Page 26 of The King’s Man #5

S hivers lurch up my middle as I fall through darkness and crash against a hard floor. I blink, and the inside of the regent’s dromveske takes form. I’m on shiny marble. Beside me is a purplish reflected glow—

I jerk my head up to an illuminated violet oak, sitting magnificently under an impressive stained-glass dome. I recognise the circular hall with its mosaic pillars and frescoed walls. This is the royal city’s luminarium.

I push up achily to my knees and frown at the scent hitting my nose. The luminarium should be filled with the spicy scents of incense, not—I cough and hurriedly slap a handkerchief over my nose—

“Not another one,” comes a grim voice from behind me and I spin on my knees into a ring of descending smoke. Through the clear centre I see a scruffy face puffing on a pipe. I startle into a baffled laugh and rise. “Lucius!”

Lucius rips the pipe out of his mouth. “Caelus?”

“There’s not much time. What are you doing here?”

“We’re all in here. ”

“All?”

He moves sharply toward the back of the luminarium and I follow, to the uneasy sight of all the islanders lying unconscious around the walls, their feet pointing towards the violet oak and their heads resting on... luminist robes?

I catch sight of Akilah and beside her the little girl. They too look lifeless, pale with the faintest green sheen at their throats... If their souls are like this, they’ll never return... I grab Akilah’s wrist and read her slow, sluggish pulse. “Siren poisoning?”

Lucius sighs. “We all fell inside at once. I recognised the scent of poison coming from the incense burners and covered my nose. Prince Nicostratus was the only other to stop inhaling in time. The rest collapsed within moments, even though the prince flew up there and smothered the source. Good you covered up; it still lingers.”

“Where is he now?” I say, alertly scanning all the bodies. I bolt to my feet. “Where’s Casimiria?”

“She was put in here days before the rest of us. One thing I can tell you, this dromveske has been made specifically for her. Her name is inscribed into each rune door. Which one she’s now behind—or stuck in—I don’t know. But the prince tried going after her.”

I frown and glance again at Akilah and the little girl. “You’ve been giving them serpentweed. To keep them alive.”

“Luckily the regent’s mind is detailed. There are luminist teas and scented sacks in storage. ”

Enough to find the herbs to keep the souls from withering to nothing, but not enough to bring them to life. “We need lullaby ash and nightshade essence.” I say and he agrees in surprise. “But to find them...”

I look down at the attire my soul clad me in this time. It’s the same as when I entered the dromveske with Quin. All things he’s given me, but no pouch of life-saving potions—I suppose that would’ve been too convenient.

I grimace. “I need to find Casimiria and the prince. I’ll search for the plants.”

Lucius guides me down a set of spiralling stairs that start behind the violet oak and end in the middle of a damp underground platform.

The platform is ringed on the outside by canal water and tunnels, and on the inside by a dozen rune doors.

Lantern light strung down the spiralling staircase casts a cold glow over them, and shines on another door tucked under the last round of stairs—the rune patterns. .. this door is the way out.

“You could have left this place,” I murmur.

“I’m a healer. I will save every life in here before my own.”

I swallow and my eyes prickle. “I used to think you were negligent. I remember my abhorrence at those fake spells.” I look at him and the pipe puff that barely masks his worried frown. “You taught me so much. If it weren’t for you, countless lives would be lost.”

I bow and he hurriedly stops me, his hand on my arm trembling subtly .

“I see why you mean the world to your brother,” I say, and... “He certainly takes after you.”

Around his pipe, he sighs fondly. “Little Florentius. It’d be nice to see him again.”

I ball my fist and stride across the damp platform to a dark blue door with golden symbols carved around the stone frame. With one emphatic nod at Lucius, I push open the door and enter... the luminarium all over again.

I’m standing before the violet oak, a slightly smaller version of it, and from beyond it comes a small sob.

Through gaps between branches, I spy two youths. A gangly boy in rich clothing, sniffing into his bent knees, and another with tight reddish-brown curls, who is approaching cautiously, his head cocked. “Boy,” he murmurs. “Why are you crying?”

The boy lifts his head and I see the sharp angles of Prince Valerian Aetherion—thinner and smooth faced, and not even fifteen years old. He slaps away his tears. “What are you looking at?”

The redheaded youth cups his hands, hiding something as his fingers begin to glitter with seeping magic. “Want to see something special?” Slowly, he parts his hands. A silver bud floats upwards and blossoms into a brilliant flower.

