Chapter Seventeen
Collect me?
Like a toy?
I’m seething the next morning, even as I stalk the walkways of the Abyssal with Arjuna’s codex in hand.
I keep reminding myself that my anger is misplaced, though somehow that makes it all the worse.
I can’t direct it at anyone. Anton is only this way because of me.
Because he made a choice, sacrificed himself and his memories, so that I might live.
And even here, he is doing something good, what with his judgment over the souls.
I know, I know, I know.
I inhale through my nose, let it out slowly, and continue my search along the shelves, desperately seeking one that glows when I draw near. After some time, Sundar stumbles across Veer’s glowing codex. One more brother, but no one else. At least this method seems to work.
An hour later, Sundar and I break only for a quick bite from the kitchens, and during our walk back to the Abyssal, he says, “I am waiting, you know.”
“Waiting for what?”
He gives me a knowing look. “For you to tell me what His Majesty said to you when he followed you last night.”
Instantly, my hackles rise. “He was just…I don’t know. Pestering me.”
“Because he wants you.”
“For a night, maybe,” I say. “One night. And then what, Sundar? He would tire of me and send me away.”
“You don’t know that. But don’t you think, at the very least, that you should use his interest in you as an opportunity to glean something?
Perhaps about what Moranya really wants?
In fact—” He stops in his tracks and swings to look at me.
“What if you play hard to get? Make him a little jealous? He’ll probably give you just about anything—including information—to win you over. ”
“You are about as insufferable as he is,” I mutter, striding onward. “And I’m not playing ‘hard to get.’ I am rejecting him on principle.” At least when he’s acting like this.
“I’m just saying,” he says, sprinting to catch up with me.
“It’s worth a shot. He is only human, after all.
” I feel his fingers around my wrist. “Face it, Vasalie. Even if we find his codex, you were right. We don’t know if he’ll bother to read it.
Why not try this, too? You might find you have no other choice.
Just how long are you willing to wait? Every day, the Syndicate deadline inches closer, and so does war. ”
“And if he starts to wonder why I’m questioning him so much about Moranya?”
“Who wouldn’t be curious? I mean, really. It’s reasonable that you would want to know more.”
I let out a burst of a sigh. “He will figure it out, Sundar. He’s smarter than you think.” I couldn’t thwart him last time, either, and he was infinitely more occupied than he is now.
“I have faith in you” is all Sundar says.
I wish he wasn’t right. But his words circle in my mind as we resume our search in the Abyssal.
“How did you find Mantrin’s codex that first time? And Arjuna’s. It couldn’t have just been happenstance.”
Sundar thinks for a moment, scratching his head. “It was strange, actually. I walked right to them, not even meaning to. Like a pull.” He glances at me. “What if you just…walked to where you are drawn? Maybe we are trying too hard.”
It’s worth a shot, considering we’ve had little luck despite our findings.
I close my eyes as if that might clear my mind, addled as it is, though I feel nothing save the tight string of anxiety weaving through my nerves. But once I’m on the other side of the river again, I begin walking, grazing the nearby shelves for support.
It’s almost like relying on a scent, rather than sight. Ignoring what my eyes see.
Perhaps it’s my imagination, but something is there. Like an anchor on a ship, tipping me to one side. A rope coiling tighter with each step I take. I follow the sensation until, after a moment, I feel a jolt that rattles even the bones of my hand.
I pull the codex I have stopped at. It’s large, wrapped in oily crimson cloth, like blood on skin. A macabre sight. It makes sense when I part its pages.
This is my father’s codex.
My fingers tremble. It takes everything within me not to rip it apart.
Trample it to dust to see if that might end his life.
But then, next to his, another book begins to glow.
Already I know it’s my mother’s. Even so, my heart skips a beat.
I barely remember her, but I recall lying in her bed, longing for her when she passed. I’d been five.
Carefully, I gather her codex, noticing that the empty spot beside it also glows blue, almost as if lit by a phantom tome. Except there’s no codex there.
This is where mine should be.
Except…it isn’t.
I’d noticed empty spots earlier, but none were lit. It’s further confirmation that it should be mine.
“It has to be here somewhere,” Sundar says over my shoulder. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Considering it’s said that even Moranya herself can’t alter them. Otherwise I’m sure she would have. Unless…she threw it into the Sands.”
Yet another fear takes root.
