Stain Page 7

  How can you harbor such resentment, the queen’s voice interrupted his musings, when all around us are symbols of peace?

  He had no answer. Even the drifting insects and their serene wash of light felt different in this moment, feeding his rage . . . promising power over a powerless situation. Vesper’s attention settled at the head of the deathbed. Soldered to an ornamental holder that came to his sternum, a large globe of hollow copper—pierced with starry shapes—imprinted a galaxy across the king’s face. The luminary was strictly ceremonial, and emanated radiant golden beams, though not from a flame. The same special mix of pollen and sunshine that was fed to the fireflies filled the luminary and powered its light, symbolizing their world’s starry sky to which their dead would return after being burned to ash.

  That dazzling mixture called Vesper closer. He leaned over the heat source and a new line of sweat dampened his hairline. He swept some strands behind his ear then raked a thumb across his lord father’s silver-white locks splayed out on the black pillow beneath his head. Their lack of color was not a sign of age or illness, but rather another inherent quality that set Vesper apart from every member of his family . . . from his entire kingdom.

  What would you have had me do? His lady mother’s thoughts nudged him again, an obvious attempt to shake him from his silent brooding. How else would you propose to bring genuine sunlight to our world, in the expanding amounts we need for our growing populace?

  Vesper kept the exchange between their two minds so the guards wouldn’t hear: I would order the princess to deliver the last panacea rose herself, then bind her within the cadaver brambles. The wicked suggestion caused his lips to twitch. The savage, frosty-white thorn creatures that slithered like viperous skeletons across their land could bleed the sun in fiery red stripes from her veins. Let her pierced tender flesh provide our natural light.

  Seeing the shock on his lady mother’s face only strengthened his resolve, and he added aloud so all could hear, “I would rather rule alone than with a day-walker by my side. How would she survive the wilds?”

  The queen’s eyes met his. “The wilds of your land, or of your heart?”

  He considered her question. The one likeness he shared with the citizens of Nerezeth was their lithesome builds, tall and more faerie-kind than human—characteristics mistaken for weakness. Their spines, however, were steel, and their spirits glaciers—men and women alike. It took courage to brave the mystic ice caverns and the dark, frigid landscapes . . . to withstand the frosty sting of a rime scorpion, to survive a bone-spider’s bite rendered from fangs the size of a clouded leopard’s, or to hazard an encounter with tinder-bats, whose dung could set fire to stone if ignited by a torch. The milder winters were opulent and scenic. But the prim and proper citizens of Eldoria weren’t stalwart enough to face the night tides, where the snow crashed like tidal waves. In places, the drifts stood as high as any castle and caved beneath clumsy feet like the hungriest quicksand. And then there was the dead air, everything muffled by loosely piled snow, and avalanches waiting to tumble, lest one move graceful as a cat and relay their thoughts without sound to preserve the silence.

  Vesper had his answer. “Ours is a land for the daring . . . and only the brutal of heart can survive.”

  He smoothed the silken banner where it draped the lower half of the king’s prone form. He admired Nerezeth’s sigil: a black background behind a silver crescent moon standing tall and majestic beside a nine-pronged silver star, celestial bodies representative of the king and queen; three small obsidian stars—the same contrasting shade as the dark background—shadowed the middle of the moon, dark reflections of their silver brother. These stars stood for the three generations that first shaped Nerezeth, those who reigned during the earlier, treacherous years . . . those whose wisdom and courage transformed the land into something tenable.

  “Those of the sunlit skies have flapping mouths and weighty bones,” Vesper elaborated. “They’re weak, soft, and spoiled. Smooth complexions, with no scars or frostbite burns. I’ve heard the royal house themselves are as rigid and flawless as bronze and ivory statues untouched by the elements.”

  And the truth of your hatred looks us both in the face, his lady mother answered silently.

