Chapter 12
TWELVE
Cam chose up as their destination because up was away from the tunnel filled with ice—and the new doors—and up would eventually lead to the Sightwitch Sister Convent and freedom from this mountain.
Vivia insisted the Hell-Bards lead their ascent, and they were amenable. If they sensed Vivia or Cam didn’t trust them, they gave no sign of it. And when Vivia probed them about who had made their map, they only ever had one answer: It came with the letters.
And who gave you the letters?
Safiya fon Cartorra, of course.
There was a missing piece there—Vivia felt it. As did Cam’s gut, since the first time Zander answered this question, Cam hung back to whisper: “There’s somethin’ wrong about that reply.”
“Any idea what?”
“No, Majesty.” A grimace on his shadowed face. “But I’ll let you know if I think of anything.”
The boy thought of nothing before they left the stairs.
Nor did Vivia. In fact, soon all her focus was on simply not passing out.
The stairs weren’t steep, but there were hundreds upon hundreds of them, always cast in sputtering firelight and darkness.
Vivia’s thighs shrieked at her. Her spine too, under the weight of her pack.
Eventually the stairs gave way to a snaking tunnel lit with foxfire. It was roughly hewn, almost a circle in the earth like a giant worm had once come this way.
After taking a brief pause to drink from Vivia’s single canteen and the Hell-Bards’ two water bags—almost empty now—Cam spotted Vivia frowning. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “There’s water in the workshop. We can refill there.”
This was a relief, and Vivia quickly translated Cam’s words for the others. Which prompted Lev to moan her joy before draining off the rest of her water. Zander, however, only nodded soberly. And also only sipped once, before returning the bag to his hip.
He caught Vivia watching him as he did so, and she took the chance to say something she’d wanted to from the start: “You are Hell-Bards no longer. We heard the magic that bound you was destroyed. That you ’re all witches once more.”
“Yes,” he agreed with a bow of his head.
Vaness stiffened nearby. “You can control plants once more, Zander? And Lev, you can heal?”
“Sort of.” Lev grimaced as she buckled her water bag to her hip.
“It comes in spurts. We aren’t comfortable with it yet, are we, Zan?
” She glanced at her partner, and it hadn’t escaped Vivia’s notice that Lev was the chattier half of their pair—yet when Zander did speak, everyone homed in to listen.
Just as they did right now. Even Cam, who couldn’t speak Cartorran, slanted toward the giant.
“I miss being outside,” Zander said. The foxfire throbbed around him. “But being here, without grass and trees and leaves, is still so much better than it ever was without any magic at all.”
Vivia’s shoulders tensed toward her ears at those words. She’d spent weeks fighting the temptation of her tides. It had not been easy, and she’d wished so desperately that this deluge might cease so she once more could savor her tides and rivers and rains.
Even that, though—that pained resistance that she chose—was infinitely better than having no connection to her magic at all.
Right now, she could feel the water in Zander’s bag.
Just a few mouthfuls that sang to her, as did the water in her own pack.
But what would it feel like if those songs were gone?
Without her Tidewitchery, she was nothing. Not a little fox, and certainly not a bear.
She rubbed at her Witchmark—as did the Empress a few steps away—before murmuring that Zander and Lev could keep walking. Vivia wanted out of this mountain. No more breaks, if she could avoid it.
It was another half hour before they reached the room labeled Workshop.
Cam’s guidance had led them true. With multiple floors and stairwells, with shelves and tables and books in countless shapes and sizes, the space was everything Vivia could imagine might fill an experimental laboratory.
Papers, glass bottles, metal contraptions.
All of it perfectly immobile, perfectly untouched by time.
And all of it lit by foxfire. Hundreds of fungal fans climbed over the space, on the walls and ceilings and shelves. The glow was so bright, Vivia had to squint at first to even see as she stalked inside. Her hands came to her eyes.
A child giggled.
Vivia snapped her hands down. Her breaths turned scattershot as she glanced around, searching the shadows. But there was no one there. Only Cam and Vaness hurrying in behind her. Then the Hell-Bards too.
