Chapter 14 #3
She should be more careful when speaking to the son of King Draybor Laroux. Somehow, Kinlear felt different from Arawn in that way. Like a wayward wind instead of a steady gale.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said carefully. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’
‘Offending me, Raphonminder, is not an easy thing to do.’ He waved a hand. ‘And partaking in the battle is not a thing to desire, despite how glamorous many of the Knights may make it seem. Ending it, however … that is my dream. My heart’s desire. And we’ve only until Realmbreak to do it.’
She nodded. ‘Because of the Long Day?’
‘There’s more to it than that.’ He limped closer to her, looking stiffer tonight than he had in the daytime. Some wounds worked that way. ‘Can you keep a secret, Raphonminder?’
She backed a step away. ‘I don’t suppose there’s anyone here I would tell one to.’
Izill, perhaps.
But she’d always found that, like Ravenminders, servants seemed to know more than they let on. They were the eyes and the ears, the hidden soul of a place. It was just as likely Izill already knew the Citadel’s secrets.
‘My father will ask the gods for a blessing, as happens only once every century.’
Ezer nodded. Arawn had confirmed that earlier.
‘And what will that blessing be?’ Ezer dared ask.
‘Think of it as … a hypothetical shield, instead of a sword,’ Kinlear said. ‘Something to bring about peace, instead of heighten the brutality of war.’
It wasn’t a true answer, but it was more than Arawn or Alaris had given. Bigger wards, perhaps? Extended sunlight hours, to keep the darksouls hidden away?
‘Walk with me,’ Kinlear said.
She didn’t think she had any choice but to follow. One did not say no to a prince. But she certainly kept her distance as he led her towards the stairwell and began the ascent.
It was slow going as they moved up, floor after floor, until they were both breathless.
They were higher than she’d dared go before, so close to the top floors she swore she felt the warmth of the wardlight as it shone down over them from the other side of the domed ceiling.
‘I’ve spent my life inside this Citadel,’ Kinlear said, as he paused halfway up another flight.
He pointed at the windows covered in frost, where she could just barely hear the howling winter wind trying to batter its way through.
‘This was always one of my favorite spots to pray to the Five. Do you see why?’
She dared risk a glance out the windows, the harrowing drop on the other side of the glass, and—
She gasped.
‘The Sacred Circle.’
It was small from here, enough that she could have covered it up with her hand.
But she knew up close, the Sacred Circle was enormous.
It stood all the way past the nomage barracks, up a cliff and beyond another set of black obelisk gates that protruded from the forest – another exit from the golden wards.
But there, even taller than the gates, stood a ring of twelve enormous white standing stones. She wouldn’t have seen them, had it not been dark outside.
Even from this far away, she could see the golden runes glowing on every standing stone.
The stones were said to have the earliest recorded history of the realm upon them. They were a scholar’s dream, the oldest artifact Lordach had.
‘There are twelve,’ Kinlear said as he came up beside her. She tensed … but did not hear a warning upon the wind. ‘Each one represents an individual realm.’
She nodded. ‘I’m well aware.’
Every child was told the story of the Sacred Circle.
He shrugged. ‘They are white as the snow, representing, of course, that the gods created them with purest intent. But did you know … there used to be thirteen?’
At that, Ezer glanced to him.
‘But that can’t be.’
The prince sighed, as if he were bored. ‘Of course, anyone raised beyond the Citadel wouldn’t know that ancient truth. But, alas, it remains. Come along.’
He turned and continued further up the stairs until they came to another floor of the library.
He walked through it with ease, navigating the stuffed shelves until he came to a stop before one.
‘Here we are.’ There he knelt, leaning his cane against the spines.
A flourish of his gloved hands, and he removed a book with yellowing pages.
A History of Arivahda: Lordach, Volume 1.
‘This book is as old as these walls,’ Kinlear said. ‘I trust its pages more than I trust any half-witted knowledge, passed from one town to another until it reached the south.’
An insult, but she didn’t mind.
She was used to them. There were far worse things said to her over the years.
He flipped through the pages, nodding to himself until he came to an image of the Sacred Circle. ‘See for yourself.’
There it was, just like she’d seen beyond the windows, a perfect sketch of standing stones in a circle …
Ezer’s eyes widened.
There were indeed thirteen.
‘But … that can’t be.’
‘Why can’t it?’ Kinlear asked. ‘We live in a world of magic, Raphonminder, and oftentimes, strange things happen that we cannot explain.’
She glanced past the book to find him smiling like he knew a secret, leaning against a shelf with his dark curls hanging in his eyes. With his soft lips and hard jaw, his fine clothing and the sea of books all around him …
He could have sprouted right from the romance novels she so dearly loved.
A younger Ezer would have swooned.
But a flash of her dreams came to her.
His lips against hers, his blade buried in her chest.
She found herself taking a small, casual step away.
‘There were once thirteen stones,’ Kinlear explained. ‘Until one of them turned black, about a century ago. I suppose right around the last Realmbreak. That stone crumbled to ashes and dust and is now all but forgotten in our history.’
‘What happened to it?’ Ezer asked.
