The Midnight Kingdom, page 40
“Amaa,” Jas rasped, and Risha ached for him. “Before, you were trying to tell me what had happened to you. Please, I need to know. What did you find out in Nexus?”
The spirit shuddered, and Risha nearly lost it to the void again. The energies within her surged and Jumari settled, though her agitation forced Risha to endure flashes of the woman’s memory, like pins poking at her brain. The interior of the Bone Palace. A younger Ferdinand. Applying kajal to her eyes in a mirror. Turning a corner and—
“The king,” Jumari whispered as Risha’s head throbbed. She saw the visage of a boy, his eyes bright blue and wide, before he ducked into the nearest room. Not soon enough. “He has an heir.”
The shape of the jaw, the set of his eyes.
Jumari had seen—Risha had seen—the child of Ferdinand Accardi.
And yet the Houses had been told to compete for the honor of the throne. A war with no victor.
The spirit almost left her when Risha’s breathing struggled in her lungs. Jas scooted forward, cool fingers to her cheek.
“Risha,” he whispered, “it’s all right. Just a little longer. Please.”
She nodded even while Jumari kept speaking through her. “I knew a secret heir was a disaster waiting to happen. I had to return home at once. I wanted to warn Parliament of the truth and determine how to handle further relations with Vaega. A civil war was a distinct possibility. So I left Nexus.”
Another memory flash, a carriage rattling hard enough to slam her against the side, her gorge rising as she fell, and fell—
“And didn’t make it home,” Jumari whispered as a tear fell from Risha’s eye. “I think the king knew what had shaken me. We spoke just before I left.”
“He arranged for you to die,” Jas growled. “That’s already grounds enough for war!”
“I do not want a war,” Jumari argued. “That is what I was trying to prevent. Jaswant, please… You and your father need to stay safe. That’s all I care about.”
Risha’s chest iced over. The spirit couldn’t tell that Jas was one, too.
“Amaa…” Jas’s mouth twisted. “I… yes. We will.”
An intention came to her. Following the spirit’s desire, Risha laid a hand against the faint line of Jas’s cheek as much as she was able.
“I love you until the stars fade out,” Jumari murmured. Jas tried to place his hand over Risha’s.
“And even then,” he finished in a whisper.
The spirit vanished gradually, too weak to hold on any longer now that her last message had been given. It left Risha drained and her body and mind empty.
“Risha.”
Blearily she looked up. There was a similar emptiness in Jas’s gaze, and somehow she found it comforting, knowing she wasn’t alone in this.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “What she said… Do you think it’s true?”
She ran her tongue over her teeth. “I saw him. I don’t think she’s mistaken.”
“Then that would mean the Houses have no claim to the throne.”
Hearing him say it out loud, it suddenly struck her as funny—this tragic, pointless truth spotlighting her entire life in deception. A laugh tumbled out of her, quiet and disturbed.
She thought of Taesia revealing Dante’s plan, insisting the Houses had to forge a new way instead of adhering to all they’d ever known.
It had been treason. And Risha should have joined her.
Jas nodded in the direction of the Vitae portal. “Do you think the heir is still in Nexus?”
There were so many things she didn’t know: what had happened to the other heirs, to the king, to the city. If her family was all right, or if the events of Godsnight had catapulted them into conflict.
“Only one way to find out.” She got to her feet. Val had been watching on in silence, a look of curious intent in his visible eye.
The rabbit spirit sighed on her shoulder. She picked it up and placed it gently in the grass.
“It’ll be dangerous where we’re going,” she told it. “Go back to your family.”
As I will find a way back to mine.
VIII
I’m going to train you to run the household.”
The man who had raised him, a man who no longer existed, stood in the middle of a practice ring under the late morning sun. His spear gleamed, a misplaced sunray.
“Your brother will go into the military and work directly under His Majesty. You will support him.”
He’d understood. No matter the level of power he held, how fast or how strong he was, it was simply not as good as Rian. Despite being firstborn, he wasn’t the heir House Cyr needed.
