The Midnight Kingdom, page 51
Kalen picked up his pen. “Now: Tell me where and when you were born. As many details as you can give.”
Taesia knew enough from all the times her father had told the story. “Elena was dying for peppers,” Cormin had said fondly. “Normally she can’t handle that much heat, and it was the middle of summer, but who was I to deny her? So there she was, sitting there swollen like a pig’s intestine”—he only added this detail if her mother wasn’t around—“with sweat and tears running down her face, eating raw peppers. And then, suddenly, she grabbed her stomach, looked up at me, and said, ‘She’s coming.’”
She gave Kalen the date and time, which had been around dawn. He wrote notes to himself, as well as charts she couldn’t decipher while he muttered things like “So that’s where that comes from” and “If the seventh month of that year fell under the New Moon cycle…”
Taesia let him ponder while Umbra slithered out of its bezel and into her palm. She rolled it back and forth like a ball. Her body yearned to get up and walk around, her knee bouncing up and down with the urge to run to Astrum right then and there.
Her gaze strayed back to Julian. He remained where she’d left him, the wind playing with his hair. Under the starlight he was mercury and magic, his spine a little straighter after she’d made clear she didn’t resent the demon.
Kalen made a confused sound. He was frowning at the chart he’d made, and though she couldn’t read the planar drawings, she guessed something was off.
“I…” He scratched at his tied-back hair, leaving a smudge of ink along his cheekbone. “I’m not entirely sure how to read this.”
“If this whole thing was just to antagonize me—”
“No. I’m being serious.” His green eyes shone in the wan moonlight. “Your chart, it… it reminds me of his.”
Julian’s. Taesia held her breath while Kalen scoured his notes again.
“I shouldn’t have gotten anything wrong,” he mumbled.
“Just tell me.”
Kalen hesitated, then nodded. “You were born in the triangle of three constellations: Adrastea, Caria, and… Cultris.”
Umbra wound itself around her arm as her heart tripped. Cultris, the constellation that contained the Malum Star—as well as the star that had become her sword.
“Based on the time of your birth, you fell under two primary stars. The first is the Salvar Star from the Adrastea constellation. Many soldiers and important historical figures were born under this star; it means safety and the bravery that comes from wanting to protect. It’s often called the savior’s star.” He frowned again. “It was the star Noria Lunari was born under.”
Noria Lunari, who had fashioned the astralam coronal and saved her city by sacrificing her life, thus ending the Century of Eclipse. Kalen stared at her in bemusement, a mirror to the confusion in her chest that silently demanded, How were you of all people born under this star?
She didn’t know. It didn’t fit her at all, made her want to rip up the chart and call bullshit all over again. But she needed to hear the rest of it, to appease her growing curiosity.
Kalen moved his finger across the parchment. “The other star comes from the Caria constellation. It’s called Sceleratus.” Now he turned cautious, and goose bumps rose along her arms. “It lies directly across from the Salvar Star for a reason: It is Salvar’s complete opposite. And it is known as the villain’s star.”
He fell quiet, as if expecting her to lash out or deny it. But she only sat there, letting her uneasiness settle.
All her life her family had wanted her to be a proper heir, a dutiful daughter, an upstanding citizen.
All her life she’d felt like a black stain, a mistake, an impostor.
Two opposites that canceled each other out. There was a strange relief in it, in being both and neither.
Kalen must have seen some of this processing on her face. “Some stars don’t usually equate to literal translations,” he assured her. “Just look at Lilia. Born under the Malum Star, which denotes ill luck and malice. But she isn’t malicious. She doesn’t carry ill luck like a noxious cloud. Rather, she is the victim of tragedy. The stars can signify personal traits, or foresee events in your life. These events might have already come to pass.”
Taesia nodded and remembered the feel of Don Soler’s blood spraying her face, the terror in Cristoban Damari’s eyes before he’d been sucked through a portal. Standing on a rooftop and demanding the life of a king who had failed all of them.
She still felt justified. That hadn’t changed. But what she understood now was that, even while serving her brand of justice, she had been turning from one star to reach for the other.
Nyx’s prior taunts rose to the surface of her thoughts.
You, who know best how to run, will also turn your back on this world. You, who have the means to stop this destruction, will enable it.
She gritted her teeth. No, she thought viciously. I won’t.
Yet she couldn’t be like Noria Lunari, who had sacrificed everything though she didn’t have to. Her name was sung with praise and reverence, but how much better would it have been to have lived? To go after what she wanted, instead of giving everything to duty?
She had told Julian there was no shame in his stars. That instead of choosing one or the other, he could be both.
She wondered now if she could do the same—or if she would be forced to decide, in the end, which star burned brighter.
IV
Standing on the shore of the Praeteriens, Risha held the weight of all her memories in her hands like stones.
They were unexpectedly heavy. To have carried them this far, in the empty vessel of her body—to be alive long enough to remember them at all—was nothing short of a miracle.
But it was more than stones. It was bone, fashioned into handles, into smiling scythes.
Samhara dragged her down. Pulled her toward the Forgetting Waters.
She took another step forward.
