Chapter 25 Perl
PERL
The bell chimes and the Ice Hall erupts with cheers.
For a moment, Perl barely knows what is happening.
Then he feels someone standing behind him, “Perlash-zeren-ai, my dearest, my most favoured.” He stands from his stool, turning and Exeinil embraces him, the press of her delicate body under masses and masses of crunching, bejewelled silk.
They have done it. The four tests. He has proved his Mastery of Kerik Darekul.
He has never heard the fae court cheer for him before.
As if this performance, Kerik’s performance, has finally redeemed him in their eyes.
Although Perl wonders exactly what they saw through Kerik’s magic.
Perhaps simply an obedient thrall, desperate for his Master, but resisting through it.
No matter. Perl’s status at the Ice Court is not the prize here, even if his heart melts a little to have won it.
Kerik believes him, believes Ur-Durik is real. His father told him Kerik must believe. Is that what he needs to keep him safe?To defeat Ur-Durik even with the Books of Alios lost?
But more even, than that. Kerik told Perl he loves him. Perl can feel his own feelings, his own love for Kerik, inside him. But he could not say it. He could not bear to leave himself so exposed.
Not yet.
When the embrace breaks and Exeinil steps back, Perl drops onto one knee before her. “Grand Majesty,” he says. “You honour me by allowing me to enact the four tests of devotion for you. And now I humbly request my boon.”
Exeinil reaches out with a gloved hand and raises Perl’s chin. “Whatever you request of me shall be granted.”
“Grand Majesty, I wish to be given Iceheart, my father’s enchanted sword.”
He knows this is a risk. The biggest risk yet.
Revealing why he is here — why he returned to Vylenor.
To mark himself as his treacherous father’s son, so soon after he has been redeemed in the eyes of the Ice Court.
He sees the suspicion clouding Exeinil’s expression and the hissing of murmurs from the courtiers.
Tightly, Exeinil says, “I was hoping you had put any connection with your father behind you.”
Perl nods. He glances at Kerik, who has slipped from his own stool to kneel beside him then up, briefly at the flaming cage.
“Majesty,” he says. “I cannot change the circumstances of my birth. But I was not raised by either of my blood parents. Not my cowardly father who fled Vylenor in shame only to return with his treasonous proclamations, or my mother, sweet Irmeena, killed in jealous rage by the cruel despot who rules the Timeless Court. I was raised by you, my own Queen, alongside her own fair daughter and the Prince of Oria. But I cannot deny my bloodline. Iceheart is mine by right. And I wish to claim it.”
He looks into Exeinil’s face. She has tears in her eyes. Perl knows she cannot be aware of what Iceheart truly is: a replica of the lost sword of the Magician, reforged by Batraous in the Waste.
Exeinil’s voice is rough when she says, “Very well. It is the sword of your father. And as a true fae, I feel certain you will put it to great use.”
The air moves, tiny points of light sparkle as Iceheart appears; its bright, white blade glowing in the air.
Exeinil takes it and hands it to Perl. Perl feels himself shaking as his hand wraps around its hilt.
His throat aches. He turns the beautiful white and silver weapon over in his hands.
And then Seridil stands up. “So you have your sword,” he says. “Now are you going to tell us the true reason you came here?”
Perl’s eyes stretch wide as he looks at Seridil, then to Vane, who is on his feet behind him. “Thrall,” he says, pink-cheeked with anger. “You will be silent.”
“No,” Seridil turns to Vane. He bows his head and says, “Master, I must speak. I know Perlash-zeren-ai like no other. He committed great transgressions with me when I was his thrall.”
Vane grabs hold of Seridil, both hands taking him by the shoulders, almost as if he is trying to force him back to his knees. Perl can see the guards standing alert, ready for a word to intervene. “That was long ago, thrall,” Vane spits at Seridil. “Get down and be silent.”
Seridil jerks, ripping out of Vane’s grip and taking a stride towards Exeinil. “Your Majesty, Perlash is a corrupted thing. We all now know the truth of this.”
Exeinil’s eyes flash with anger. Perl can hear the fae court murmuring their dismay.
Such a spectacle from a thrall is unprecedented.
Seridil will be lucky if Exeinil does not take his head for this.
But instead she says, “Speak, thrall. If you have something to say about Perlash-zeren-ai, let us hear it.”