“You are a watcher, not a warrior. But you still have to be prepared for any fight.” The spear was leveled at his chest. “Come at me again.”
Nikolas leapt across the ring and suddenly it was a rooftop, steel sinking into his father’s neck.
The memory did not spark pain, because he didn’t let it. He merely allowed it to play out before receding. Let his mind turn lazily without consequence.
Taesia could be dead.
Phos was absorbing Rian.
The outer reaches of Noctus were beginning to make his muscles flag, encroaching darkness sapping away his energy.
The coronal was broken save for the piece he held clenched in one clammy hand.
None of these thoughts could touch him in a way that mattered. They flickered and then died, embers struggling for wind to stir them. It was peaceful this way. Like he stood at the edge of an ocean and only vaguely wondered what was on the far shore.
“There you are.”
He turned his head slightly. Fin knelt beside him, cradled in shadow. Nikolas was sitting at the base of a wall. For a moment he couldn’t figure out how he had gotten there. Then Fin swallowed, looking beyond Nikolas at the broken bodies of the Noctan soldiers Phos had killed.
Yes. He had been told to drag them inside. Hadn’t bothered to ask why, only waited until his god had turned in dismissal, one hand pressed to the injury on his chest. Nikolas had left the Bone Palace and entered the courtyard for the first time since Godsnight, broken and pitted and smelling of decay. Took stock of the weight of the dead in his arms, the pull of his muscles.
There were no further orders, so here he sat until he was needed. His god had not yet come for him.
But Fin had. He touched Nikolas’s arm, tugging at his sleeve.
“Come with me, Sunshine.”
Not an order from Phos, but an order regardless. He allowed Fin to lead him out of the antechamber, away from the vaulted ribs and hollow marble, and along corridors padded with red velvet. Arterial pathways to some undiscovered heart.
They ended up in a servant’s hall. On one end: a kitchen and a wide, flame-filled hearth. On the other: a long table where the palace’s servants had once eaten between shifts.
The survivors stood, chair legs screeching. “Your Highness!”
The two of them were pulled into the room, a flurry of voices, careful hands, and frightened eyes. Nikolas stared at them and said nothing.
“Phos allowed you in here?” Fin asked. From his tone, he was just as surprised as they were.
“He took away all the utensils and dishware,” said a lanky man with a gray mustache. “And the heavy pots and pans. Even the twine. Anything that could be used as a weapon.”
“Of course.” Fin shook his head. “Is there water, at least? Rags?”
“Yes, Your Highness. I’ll get them for you.”
A Parithvian woman with henna-dyed hair eyed their waistlines. “I’ll see what food we have that isn’t spoiled.”
“Thank you,” Fin sighed. “What are your names?”
The servants seemed startled but readily replied. Luis. Bhavna. Then Fin was leading him toward the hearth and making him sit on the warmed bricks before it. Nikolas closed his eye as heat seeped through him.
Fin was given a shallow clay bowl full of water and a small bundle of cheesecloth. He placed the bowl near the fire and tore the cloth into strips, the movements awkward due to his shackles.
“Come here,” Fin said.
Nikolas leaned forward. Fin carefully unwrapped the bandages from his head, speckled a watery pink. The wound was already mostly healed thanks to Phos. The lingering pain was distant, blissfully distant, while Fin soaked some cheesecloth in the warm water and pressed it to his face. There was a unique pleasure in it, even, as his skin was wiped clean.
Fin’s fingers were trembling, and he avoided looking too long at the gaping socket. His bottom eyelids were silver with unshed tears.
“I have to tell you something,” Fin whispered as the servants bustled in the background.
A glimmer of curiosity. Nikolas pursued it, staring at him with silent intention.
Fin lightly traced Nikolas’s cheekbone. Mapped it out as if to memorize its shape. “Growing up in the palace, there were only a select few who knew who I truly was. They were sworn to oaths of secrecy on penalty of death.” He frowned. “The others were all told the same lie: I was a servant’s son. And to the mage who taught me the fundamentals of earth magic, it was made clear I wanted to join the military’s elementalist division.”
