Chapter 28
She found herself in the labyrinth again. But when she turned the skeleton key in one of the locks …
It wasn’t her own memory she found.
It was the Citadel. The library, of all places.
And seated there on the floor, her back up against the bookshelves as she scribbled something in a journal, was a small, mouse-haired young woman in a brown servant robe. There was a midnight-black cat in her lap, purring loudly.
‘I thought I’d find you here,’ said a voice.
Ezer turned to see a young man, perhaps only seventeen, with dark curls and bright blue eyes, and a smile that was as warm as the sun. He wore Sacred whites, the crest of a Realmist on his chest. ‘I’ve missed you, Styerra.’
‘And you,’ said the young woman.
And as she stood …
Ezer gasped.
Because it was her own face staring back at her. Without scars, without the ugliness, with a few more freckles on her nose, and much lighter hair. But the likeness was unmistakable.
Ezer stepped closer, knowing the young woman wouldn’t hear her. But she said the word on her heart anyway.
‘Mother?’
This time, when Ezer woke to Izill’s voice, she was desperate to keep her mother’s face with her.
‘Morning! The prince beckons again,’ Izill said, frowning as she stopped at Ezer’s bedside. ‘Was Absolution that bad? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Ezer blinked wearily as she sat up. Her nightclothes were drenched in sweat. She felt a bit queasy, unsure if it was from the winterwine or the face so like hers in her dream. ‘I think … I think I have, Izill.’
‘Coffee with a friend fixes all things,’ Izill said and shoved a steaming mug into Ezer’s hands. ‘Drink up and then tell me everything.’
Speaking soothed her, as did the warmth of the coffee. And as she ate, Ezer told her friend about her dream. Not every detail of the labyrinth, but about Styerra. About the face that matched her own.
‘Styerra is a common enough name in the north,’ Izill said with a frown. ‘But it’s more detail than we’ve had thus far. You’re certain it was your mother?’
‘I’ve never seen her face before,’ Ezer said. ‘But … I felt it, Izill. And even if I’m wrong, the resemblance was uncanny. It’s more than I’ve ever had to go off.’
At that, Izill nodded. ‘Perhaps the gods granted you a gift. A small blessing, to ease your wonderings.’
‘Can they do that?’ Ezer asked.
Because she’d never considered the labyrinth to be from the gods.
But what happened in her mind … it could only be explained by something like magic.
‘Of course they can.’ Izill smiled and took Ezer’s empty mug. ‘They are limitless. And you are going to be late. I’ll do some digging on the name. If she was a servant, she clearly had no magic. Styerra, you said?’
Ezer nodded.
‘You’d be surprised, what I overhear on my days inside the kitchens. I’ll do my best sleuthing.’
With a swift goodbye, Ezer left the dorms.
A snowstorm was fresh on the horizon.
It was unfortunate weather. Because today, Kinlear wanted Ezer to leave the cliffside. It was Six’s first time out of the runed circle of stones, and already, the raphon seemed anxious, pacing a hole in the snow as they talked.
‘We’ve several hours to sunset,’ Kinlear said. ‘By the gods, it’s cold.’
He looked exhausted. Even his runed cloak couldn’t seem to warm him, and his cheeks were too shallow. He’d been so vibrant last night, dancing his way through Absolution. How quickly things could change when someone’s own body was working against them.
She’d been with him less than an hour, and he’d already had to sip from his vial twice.
‘We’ll walk her the long way around the Citadel, out to the Sacred Circle. It’s the furthest we can go before we run into another Gate. She needs experience. A break from this pattern and place.’
‘And the War Table is letting us take her there?’ Ezer asked.
Six pranced past her, tail twitching as she kicked up the snow with her paws. Now that she knew it wasn’t going to kill her … she loved it.
Kinlear shrugged. ‘Training requires it. And besides, we’re inside the wards. The most dangerous thing in Augaurde is Six.’
‘And you trust me,’ Ezer said, ‘with her? With … you?’
He smiled at her. ‘Do I have any reason not to?’
She felt guilty as she thought of her dreams. His dagger, and the blood on her chest.
If anything, she had reason not to trust him.
But nothing she’d seen had come to pass. Not the moments with Arawn, not anything with Six. Certainly not her own death at Kinlear’s hands.
It was his death she worried about now.
He was too vibrant a person. Too bright a light to simply fade away early, a horrible fate for a man who hadn’t the excuse of using magic to bring about his early end.
Already, Ezer’s heart had begun to squeeze with a missing sort of feeling when she looked at him.
Like he was already half gone.