  Vesper clasped his lord father’s larger hand. He wouldn’t admit she was right. That seeing King Kiran had been like staring into a mirror. A mirror Vesper would’ve once busted into a thousand pieces, to roll within the shards until they ground him down, until his flesh thinned and his veins rose to the surface. Anything to pass as one of midnight’s children—skin forged from moonlight so finespun the paths of their heartbeats were showcased like maps for all to see, and eyes of glittering stardust that could pierce any darkness.

  He himself had looked upon the silvery plait of hair and the vial of violet tears King Kiran had brought as proof of his daughter’s tragic predicament. The sun-king had called it a sickness. Vesper snarled. Sickness . . . there was a time he would’ve traded his future crown to contract such a malady; to finally be accepted and embraced without fear, suspicion, or wonder.

  Now, standing next to his lord father’s prone form, the defiance Vesper had so long wrapped within to stay warm frayed to threads. He needed to provide anchorage for his people, as Sir Andrian said. He would earn the respect that came with the crown by warranting his kingdom’s devotion and love, like the king who had ruled before him.

  And his differences would play a bigger role than anyone had imagined.

  Only Vesper could equip Nerezeth with the sunshine it required. But a blood pact with their rival kingdom wasn’t the way to accomplish this.

  Vision blurring, the prince lifted his father’s limp hand and placed it atop his head. Three months ago, on the celebration of his fifteenth name day, this very palm had ruffled his hair when Vesper defeated a sparring partner, and applauded when the prince and Lanthe moved as one and hit all the targets dead-center during the equestrian archery contest.

  Making his father smile, winning his laudatory touch . . . such moments had been few and far between. Tonight was the last opportunity. Although the king had slipped into the great sleep and lost the ability to connect, vocally or telepathically, perhaps he could still sense his surroundings.

  Sniffling, Vesper returned the king’s hand to his sunken chest and moved closer to the luminary, basking in its radiance, drawing strength from its sovereign potential—something he’d always felt unworthy of but was ready to claim as his own.

  “I would be alone to meditate. You may lead the processional.” He glanced at the guards, to ensure his lady mother took them as well. Both of the men’s gazes turned down the moment they were met by his.

  “You won’t accompany us?” the queen asked, one silvery eyebrow raised.

  “Leave a lantern and my fur. My place is by my king’s side, until his final breath.”

  Queen Nova’s lips formed a whistling-chirping sound—calling the white-and-black crickets to her. They hopped onto her silk skirts, forming alternate tiers with the molted nightingale feathers and spider’s lace already in place. The combination of fabric and nature glistened and rustled as she strode to the door.

  Vesper rested his hand on his scabbard again.

  “Make your father—your king—proud,” his lady mother murmured, somewhere between a thought and a word. “Let him leave this world on a bed of tranquility, knowing you’ve accepted your differences as the blessings they are, and have embraced your obligation to our kingdom.”

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do, fair Lady Mother.”

  She gave him one last look, as if measuring his sincerity, then said, “I’ll have Cyprian wait by the iron door to accompany you back to the castle.” She stepped out with the guards at her heels. The kingdom’s assembly of mourners followed in their wake.

  Vesper waited long enough that they would be out of earshot. Casting aside his gloves, he opened his palms—scarred from battles with cadaver brambles and frostbite—then sta
red at the backs of his hands and wrists. Beneath his clothes, the rest of him reflected the same reddish-brown depth, as if he spent every moment outside in the day realm . . . despite that he lived in a moonstruck land and had never faced the sun’s true light. This contradiction no longer dampened his spirits. Instead, it gave him courage.

  He dragged his lord father’s broadsword from the hook. It took both hands to lift, and every budding muscle to swing. He strained against the weight and hammered the luminary. Harsh clangs reverberated through his arms and spine. With three solid hits, he broke the brass’s seal. The large gold bubble within held its form. Using the sword’s tip, he pierced the membrane and the incandescent liquid began to seep like molten jelly.

  Vesper dropped the blade. If anyone had heard his clanging, there was no time to spare. He knelt and cupped his hands to capture the sticky flow. It wasn’t unbearably hot, only warm enough to singe. As he held it up to his lips, he smelled the pollen—nectarous and raw with a roasted edge—and his mouth watered to taste it.