How easy it would be to fall into the current of gray, twisting souls. To become a soul herself, to strip the rest of her humanity like shedding skin. She could drop all the stones in her hands. Plunge Samhara into the depths to join them, until it was unwritten out of every world, until she could no longer recall the shape of it against her palms.
Palms she had once used to hold her sister’s face, squishing it until Saya complained. Palms that had cradled cups of hot, fragrant tea while discussing the latest fashion trends with her mother, or the newest policies with her father. Palms warmed by others’ hands as they pulled her along into their games, their lives.
Even if she dropped every stone, her body would carry too much sense memory. The smell of her mother’s favorite perfume and the chime of her bangles. The scratchiness of her father’s beard when he kissed her cheek and the reverberation of his low voice when he praised her. The taste of the carob cakes Saya loved and the ache that came after laughing over some trivial thing together.
The warmth of Jas’s chest when he had held her and the soft whisper of a black rose’s petals against her fingers.
All of it would be lost.
Risha swayed and stared at the river. It was so close and so alluring—a purifying ritual, a method of absolution.
She was so tired.
Tired of feeling guilty. Tired of losing people. Tired of replaying the same memory over and over, rolling the stone between her fingers, of Jas smiling down at her for the last time.
She was powerful, and it hadn’t been enough. If she faced Valentin again, or made it back to the Vitae portal—if she were to pull as much spiritual energy as she could into Samhara—it still wouldn’t be enough.
There seemed no point in trying. No point in returning to a home that had already been wounded by her actions. No point making the journey without Jas.
Don’t waste it, he’d told her.
If she gave up the whole of herself, she would also be giving up every piece of her that had been molded and shaped by others. Her family, her friends—in touching her, laughing with her, crying with her, loving her, they had left imprints across her life just as she had left imprints on theirs. All that would remain of her was what lived on in them, a string of smaller deaths in the wake of hers.
She stumbled back from the Praeteriens and dropped Samhara. Her chest heaved with the force of a sob, though her body was too dehydrated for tears.
At Godsnight, she’d thought she was doing the right thing by making the hard choice. In Mortri, she’d thought she was doing the right thing by refusing to use Jas’s energy. And still she had ended up here, weighed down, directionless, longing to wade into a sea of lost souls and become one of them.
Pain suddenly ignited through her body. She fell to her knees and pressed a hand to her chest. Confused, she directed her gaze inward to find the source.
Her unexpected fight with Valentin had cost her strength. Perhaps that was why her organs were failing, her muscles atrophying, her blood vessels shrinking. Her liver was a sharp lance under her ribs, her heartbeat sluggish and irregular.
Risha’s breaths thinned. She didn’t understand; she had used her power to put her body into hibernation so that she could survive this place. She’d felt the magic take hold, ignoring the laws of time to stop her internal clock. So why was it not working anymore?
Val.
He’d lied about using her energy to power Samhara. And he had been the one to tell her she could use her own power on herself. Had that, too, been a fabrication?
A raspy, unfeeling laugh left her. It wouldn’t matter if she was possessed by Thana or captured by Valentin, or even if she plunged into the Forgetting Waters. She was done for no matter what.
Don’t waste it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
There is nothing you can do without my help, Thana had taunted her, knowing full well what would happen. Soon he will fade, and face my judgment. Then you will be alone. Abandoned. With no one but me to turn to.
She could call for Thana like she had so many times before, with frantic pleas and luring words. With her god’s influence she could put a stop to this decay. She would finally have the strength to move between realms. All it would cost was her freedom. Her agency. Her morals and obligations.
But maybe, in return, Thana could bring Jas’s spirit back.
She didn’t know how long she knelt there, one hand pressed to her chest, on the verge of calling for her god and making a trade that would jeopardize everything she had been fighting for.
Before she spoke a single word, something fluttered just under her straining heart. A ball of tangled energy, as soft and vivid as a begonia in bloom.
Risha’s lips trembled. Jas.
He was still with her. A piece of him that refused to be forgotten.
She closed her eyes and focused until nothing existed but that energy. How could she have possibly entertained the idea of succumbing to Thana? Even if her body failed to its conclusion, as long as she felt him with her, as long as she wasn’t alone, that would be enough.
Jas’s energy filled her veins like water pouring into a dry creek bed. It was so unlike her own—warm where hers was cold, the green of a new shoot emerging from the ground and just as fragile. From a young age she had been taught the ways of death, but Jas had been the conduit for life, coaxing withered vines and flowers to blossom to full health.
And now he was doing the same to her.
Just as worshippers went to the basilicas to leave offerings, so, too, did he kneel on the altar of her body and give quiet thanks and quieter prayers, bestowing whatever he had on her. And just like a ravenous god she took it for her own, let it curl and breathe inside her. The reverence of life, the devotion of death. The two of them dancing between.
Time reversed. Her next breath came deeper, held in lungs that could fully expand. He sheltered her heart within his hands and made it glow like a torch in the dark.
Risha opened her eyes. Growing in a circle all around her were black roses, a tangle of leaves, stems, and thorns, their heads angled toward her.
Her vision watered as she reached out to caress one.
How could I possibly leave you alone? Jas murmured, a soft smile pressed to her fingers in the shape of silken petals. You’d be undone without me. Admit it.
