Page 133 of The Darkening (The Darkening)

Chapter 29

We try to cram learning that would have taken years into the too-short hours of the night. The minutes have a crispness to them, a feeling that these are the most important moments of my life, that these minutes are ones I’ll never forget. Even the smallest details are written into my mind: the furrow to his eyebrows, the quick, sharp smile when I memorize a difficult ikon, and every tiny flourish in each new ikon.

He sketches in the dirt a sign like a constellation.

“What many people never understand is that ikonomancy is a language of its own. It’s an expression of your will over that which exists. So, you need to express what exists, and then overlay the change you wish to make. And as with language, simple ideas, simple words can be strung into sentences.”

I trace his work, drinking in his words, the sight of him. It’s a strange time to feel happy, and yet a bit of joy works its way into me. And in the work I recognize the life I used to live; in the geometry of a shielding ikon is the layout of the beds at Amma’s, in a slicing ikon the way Pa used to arrange food on a cutting board, in a warming ikon the lattice of beams above my old attic room.

Every ikon he draws on the floor, I draw straight into my memory. But some of them seem to be coming straight out of my memory.

At last, Pa takes a deep breath. “That’s enough. Get some rest. We’ll have to be sharp tomorrow. You’ve—” He pauses, and his voice softens. “You’ve done well. You might’ve given me a run for my money.”

I let my head fall to my pillow, ikons floating in my mind and a smile tucked in my heart. I don’t remember falling asleep. When I wake, Pa is gone.

In his place are two women with cold eyes and hands like sandpaper.

“Where is my father?”

They don’t answer. Silently, they drag me to another room in the old city, where they strip me and throw bucket after bucket of ice water over my head, scrubbing till my skin glows red.

My head falls forward. Stretching from the soles of my feet is my shadow, my old friend. Does it reach for me, like it did in the Storm? Could I fall into it and swim in my own private darkness?

I toe it, and it’s nothing but cold stone.

I shut my eyes and seek out the Queen’s gift, reaching out with it. The women are painted in shadows; one is full of hard, slick things, of disgust and frustration, but the other is soft inside, like well-worn linen. She pities me.

I open my eyes. Both women glower, wearing twin grimaces.

Another bucket of ice water is upended over me.

If this is how she shows her pity... I shiver. The Queen’s gift shows me what people feel inside, not just the cursed. My mind falls on Dalca, on the moment I ended his curse and everything became so much worse.

Maybe he was better off cursed.

One of the women hands me a rough cloth to dry myself, and I’ve only just wrapped it around my body when the door bangs open.

Casvian pauses in the doorway, averting his eyes. He’s in tidy Wardana reds, his pale hair glittering in the light, pulled back from his face in an elaborate braid. I guess he’s dressed up for my execution.

Gazing determinedly to the side, he thrusts a bundle of white before him. Clothes.

I take the bundle with trembling hands. “What happens now?”

Casvian turns to answer and flushes, quickly pointing his gaze at the ceiling. “Pleaseget dressed.”

I turn my back to him and slip on the white overdress and white pants, a slim, flimsy shawl belted across my waist. High-ringer fashion, perhaps, but it seems a rather sacrificial look. “I’m dressed.”

“Hold out your hands.” He fishes a pair of chains from a bag at his waist and locks them around my wrists. Where does he think I’ll run? Casvian ushers me out the door, into the old city. Wardana are posted every fifty paces along the way across a spindly bridge.

I hiss. “What’s going to happen?”

He’s silent until we pass a short, mean-looking Wardana. “No one can reach Dalca.”

Dalca? He wants to talk about Dalca? I huff, though I can’t say I’m surprised. “Dalca’s fine. I’m the one being led to my death.”

“He’s gone to some dark place in his mind. It’s not like him.”

I shake my chained wrists at him. “At the moment I really can’t bring myself to care.”