  If a tiny insect could sup upon the mixture and channel its radiance, why couldn’t he?

  His eyes focused on Nerezeth’s banner again, on the large silver star seated next to the moon, on the background and smaller stars—as eternally black as their sky. For fifteen years he’d questioned his existence . . . why he looked so different. Why he was the only one in his kingdom who couldn’t find his way in the dark. All along he should’ve questioned why he was the only one never ill-affected by the light.

  At last he understood what Madame Dyadia had meant, what his “monumental” calling was to be. He wasn’t born to be Nerezeth’s evening star. He was born to be their sun. Pure and unfiltered. And after tonight, they would never need to rely on Eldoria for anything again.

  He tipped his head back and poured the essence of daylight and flowers into his mouth, gulping it down until his body went to flame and his mind to ash.

  He awoke to blinding flashes of light. Shouts of horror echoed in his ears, Cyprian’s voice blending with the guards, before he succumbed to darkness again. A nightmare folded around him like ink smearing in water, brilliant red and gloomy gray in turns—a summer sky chasing the winter. Fire embroiled his veins and he writhed in agony. A full body shiver followed, bones and skin ablaze with frostbite. The stench of roasted flesh, scorched hair, and burning blood singed his nose.

  When the pain became so excruciating he would die, he heard someone chanting—an ancient discerning voice. The sound elevated him, and his eyes opened to find he floated above his body, a tethered spirit. Magic was at work here: a veil of gray mist as substantial as glass stood between his consciousness and the happenings below. Two outlines stood over his naked form where it lay atop an altar beside a background of glistening ice. He’d been brought to the mystic caverns.

  “Did you tell him the details of the prophecy?” It was the voice that had been chanting, and it belonged to Madame Dyadia, the royal sorceress.

  “He was being too stubborn to listen.” The second voice—frantic and remorseful—was his queenly mother’s. “If only I had! It would have prevented this.”

  “The result would have been the same. A prophecy will be fulfilled, taking whichever detour it must. Our prince unknowingly aided in his effort to prove worthy of his kingdom. Though he chose the deadliest path for himself.”

  The sorceress’s silhouette skimmed her hands across his body. Radiant, reddish-orange flares leapt beneath his skin, lighting up his veins and all the organs laboring to keep him alive. His spirit stayed safely above—a witness to his own undoing where no pain could reach him as puffs of black smoke rose from his nostrils. Flames crackled in his ears and molten gold seeped from the soles of his feet then spread from his toes to his ankles, coating them with a metallic sheen.

  The queen sobbed, falling to her knees beside the altar. “Please, can you save him?”

  “The damage is not without, but within.” The sorceress withdrew a blade and made an incision in his skin above the metallic coating. The sensation was distant, more of a throb in a dream. His skin returned to its natural state as the gold leaked out from the slit, becoming liquid sunshine to be collected in a vial. “This is just the beginning.” Madame Dyadia cut off several strands of Vesper’s dark hair and wound them about a spool where they multiplied into a coarse thread. Using a fine needle, she sewed the opening closed; the moment she knotted off the thread, the stitches disappeared and a fully healed scar stood in their place. “The sun will try to overtake his humanness in increments. He must be strong enough to withstand the thrashes of gold. He’ll have to bleed it from his flesh, like a snake’s venom, to purify his blood. Though we cannot prevent it, the incisions can slow it. And there is a way I might tender the agony of the intrusion.”

  “Yes. Please . . . stop his suffering.”

  The sorceress placed a hand on the queen’s shoulder. “I understand your determination to save him, in a way few others could. But if I do this, there will be repercussions. The burning flame has adhered to his wildness, pride, and rebellion—emotional fires feeding celestial ones. That part of him must be cast out.”

  “What? No!” Queen Nova’s wail carried through the cavern’s icy depths, loud enough to shake the icicles. “I love him as he is. I can’t have him altered forever!”