Another servant approached with a tin in her hands and quietly explained that using a compress with chamomile would help. Fin thanked her and did just as she instructed, soaking the dried tea leaves in water before letting the cloth absorb the liquid and pressing it gently to Nikolas’s eye.
“Can you hold that for me?”
Nikolas obeyed. The compress smelled herbal and sweet, and water trickled down his face. Fin brushed it away with his thumb, teasing out another memory: an alleyway in Nexus, the smell of a food vendor’s cart, his chest cracking open while he relayed his brother’s fate. Supposed fate.
“After every lesson, the mage would leave first, and then I would wait for my guard to collect me. But once, I didn’t wait. The minute the mage left, I ran out and began to explore the palace.” Fin let out a small laugh. “I was so scared I would be caught, but even though my heart was pounding like mad, I was smiling. It was exciting. There were whole wings I’d never seen before, rooms far more lavish than mine, even small chapels. Anyone who saw me assumed I was what I pretended to be: a servant’s son.”
He grew quiet. Nikolas’s mind was also quiet, enraptured.
“I made it all the way to the training grounds,” Fin continued. “And climbed on top of one of the walls to watch. A comandante was leading a troop through drills. His voice was so powerful, I was captivated. And then I saw the weapon on his back. I’d been taught about the Houses, so I knew it was the Sunbringer Spear. I’d always wanted to see it. So I leaned forward, and…”
Nikolas inhaled sharply as the memory clutched him in its vise.
His father running drills at the Bone Palace, bringing Nikolas and Rian along so they could observe. Rian in the coveted spot at their father’s side and Nikolas standing at ease behind them, waiting to be called on or needed.
Then a soft thump and a cry of pain. None of the soldiers heard it, but Nikolas had. He’d turned to find a boy had fallen from the wall above.
“Ow ow ow,” the boy was moaning as he sat up and cradled his elbow.
Nikolas hurried over. “Are you all right?” He’d glanced at the top of the wall. “What were you doing up there?”
“Uh… looking.” One of the boy’s eyes had been shut in pain, a stripe of dirt along his cheek. His clothes were nondescript; likely the child of a soldier or servant who lived at the palace. He was dark-haired and bright-eyed, irises blue as the height of summer. Then those eyes widened. “You’re Nikolas Cyr.”
Embarrassment had nipped at him. Back then, he hadn’t yet gotten used to people valuing his title over his personhood.
“Then that’s your father,” the boy had went on, peeking around him at where Waren Cyr barked drill instructions. “Deia’s tits!”
Nikolas had been so surprised by the swear he’d sputtered. “Where did you learn that?”
“I hear it all the time from one of my gua—ahh—parents.”
“They shouldn’t be saying those sorts of things around you.”
“I guess.” The boy had popped to his feet, pain forgotten as a grin spread across his face. “Does that mean you know how to use the Sunbringer Spear? How does it work, exactly? Is it true that some of Phos’s feathers are inside? Can you fly?”
“I…” His head had suddenly hurt. “Uh…”
“Can you teach me how to fly? I mean, I have earth magic, not Solara magic, but there might be a way. Maybe with air mages?” The boy extended his arms like wings, then winced and pulled his elbow in close again. “Ow.”
“Let me see.” Nikolas had carefully reached for the arm, pressing his thumb around the elbow until the boy hissed at a certain spot. “I think you have a fracture. Would you like me to walk you to the infirmary?”
“Won’t your father notice you’re gone?”
A hollow feeling in his stomach, carefully put aside. “He won’t mind.”
Slowly the boy had grinned again. “All right.”
Here, beside him, that boy was grown up. His grin tempered with grief, his awe exchanged for disquiet.
“I knew I’d get caught if I was taken to the infirmary,” Fin said, his voice as soft as his gaze. “The head medic would recognize me. But if it meant spending more time with you, I thought it would be worth it. You were…” He swallowed. “You were so bright. And your smile was so warm. I wish we’d had hours, but I treasured those minutes together. And when we arrived at the infirmary, you said—”
“ ‘Next time, I’ll catch you,’” Nikolas finished.