“Water!” Lev cried as she launched through the workshop to a series of pumps on the walls. “It looks just like the prince’s lab, doesn’t it, Zan? Maybe we can find a flying machine in here too. Although, I guess that wouldn’t be too useful if we can’t get out of the mountain.”
Zander didn’t respond, and rather than follow Lev to the pumps, he turned to stare at Vivia. His eyes, which had seemed auburn in the stairwell’s firelight, now looked green. His beard too, and his faintly freckled skin.
She had the sudden suspicion he might have heard the child’s laughter as she had.
“There’s a spell on the room,” Cam said in Nubrevnan, nudging in closer to Vivia. He hugged his arms over his chest. “A preservation spell. That’s what Ryber told me, and it’s why there’s no dust, no spiders, no nothing. It’s all exactly like Eridysi left it.”
“Eridysi,” Vaness repeated, and now she huddled to Vivia’s other side. “How is that even possible? How is any of this possible?”
Vivia wondered the same, but where such questions struck awe in the Empress, Vivia felt only horror. Eridysi was a woman who’d written a sad song a thousand years ago; she was a Sightwitch no one really remembered; she was as relegated to legend as Lady Baile or the Fury.
Which meant she was not supposed to be real, and her Lament wasn’t supposed to be real either.
Vivia shook herself. “I don’t want to stay here. Let’s keep moving.”
“Hye,” Cam agreed. “The door’s straight ahead. Through that hallway across the room. I’ll show you.” He scampered ahead. Vivia trailed behind. Zander too.
The sheer size of him made Vivia want to cower—which wasn’t his fault. And nothing about him cued aggression. Yet Vivia found her strides lengthening to get away from him. The foxfire fans wavered as she passed. The air seemed too thin.
She was ten steps into the hall when she heard a barking cry. Cam, she thought, and now she fully ran while Zander galloped behind. They rounded a curve. They saw the boy.
He was fine. Or at least, he wasn’t suddenly dead or eaten by ice.
Instead he leaned against a massive wooden door, his head hanging in his hands.
“We can’t get through,” he mumbled as Vivia skidded to a stop beside him.
The boy didn’t look at her. “We can’t get through, Majesty.
This”—he punched a single fist against the planks—“needs a special key that only Sightwitches have. Unless we can find one of those keys in the workshop, we can’t get through. ”
Vivia stared at the door, trying to process Cam’s words. There was no knob to turn, and only a single hole where a key was clearly meant to slot.
“It doesn’t open?” Zander asked, joining them. He spoke in his rounded Cartorran.
Vivia nodded. “Locked,” she said numbly.
“May I … try something?” He gestured to a spot between Vivia and Cam.
And Vivia simply shrugged. “Sure.” She gripped Cam by the sleeve and towed him out of the giant’s way. But where she thought the Hell-Bard would fling his enormous body against the door, he instead placed both hands upon the wood. His fingers splayed. His eyes closed.
The foxfire brightened toward blinding. So much so that Cam recoiled and Vivia had to shade her eyes.
Yet she heard … then felt as the wood responded to Zander’s magic.
She hadn’t known such a thing was possible—any Plantwitches she’d ever met in Nubrevna had only ever worked with living plants.
But long-dead wood? Long-carved and -nailed and -hidden wood inside an ancient mountain?
This Hell-Bard must have incredible power.
A groan filled the hall, like metal bending against stone. It was impossible to see in all the light, but Vivia thought the door might be opening. Splitting down the middle as wood fought against hinges.
Then it was done. The light receded, and now Zander was the one to groan. His knees gave out beneath him. Vivia and Cam darted forward, but he was so big. So limp. He crashed down, knocking wood and splinters on the way.
“Zan!” Lev shouted, trampling into the hall. “No, no, no, you stupid man!” She dropped to his side, and Vivia dropped with her. Together, they hauled Zander onto his back. He was bleeding from his nose. Gushing, actually.