“He is a corrupted thing who cares only for other corrupted things. That creature he claims is a mortal thrall has fae blood. It is glamoured to hide it. I saw Vane lift the glamour in his own chambers. He knows the truth. That thrall is a descendant of the Hevelikar. One of the scions of the great traitor Lurella. It has likely come here to learn magic. Perlash wants that sword for it. He wants to grant the mortals power once again as the corrupted Bellator did. He is a traitor with foul corrupted blood.”
Exeinil looks at Perl, then at Kerik. She sees it then, right through the glamour. His eyes. “Perlash?” she says and she sounds so genuinely hurt that Perl feels almost overwhelmed by it. He did not mean to hurt her this way. And there can be no doubt this will hurt her.
But behind all that, through the hurt, Perl thinks something else. Pieces falling together in his mind. Kerik is a descendant of the Hevelikar. But, no, surely there is not a strong enough connection. He looks at Iceheart, still sparkling in his hand.
But if the sword truly amplifies magic…?
As he is thinking this, Kerik speaks behind him. “It’s true,” he says, sounding triumphant. “I am the Magician reborn. I am one of the five fae princes prophesied to slay the last Bellator. Foul demons you created.”
Perl turns, Iceheart in hand. He looks at Kerik. Of course, now Kerik believes him, he would pick the worst possible time to pronounce about it.
Kerik is staring at the sword with a strange expression on his face, dreamy and absent as if he is in the grip of an overwhelming compulsion.
Exeinil shouts something, Perl thinks it is his name, but he does not attend. He is staring at Kerik.
Kerik is walking towards Perl, reaching out for Iceheart. Perl realises too late that he must not let him have it.
Kerik’s fingers touch the blade.
Perl is too late to stop it.
The entire hall is instantly engulfed in a bright white light. Perl falls to the floor, blinded. All he can hear is a sound like the shattering of a thousand pieces of glass and the screaming of the fae all around him.
Perl opens his eyes against the light. It is still painfully bright, but fading.
Exeinil, lies beside him, motionless on the floor.
She had been lunging towards Kerik when he took the sword.
The magical blast hit her hard. Perl looks at Kerik.
Kerik looks horror-struck. Whatever has just happened, he did not expect it.
He falls to the ground, crumpling into a heap.
Drained. Drained by…
Perl cries out, but he only looks at Kerik for a moment, because standing behind him — the source of the incredible light — is Jareleezi.
She looks at Perl and smiles, “Ah, there you are, dear one. I see you have found my sword.” Something flashes in the air and the guards, lining the edges of the hall, drop to the floor as one.
Perl sees Krem amongst them, lying unmoving on the white floor of the Ice Hall.
The fae start to scream.
Perl looks at Kerik. The sword. The sword filled him with power. Kerik and Jareleezi share blood. Not enough blood that he had even considered it could be enough. But with her power combined with Kerik’s and amplified by the power of Iceheart.
He can barely speak but he finds the words, “You created a blood door?”
A blood door through the wards of Vylenor.
Jareleezi replies only with laughter as she steps forward, snatching Iceheart from Kerik as he crumples, exhausted by the force of the blood door ripping magic out of him.
She has always laughed at him. Laughing at him when he told her she needed to stop amassing magic, laughing at him when he implored her to release her vessel.
Laughing at him when he begged her to let him have the Books of Alios.
Laughing when she told Perl she had destroyed them, as revenge for him taking Kerik from her.
And she’s laughing now. Laughing as she directs Iceheart and hits Perl in the chest with a bolt of magic that sends him hurtling back across the Ice Hall. He crashes into the dais, sprawled at Vane’s feet.
“This creature,” Jareleezi cries, “has been trying to resurrect the five fae princes. But he claims they have been reborn from the line of the filthy Dareks. The Dareks can never defeat the Bellator. They were charged through the line of Sarelik Darek to bring him back. That corrupted line has already enacted the first part of his plan. Ur-Durik, a Bellator demon, rules in Attar, the whole Azurian Empire kneels before him.”
Perl staggers to his feet. His legs feel weak as water. He looks at the suppressor cuff still wrapped around his wrist. What can he do?
Exeinil is lying on the floor at Jareleezi’s feet a heap of sparkling silk.
Jareleezi does not know this place. She doesn’t know the fae lying before her is the most powerful creature in this room.
The most powerful creature south of Oria.
Jareleezi is a mortal, from the mortal realm, and she thinks this place has mortal rules.
She assumes that what she perceives as a man, a king, on the dais, is the ruler here.
She is addressing her proclamations to Prince Vane.