Pain bloomed within his chest, making him gasp and double over. Fin’s hand steadied his shoulder while all the aches and sores of his body flared bright, his mind flooded with the agony of being.
“It’s all right,” Fin murmured, rubbing his shoulder as Nikolas shook through it. “Just breathe. I’m here.”
The pain had receded, but Nikolas was still trembling when Bhavna came back.
“Your Highness, my lord,” she said before setting two food-laden straw mats beside them. “Please eat and recover your strength.”
“Thank you, Bhavna,” Fin said. She bowed and retreated, giving them privacy once more. “Here, this is basically tea now.”
He handed Nikolas the bowl of chamomile-infused water. Nikolas didn’t care about drinking the leaves; he took a large gulp to ease his parched throat.
“Thank you,” Nikolas whispered. “For…”
Fin quickly shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.” He smiled as a ball of light formed and bounced between them. “There you are.”
Nikolas reached for Lux. It zoomed around his hand and up his arm, pressed its warmth into the spot between his neck and shoulder. “I missed you, too.”
And despite the way his body ached, the way his mind rebelled against the idea of being fully awake, he had missed this: the heat of his power, the quiet assurance of the light. Even in the years of Rian’s absence when his magic had waned, it had always been there, to some degree. His one constant.
Fin stuffed a handful of dried fruit into his mouth and began to tear the remaining cheesecloth into bandages. He winced when his shackles knocked against his wrists.
Nikolas took Fin’s hands and held them out to examine the shackles, dark as the night beyond Phos’s barrier. Fin grew very still, hardly breathing. Lux shifted into a dagger of light.
“It won’t work,” Fin said even as Nikolas attempted to cut the middle chain. “The material repels magic. We need the key.”
“Ri—Phos must be carrying it.”
“Unless he destroyed it,” Fin pointed out.
“I don’t think he would.” He was still holding one of Fin’s hands. It was warm, with long, slender fingers suited for a thief. “I didn’t recognize you.”
“I didn’t expect you to. I was so young, then.”
“We both were.” And so many years had passed with Fin watching from afar, Nikolas completely unaware of his regard or his existence. The truth of him a hidden explosive, ready to level the entire kingdom.
“I wish I’d had the courage to tell you, then.” Fin stared at the bricks, running a thumb over Nikolas’s knuckles. “But a lot of people would have been punished if I had. I tried to tell myself it was for the best.” His face hardened. “I shouldn’t mourn my old life, but it was all I ever knew. Really, I’m upset over the life I never had. That I could never claim for myself.”
He pulled his hand away and set to work bandaging Nikolas’s eye. Nikolas focused on the way Fin touched him not like a vase ready to shatter any minute, but with insistent tenderness. The same way Nikolas had touched him all those years ago, seeking for a fracture.
“I think you would make a good king,” Nikolas said softly.
Fin paused. After a long moment, he tied the bandages together. “I don’t think I ever wanted that. Especially now that… now that I know what my father did. I don’t want to follow in his footsteps.”
“You wouldn’t. You’re already different from him.”
“I don’t think that’s enough.”
Luis approached them then, the other servants following behind.
“Forgive us for intruding,” he said. “But I thought Your Highness and my lord would want to see this.”
He held out a small pouch. Wanting Fin to keep from moving his wrists too much, Nikolas accepted it and opened the drawstring.
Inside were several long, thick fangs, pearly white with an ethereal sheen.
“We collected them when he left the throne room,” Luis explained. “He took one, but we picked up all the rest. We think they bear some sort of magic. Perhaps it can help?”
Nikolas reached into his pocket and drew out the fang he had taken that day in the throne room. He added it to the collection and pulled the drawstring closed.
“These came from the coronal of Astrum,” Nikolas said. “A crown that’s able to protect the city.”
If he recalled correctly, only the Lunari family could wield it, and they were now dead. Barring a Lunari, these would be best in the hands of a particularly strong Shade.