“Vaness!” Vivia bellowed toward the workshop. “Get the healer kit from my pack! Now!” She knew what to do here. This was the same curse that struck the Empress if she used too much power. They had tools to help …
But the tools never reached Vivia or Zander or Lev.
Instead, the ice did. Black-veined and hungry, it screeched in through the broken door at a speed no human could ever match.
Vivia tried. Her arms shot high, her legs sprang her upright to flee.
But such instincts were useless against an enemy that wasn’t alive and never had been.
The ice covered Zander, entombing him in a single heartbeat.
Then it claimed Lev. And it claimed Vivia too, embracing her, caressing her like a mother coaxing her into sleep. Come, come, the ice will hold you.
The last thing Vivia sensed before she lost all sight and sound was the presence of two little girls. They giggled and clapped and watched as the ice did its work.
“The queen of hounds, the queen of hawks, and the king of bats,” the taller one said in a language that was familiar enough to understand, but too foreign to identify. “That sounds like it should start a joke, doesn’t it?”
“Not a very funny one,” the smaller girl replied.
“It will be funny, though. Once all the six are together, everyone will have to laugh.” As the last slivers of ice shrouded over Vivia’s eyes, the taller girl smiled—at Cam, Vivia thought, although she couldn’t turn to see.
“Oh, hello,” she said. “You must be the Nine of Hounds. Do not be frightened. Nine is sacred inside this mountain, for only with nine can one ever think beyond.”
Kullen,
I have found some clues, but Goddess, it has taken me too long. On the thirty-first level of the Crypts, the ghosts found an old record from when the twelve Paladins still lived and were the only people with magic.
It was an old text about the differences between Void and Aether—and how the line distinguishing those two powers is thin. I’ve copied the words of the record on the next page, but suffice it to say that I have a theory: What if you are not possessed but merely a puppet?
You must remember when you began cleaving on the Nubrevnan shore a year ago. There was a vast, wicked storm. You cleaved, and I sang “Maidens North of Lovats” to bring you back to me. At the time, we both believed the cleaving was mere chance—the nature of magic and its growing instability.
Now I have no doubt it was done on purpose. The Puppeteer wanted to control you by binding you to her Loom, which in turn forced you to join the Raider King’s forces. But you are no ordinary person with an ordinary soul. You are the Paladin of Air, filled with hundreds of lifetimes.
What if, by cleaving and binding you, one lifetime grew louder than all the others inside of you? The lifetime that belonged to Bastien. What if his strong emotions, his strong fury allowed him rise to the surface?
And what if I could instead awaken strong emotions from you? From my Captain, my Kullen Ikray?
I will keep searching. The ghosts of the Crypts are used to me by now, and they lead me to new records every day. And as for Skullface and the Death Maidens on the lowest levels, they seem almost glad for my company. They run to me whenever I arrive, and then they linger while I study and read.
I once wondered if they were ghosts or guardians created by Sirmaya Herself. Now I think it’s the latter. Their … well, clinginess, for lack of a better word, makes me think they sense something in the mountain isn’t right. And they want me to find the solution.
I will. Just as I will keep sending the Rook to your ice tomb.
I love you.
—Ryber
The Six Elements and the Magic Associated Therein
A TREATISE BY SISTER KOMLA INHAR
It is a misconception to say that Aether Paladins possess power over mind and soul while Void Paladins possess power over flesh. In fact, both types of magic can manipulate Threads—but it is the end result that differs.
An Aether Paladin uses Threads to transfer a soul into a body other than its own.
Typically, these souls belong to the dead, and typically, the Aether Paladin will restore those Threads to their original corpse, thereby bringing a person back to life.
However, there are records in which Aether Paladins have attached the Threads of the dead into a new body—almost always without the consent of the host.
Control, meanwhile, is the domain of the Void Paladins. They can manipulate a person’s mind by weaving a soul against its own desire. In turn, this causes the body to act in ways it otherwise would not.
To put it simply, a Void Paladin creates a puppet. An Aether Paladin creates a possession.