Because despite her healthy fear of him, she was too damned curious.
Because she loved a good mystery, and here one was, unraveling before her.
‘Something terrible, I assume,’ Kinlear said with a shrug.
‘No one knows, though the War Table has certainly speculated. When the stone crumbled, so did the runes marking its story. Its history. Each one represents a realm, you see. Ours is but one in a string of others. And … well, it’s quite unfortunate that it was the stone directly next to ours, that crumbled and fell away. ’
Their realm, Arivahda.
And their kingdom, Lordach, was the largest one in it.
‘When my grandfather was a boy, Arivahda’s stone got its first fracture. A hairline – so small it wouldn’t have been noticed, were it not the deepest tendril of black. If you’ve ever seen the stones up close, you know just how pure a white they are. Brighter, even, than the snow.’
She felt her eyes widen.
He smiled, like he was enjoying spilling the secret, bit by bit.
‘The fracture grew after that, and each year the war goes unending, it grows wider still. And the stone darkens, bit by bit. It’s estimated that by the time Realmbreak arrives … the stone will crack in half.’
‘And … when that happens?’ Ezer breathed.
He’d stepped closer to her.
She could smell the strange sweetness on him, the scent that came from his vial.
He shrugged. ‘No one knows. But I can assure you … it won’t be good. It’s why we need the godsblessing. Why we need something, anything the Five can give, to help us survive. Our numbers are far too slim as it is.’
Incredible, how the news of the stones hadn’t reached the south. How people had been so distracted by the war, the deaths and the disappearances and the shadow wolves, that they hadn’t passed stories of the Sacred Circle along.
Probably because there was no one left alive here in the north beyond the soldiers.
And none of them had made it home to tell the tale.
‘The Acolyte,’ Ezer said, her heart racing. ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’
‘We believe so,’ Kinlear said. He coughed and motioned for her to follow him out of the shelves. Their footsteps and the clacking of his cane echoed through the space as they emerged back onto the stairwell and descended together.
‘It’s why he must be stopped before Realmbreak. It was the day the last stone fell, if our calculations are correct.’
‘What makes you think it’s that easy to stop him?’ Ezer asked. ‘If he’s done it before. If it’s his dark magic that made the neighboring realm fall … and they didn’t stop him …’
‘We aren’t without hope.’ Kinlear cleared his throat, fighting away another cough.
‘I believe the stones are there from the gods as a gift. A warning bell that’s been ringing for years now, trying to ensure we do not make the mistakes of the realms beside us.
And while we don’t know for certain what went on, for it’s impossible for one realm to speak to another …
we have some leads. Raphons aren’t the only thing we capture. ’
She couldn’t hide the shock on her face.
‘The darksouls are tricky to seize alive, but we’ve managed a few.
It’s messy to question them, difficult to fully trust, but thanks to our Ehvermages, we’ve managed …
’ His eyes skirted away and his jaw worked back and forth for a minute.
It struck her how identical his facial features were to Arawn in that moment.
But the feeling she had around Kinlear was not nearly the same.
‘They speak of one similar truth. A black door in the mountains, that his beasts enter and leave through. A hidden domain, where he rules from a throne of darkness. He goes there each night, before darkness falls. It’s the only time he’s guaranteed to show …
just waiting for a runed blade to sink beneath his cursed skin. ’
It was suddenly too cold, too quiet in the rows of shelves.
‘What happens if I fail?’ she whispered. ‘If I can’t get Six gentled for an assassin to make it across?’
And beyond that, what happened if the assassin failed?
The Long Day was the best chance they’d have – seventy-two hours without a drop of darkness in the sky.
But even then, it might not be enough time to make it there, find this mysterious black door, and manage to navigate inside to kill the Acolyte before darkness fell again … and his army re-emerged.
Kinlear’s eyes met hers. ‘I can’t say for certain. But I suggest you try your hardest to tame the beast, if you don’t wish to find out.’
He fell into another coughing fit, and with that, he dismissed her, taking another sip from the vial at his throat.
She descended the steps quickly, eager for silence and space.
She’d nearly made it down to the next flight when Kinlear called her name.
‘Ezer.’
She paused, her skin burning with the need to run as she looked back up at him. From here, he was backlit by the wardlight, his face cast in shadows. Just as he always was in her dreams. ‘Yes?’
‘What was Zey speaking to you about?’
Something in Ezer’s gut twisted.
‘Lie,’ said the wind. It came from nowhere, whispering past her ears.
‘The war eagles,’ Ezer said, her fingers curling around the golden railing. ‘I was simply picking her brain about them. I figured … maybe it would help me with Six.’
He seemed to study her face, searching for the lie.
Her eyes went to the dagger on his hip. ‘Is that all?’
He nodded. ‘I expect you in the Aviary at dawn. You’re dismissed.’
She turned, and exited the library as fast as she could, and by the time she made it to her dorm, she was shivering. Zey was already snoring, cradling her wounded hand.
Ezer stared at her for a moment, remembering her warning.
If they ask you to take their vows …
Don’t.
She fell asleep clutching her mother’s ring, hoping the wind would protect her, watch over her, until morning.