the receiving chamber.
Her words strike a nerve, and I don’t know where to look. Not because I haven’t shared the sceptre’s location with them – I stand by what I said, it is safer not to tell them about that – but Maris is right: I am keeping them in the dark.
I still haven’t told them the truth about the Sister-Stones, and I haven’t voiced my suspicions about the Faceless Woman either, nor discussed my plan to use the mooncrystal tonight. Blayze just defended me and upset Maris in the process, and I’ve been lying to them – to him – the whole time.
I turn away to hide my blanching face, but I’m an instant too late.
Blayze sees. He cocks one brow, the golden flecks in his eyes glittering as his lips lift into a smirk.
He’s seen, but not understood.
Well, let him think I’m embarrassed he defended me – giddy as a schoolgirl about it. It’s better than him knowing the truth.
He already thinks me an abomination. He doesn’t need to know I’m a liar too.