‘No,’ Ezer said, meeting his silver gaze. ‘Nothing to worry about with me, Prince.’
He smiled. ‘All right then, Raphonminder. Let’s go.’
Six was not easy to guide down the cliffside by foot.
They went the long way down, a path that led through the Thornwell instead of the black stone steps.
It was not used often, for it was overgrown with trees, and too steep for Ezer’s liking, but she and Kinlear managed to stay on Six’s back without falling.
A true feat they should have celebrated … because though Six was built for scrambling down harsh terrain …
She ran into tree branches, and got distracted easily, batting at things with her enormous paws. She leapt off boulders and scratched at the snow every few feet, like an overgrown chicken.
‘It’s good we did this,’ Kinlear said, breathless as he held on to Ezer. ‘She’s become unhinged.’
‘She’s just curious,’ Ezer corrected him. ‘Ravens are like that. It’s best she works it out now.’
The raphon sent a vision into her mind.
A small black kitten batting at a ball of yarn.
Ezer laughed. Six was playing.
And she was happy. Truly happy.
So Ezer was too.
The snow fell heavier by the time they finally made it down the upper cliffside. They stuck to the edge of the Thornwell, avoiding the barracks in the valley down below. Then they were moving upwards again as the land stretched gradually towards another jutting cliff.
A violent cough shook Ezer’s back, where Kinlear held on.
‘Should we turn around?’ she asked, glancing over her shoulder at him.
He shook his head and uncorked the vial at his throat. ‘Gods, no.’ He took a sip, then worked to calm his breathing. ‘My mother arrives tomorrow. I don’t think she’ll let me out into the cold again.’
They passed through a thick line of trees – both of their heads covered in snow, thanks to Six’s wings knocking a heavy branch down – and when they came to the other side …
‘Ah. Here we are,’ said Kinlear.
Ezer’s eyes widened.
The Sacred Circle.
She’d seen it through the library windows with Kinlear, what felt like forever ago now. But even though she knew just how big the standing stones were …
Seeing them in person stole her breath away. She had to crane her neck back to see their tops, and even then, they faded into the low-hanging clouds.
A ring of twelve, each stone protruded from the snow like they were only extensions of the earth. They would have blended perfectly with the snow, were it not for the runes carved into every square inch of them.
She dared push Six closer.
‘Can I …’
‘Go ahead,’ Kinlear said, as the raphon stopped.
And Ezer placed a hand on the closest stone, marveling at the fact that she was touching something older than Lordach’s first kings and queens.
As old as recorded time, and then some.
‘Can you read them?’ Ezer asked.
Kinlear shook his head. ‘It would take me centuries to read every rune. But the overarching story of each realm is the same. The realm’s creation, the gods, the inevitable attempt of mortals hoping to be just as great.
And the Sacred.’ He sighed. ‘The names change, of course, depending on the realm, but there is always a placeholder. A set of souls meant to take the blame. To hold the punishment of imperfection so the rest can enter the Ehver when the Five call us home. Every stone was once the same … until the Thirteenth. And as ours darkens … we believe our fate is tied to whatever ended theirs.’
He pointed past Ezer to the stone in the circle that had tendrils of black stretching across its surface.
Cracks in the stone that could have been shadows.
A stone that was impenetrable by any sort of weapon. Even Sacred magic.
And just beside it was an empty space. A gap, where the thirteenth stone used to be.
Realmbreak was suddenly too soon.
The wind shifted, cold and biting. And Six’s head turned, eyes narrowed as if she sensed something.
‘What is it, Six?’ Ezer asked.
The raphon huffed and scraped an impatient paw across the snow.
She turned so that now she was facing the exit, where the wardlight glowed a brilliant gold. One step beyond those tall obelisks, the Forest Gates that held them safely within a magical bubble of the gods’ protection … and they’d be helpless. As good as dead, if the enemy found them.
Six began to walk slowly toward those gates. Daringly close to the exit.
‘Six. Stop, before you get—’
Her words trailed off as a vision filtered into her mind.
A raphon, bleeding and dying as it lay on the snow. It looked like Six, but Ezer knew it wasn’t, because her belly was swollen.
She was pregnant.
Sadness washed over Ezer as she saw the raphon trying to stand, screeching in agony. Her darksoul rider was dead, a creature with long, jagged claws that lay several yards away on the snow.
And her wings were broken, snapped in two.
Six’s mother.
It had to be.
Voices broke through the memory, and the raphon collapsed again, just as the wardlight shimmered, and a group of Sacred passed through the Gates.
‘Bind her up,’ said a voice. ‘She’s too far gone. We may get some research out of her, at least …’