He waves his hand and the blossom sweeps to Valerian, who prods at the stem curiously only to have his finger sweep through glittery magic.

The prince tries to grab the blossom but it lifts just out of his reach .

“Who are you?” he says.

“Liandros!” someone calls out grumpily. “Stop shirking. Come here at once!” At approaching footsteps, Liandros hurriedly gets to his feet and his blossom bursts into a thousand sparkling specks that rain over the prince. “That’s me,” he whispers with a mischievous laugh.

The prince snaps out his hand and steals a handful of his cloak; he pauses—

“Liandros!”

Liandros jumps at the shout. “Sorry, I have to go. Come back again tomorrow!”

Prince Valerian stares after him and slowly stands, smiling softly as he dusts himself free of lingering sparkles.

The luminarium begins to fade and I quickly race once around, looking for Casimiria or the prince. I duck through the rune door just as the last of the colour leaches out and emerge onto the underground platform with its tepid scent of canal water. I bolt for the next rune door.

Again, the luminarium. Again, no sign of my missing souls. Again, a short scene between Valerian and Liandros. This time they’re sitting on the violet oak, Liandros spreading his magic into the tree to make it bloom with silver blossoms.

“Do you really want to become the grand luminist after your father?” Valerian murmurs, taking in the dazzling sight.

Liandros hums, smiling softly as he looks up at the radiating light from his magic. It streams toward the glass dome, illuminating it. “We have to make sure this pure light never wanes.” He swings from his branch to Valerian’s. “You know about the Dawn War, right?”

“We were outnumbered twenty to one; our soldiers pulled off a godly feat to save our land.”

“Luminists might not be trained in sentinian magic, or in combat, but our luminariums won us this war. We worked hard to infuse our violet oaks and then sacrificed hundreds of them to make talismans so our linea commanders had a near-unlimited source of magic.”

“There aren’t many trees left.”

“Even the tribute boxes sitting in place of those sacrificed trees hold immeasurable amounts of magic. As much as is given by our linea people. But you’re right. It’s less now than it was. I want to change that. I want to bring all the luminariums back to their former glory.”

“There are fewer linea to do that.”

Liandros bows his head with a sigh; Valerian reaches out with a trembling hand and pulls back just before stroking Liandros’s face.

The next rune door.

Liandros shows off his strengthening magic and Valerian sneaks wyverns into the luminarium crypt, showing off his control over the animals. Together, over their teenage years, they practice their magics in the underbelly of the luminarium.

I race through these memories, searching to no avail for Casimiria and Nicostratus, stealing cakes, dry teas, luminist incense.

One door shows a memory I’ve seen before, through King Yngvarr’s dromveske, but this time the memory is Valerian’s.

He’s trying to win an ounce of his brother’s respect by teasing the prins, submerging him and the mask he was whittling in leaves.

I see Casimiria through his eyes too: a feisty, vibrant woman who captures his brother’s eye and, Valerian notices, his brother’s breath.

The scene, though, ends differently for Valerian.

I follow him back to the manor with the summoned prince, only to see him immediately dismissed by his father.

Alone, he slouches his way back to his best friend.

Liandros is a bounce of curly hair as he spots Valerian and races across a smaller luminarium to greet him. “Thank you for inviting me here! It’s wonderful—what’s wrong?”

Valerian tells him about the tree, being told he wasn’t being smart, and Liandros pulls him into a hug. “That prins deserves it. He’s always scoffing at our beliefs. Yesterday I was just trying to enlighten him, and he waved his knife at me.”

Valerian stiffens at this and his jaw clenches noticeably. “How dare he!”

Liandros pulls out of the hug with a glittery smile.

“What?”

“I love how protective you are of me.... ”

Through the next rune door, Valerian watches from a distance Liandros playfully magicking blossoms onto the tree Valerian stripped of leaves.

Prins Yngvarr passes by, bumping into a row of flowers, and they burst. Liandros calls out for him to apologise, and Prins Yngvarr stops, jumps up into the tree and shakes the branches until all the blossoms burst. Then he leaves a deflated Liandros behind.

Valerian rushes to his friend, leaping gracefully into the tree to perch beside him. Liandros leans into the prince’s opening arms and rests his head against his shoulder. “I’m always most comfortable here.”

Valerian flushes and he quietly breathes in Liandros’s curly hair—