A faltering laugh burst out of her even as her tears finally fell.
He was with her, and always would be, so long as she didn’t give in—not to rivers, or to gods, or to her own despair.
She was about to pluck one of the roses to take with her when a distant chorus of screams made her freeze.
Turning her focus south, she strained to sense what had caused the noise. It wasn’t to the east where Cruciamen and the Vitae portal lay—Valentin’s domain—but to the west. A cold wind picked up around her.
The screams hadn’t come from Mortri. Rather, they’d come from the void along its borders. The more she strained, the more she heard the continuous agony as newly made spirits rammed into the barrier, denied entry.
There were so many of them. She knew they weren’t coming from Vitae, or else the void around the portal would be straining. These spirits had come from either Solara or Noctus.
Which meant another portal was near. And with the sheer number and aggravation of these newly made dead, the place where barrier met void would grow thin.
Thin enough, perhaps, to cut.
She stood up. Her legs no longer shook, her vision no longer blackened. She was healthy and healed and whole, carrying the power of both life and death.
She gazed down at Samhara. Though she longed to throw it into the Praeteriens, she couldn’t abandon a weapon her ancestor had made strong enough to stop a Mortrian king. It was only a matter of time until Valentin found her again.
Risha carefully plucked one of the black roses and tucked the stem into her belt. Then she picked up Samhara, the scythes warm and eager in her hands.
“Let’s go, Jas.”
V
Angelica stood at the lip of a volcano’s caldera, captivated by the bubbling lava within. She recalled a day in Nexus much like this, staring down at a crater where a palace had once been built from bone.
“Angelica.”
She turned. Just like on that day, Brailee Lastrider stood beside her, dark braid hanging over one shoulder, faintly unnerved by their surroundings.
“Is this Mount Netsai?” Brailee asked.
She was dreaming. Unease trickled through the landscape, made dark clouds close in above them. “Yes. Are you… actually here?”
“In a sense. I needed to tell you about what we learned in Seniza.” Brailee glanced at the lava. “Deia’s Heart and Mount Netsai are connected.”
“How can they be connected?”
“A fault line runs between them. If you uncover Deia’s fulcrum, maybe you can use it to reach us.”
To return to Vaega.
“Nanbu Daiji, the warlord of the fire state, is holding me prisoner,” Angelica said. “I don’t know if I can reach Mount Netsai.”
Worry flitted over Brailee’s face. “What? Can you—?”
The sound of a lock dragged Angelica out of the dream. Beside her, Cosima stirred with a mumble, her head pillowed on Angelica’s shoulder. Judging by the light, it wasn’t quite dawn. Surely Nanbu wouldn’t come to collect her so early?
Then the door slid open, revealing the hulking shape of Kenji. He ducked inside and knelt before them, head bent.
“Esteemed Mardova, no amount of apologies can make up for what I have done,” he murmured hoarsely. “When I went into the tunnels—”
“Save it,” she snapped. “I don’t want to spend my final hours listening to you snivel.”
Cosima nudged her, more awake now. “Hey, I know you’re upset, but let him talk.”
“When I went into the tunnels, Bushan Nanbu and Koshi were waiting for me,” Kenji went on. “The… snake, Bushan Nanbu’s companion, told them we were coming. And when I saw Her Imperial Majesty—the first one, the other one, I don’t know—Bushan Nanbu told me it was my choice whether she lived or died.” He swallowed, eyes shining wetly in the dim room. “He offered me my old position, my old life, a way to clear my debts, and none of it enticed me. But I could not forfeit her life. I see now there was no good choice, that someone would end up dying anyway.”
It was too late for what-ifs, for Angelica to tell him what he should have done. She could hate him for his betrayal, but if Akane had died because of them, she would have hated herself far more.
“Then are you planning to break us out of here?” she asked.
Kenji shook his head. “You know as well as I do that would be impossible in this keep.”
Not to mention there were the girls to consider. Angelica would rather go out in a storm of her own making than subject them to Nanbu’s lifelong confinement.
“Tell me what’s going to happen today,” Angelica said. “Will Nanbu bring Akane with him to the execution?”
Kenji nodded, keeping his gaze lowered. “He plans to keep her close so that people can see them together. Revered Ueda is expected to join her. Bushan Nanbu told her that if she claimed the Mardovas had treated her poorly, then the remaining Uedas would be brought back to Azuna under his care.”
Although she knew Miko would never voluntarily leave Angelica’s mother, she couldn’t help but think of Miko in the villa’s garden, longing for her native country. Eiko’s grief that Azuna no longer felt like home.
“Revered Asami will also be close, but hidden. They’re keeping her muzzle on and her hands tied.” Kenji paused. “Bushan Nanbu… thought it would be considerate to bring you to them to say goodbye.”
She exhaled a laugh. “Perfect.”
He finally looked up. “What?”
“Takeda Kenji,” she said, as low and solemn as a warlord giving orders to her Gojarin. “If you want to make up for your betrayal, then you will follow the plan I’m about to lay out for you. But it’ll mean never coming back to Nanbu Daiji or your old way of life. Can you live with that?”