“If she can’t alter them,” Sundar says staunchly, “then I doubt she can destroy them. And…yours isn’t the only one missing. Maybe they are stored somewhere else? You already said Anton had some in his study.”
“If mine was there, I would have seen it.”
“Even so, it means the Abyssal doesn’t contain all the codices.
Ask him about it,” Sundar urges. “In the meantime, you continue to search for Anton’s.
I’ll search for mine or my mother’s. I’d suggest we try to make him read Arjuna or Veer’s, but I don’t think we’d be able to convince him considering we can’t tell him why—blasted curse!
—and he’d have to sift through thousands of pages to find anything relevant.
At least I could taunt him with mine or my mother’s; he’s especially angry with her. ”
“I doubt he’d even listen to you,” I say. “Fates—he’d probably find some way to punish you if he saw you here.”
“I’m not scared of him,” Sundar says, and at my frown, he holds up his hands. “I know it isn’t the best plan, but it’s better than nothing. Meanwhile, see what you can learn. Besides, if he begins to doubt what he believes, that would be a start.”
A seed of doubt. That’s what we need—something that might take root. I mull that over as the hours drag on until, finally, an Aegis finds me. “His Gloriousness has sent for you.”
After changing in the Modiste’s Hall—where I select a simple plum dress made from that velvet-soft, silky material, then gather my hair into a loose plait—I am led by the Aegis into a wing of the palace I haven’t been to before, up a few stories from the pavilion.
Full, floor-to-ceiling windows follow the curvature of the long hall, the evening sky a deep tanzanite expanse feathered by the soft, ethereal light of the aurora.
Beneath, the city looks as though it’s encrusted in glitter.
Eventually, the hallway ends in an open, columned expanse save for the fragmented glass dome that severs the night into shards. Beneath it, a small, round table sits—an intimate setting with a lantern at its center. More lanterns ring the space, a soft, pearlescent glow emanating from within.
It feels like something from a dream—as does the man sitting there, his verdant gaze softly limned.
Tonight, he wears a charcoal robe that looks more like a jacket, sewn with threads of iridescent blue.
Necklaces drape from his neck, several hoops hug his ears, and his hair is half up, a few strands pulled loose to hang about his chin.
I take too long to study him, and when our eyes meet, his smile ticks up a degree, as if he knew it all along. “Vastianna.”
It’s still strange to hear him call me that. It was only ever Minnow, or Vasalie when he was worried.
“Sire” is all I respond with. I take stock of the table, already laden with fruits, cheeses, pastries. Purple wine, there within a decanter, our flutes already filled and augmented with pearls of pink that I assume are some kind of fruit.
“Where does the food come from?” I ask. I can’t imagine a farm here.
“We have orchards on the other side of the mountain. The Sustained tend to them. Of course the crops there are not like mortal ones, subject to death. Everything you see here comes from one of those—even the cheese, which is not actual cheese, but from gurya pears that can be prepared to taste much the same.”
“But why do souls eat?” Sundar confirmed that souls don’t need food to sustain them.
“Eating is for pleasure alone, and left for those in the upper echelons. But enough of that. Please, won’t you sit?”
I oblige, sliding into the chair across from him.
Despite the hunger gnawing at my insides, I feel too awkward to eat. Anton leans back, observing me, with an oddly pensive look. It makes my neck itch.
“Why invite me to dine with you, Your Majesty?”
“You were a dancer. You must have been, with your skill. Where did you train?”
“Miridran, Sire.” I’m half surprised my tongue doesn’t wither at my attempt to reveal that part of my past.
“And yet you are not really Miridranian,” he says, leaning forward to steeple his ring-clad fingers.
I blink at him. Had he overheard that, too? Or had something I said given that away? I reach for a pastry, if only to give my hands something to do. “No, Sire. I am not.”
“Can you stop saying ‘Sire’?”
“No, Sire. Why are you volleying questions at me?”
“Because I am a king and can do what I want.”
“As you feel the need to keep reminding me. It makes me wonder: Are you really a king, here, Sire?” I keep my gaze impassive.
“Considering I sit on a throne and dole out judgment, I’d say so.
Tell me about your childhood.” When I lift an inquisitive brow, he says, “I want to understand what really keeps you in the Abyssal every waking hour, save for when you dance for me. I do not believe that you are searching merely for your stepmother. You are hiding something.”
I’m very good at reading people. Let’s call it a special talent.