  “Not forever, Your Grace. Merely long enough.” Madame Dyadia attempted to comfort. “The princess is younger than he. Five years stand between now and her coronation. Should we leave him intact, his rage could grow into something even more monstrous than it already is.”

  His lady mother reached for his hand, yelped at the contact, and jerked back. She rubbed her fingertips. “If I allow this, what will become of him? How will he live as only half of who he was?”

  “He will not remember his time in this cavern, or know of his missing piece. He’ll awaken to feel incomplete, and convinced the princess will make him whole again. Thus, he’ll be focused upon one goal: to honor his betrothal to a girl he’s never met, to win her hand at all costs. With his rebelliousness cast aside, he’ll accept her. Which he must, to be cured, for only her moonlit touch can tame the sun in his blood. We are not killing any part of him, simply giving one half a sharper resolve and purpose, and the other a new vessel—as protection from the sun’s searing burn.”

  “Can he one day be whole again?”

  “Even should I exile his rebellion and rage, he will be drawn to it, wherever it might be. The princess will play a role in giving him focus, but he alone will have to face and conquer his true self. Only then will he be complete once more.”

  “Too many secrets; too much risk. Perhaps if we leave him as he is—”

  “He will die.”

  There was a pause.

  “Then we do it and bear the consequences,” Queen Nova answered, though her voice trembled with doubt. “Nerezeth has lost their king. Should we also lose our prince and all that’s promised through him, our kingdom will fall.”

  The sorceress chanted, more ancient words Vesper’s ears had never heard, followed by five he understood: “Be gone from this place!”

  A rippling sensation guttered through his chest as one part of his spirit ricocheted back into his body, torn away from the other. He watched through eyes half-closed as the liberated part—fluttering darkness and flickering light—hovered along the cave’s roof, dipping and swaying, at war with itself until it found a shape. The prince’s mind attempted to put a name to it, but the object swooped out into the winter wilds too quickly.

  The absence in his core burned deeper than the flames. Tears seeped from the outer corners of his eyes, hot as smelted metal. The shimmery curl of a seashell appeared within his peripheral where the sorceress stood over him. She released a song trapped within: a songbird’s trill so fluid, joyful, and pure it quenched the loneliness in his heart and made him forget his missing half, imprinting upon his soul a longing for the music instead.

  “You will know her by her voice,
” the sorceress whispered in his ear.

  Overcome with exhaustion, he vowed to find the source of that beautiful song one day. It was the only way to be cured, to be complete. An image of Princess Lyra’s silvery hair and violet tears danced upon the back of his eyelids; then, cradled by the icy surroundings, he slept.

  5

  A Lady, Both Grisly and Glittering

  At Eldoria’s castle, there was to be no rest for Lady Griselda, trapped as she was in the pitch-black dungeon.

  Upon the harrower witch’s escape from the cell, Griselda’s princess niece closed her eyes and cast them both in darkness. Griselda groped blindly about, trying to catch Lyra’s hair to use as a lead rope, but the girl whisked by without making a sound. In the farthest corner came the scrape of something being dragged from beneath the cot, then the sensation of Lyra moving through the cell again.

  “Lyra . . . I’m your mother now. You must obey me. Help me find my way back.”

  The princess stalled at the cell’s entrance and opened her centipede lashes, illuminating Queen Arael’s potted rose cradled against her chest. Griselda smiled smugly, convinced she had tightened the noose of compliance around the girl’s neck, until Lyra opened her lips with an indecipherable song. Griselda shuddered as shadows dispersed at Lyra’s command, flapping across clothes and skin, before whisking out the doorway.

  Lyra’s footsteps scraped confidently up the stairs, taking her light-giving eyes with her. Griselda’s jaw went slack. The recalcitrant child had abandoned her.

  In the darkness, Griselda froze at the stir of moths and spiders brushing over her feet and head. She held her breath until they, too, slipped from the room, drawn to their songstress.