Page 52

Chapter Seventeen

Daeros—Tenebris

Aelia is having tea with Saga when I return from my morning’s scouting, dusty from the vents and hungry for lunch. Both of them look up mildly as I hop down into the room, used to my random appearances. I stretch out my aching back and cramped legs, then join them at the tea table.

“Brynja, you’re filthy,” says Saga, but makes room for me anyway and hands me a scone.

Then she and Aelia go back to conversing about improvements to the orphan house, and how, hopefully, when the treaty is finally signed, some of the war funds can be reallocated there.

I listen with only half an ear, trying not to be jealous at their closeness.

Vil bursts into the room not a minute later, his feet bare and hair damp, wearing seemingly little besides a red robe belted tight across his waist—he’s clearly come from the middle of his bath.

Aelia’s face flushes deeper bronze, but he doesn’t have the draw for me he did in Staltoria City. He hasn’t in a long while.

“What is it, Vil?” asks Saga.

He takes a breath, and I register the panic in his eyes. “I’ve been told an ambassadorial party has just arrived from Iljaria.”

I stare at him, my heart slamming against my breastbone. “The Iljaria? What are they doing here?”

He shakes his head, grim. “That’s not even the worst part. It isn’t just any ambassador.”

Breathe, I tell myself firmly. Breathe.

“It’s the Prism Master.”

“It still bothers you, doesn’t it,” says Vil quietly as we pace together down the corridor, a change in the air.

My heart beats, beats. The Iljaria are here. The Prism Master is here . Kallias is to formally receive him in the great hall, with all of us present. We barely had time to change, and I’m pretty sure I’m still dusty from the vents.

I have to fight for enough presence of mind to reply to Vil. “What does?”

“Indridi’s death. The fact that I was going to take her life, before she took it herself.”

Her face blurs in my memory, stained with fire and dust. For a moment it shakes everything else free. I answer him honestly. “It will always bother me, Vil. She was my friend.”

He nods unhappily. “I know it’s been ..

. a lot. What happened on the road. The awfulness of being here again.

I haven’t been fair to you lately, and I’m sorry.

But I haven’t forgotten what was forged between us in Skaanda, and I want you to know—I need you to know—that I need you.

I want you by my side, through everything. ”

I stare at Vil and I feel nothing; I am utterly blank.

What I saw in him as protection was his need for control, to have everything in its right and proper place, including me.

But that is not what I want, not what I long for, even though I thought it was for a while.

Gods above and below, I can’t do this. “Not now, Vil. Please.”

He takes a breath. “You’re right. Forgive me. But we’ll talk later?”

I try to smile, but it feels like all of me is fracturing apart.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Vil goes on, anxious to reassure me. “The Prism Master being here doesn’t change our plans.”

“How can it not?” I bunch the fabric of my bronze dress in one hand, hating that I’m wearing the colors of the mutilated god.

It’s better, though, than going to meet the Prism Master wearing the multicolored dress, which was Saga’s first idea.

She thought it would honor him, but it would be the worst kind of arrogance.

“The Prism Master is here for a reason,” I say quietly. “And I think we can both guess what that reason is.”

“The weapon,” he sighs.

“The weapon.”

Vil massages his forehead. “But why now, after all this time? What can he even be planning to do? Unless it’s about us. Unless Indridi got word to them somehow before she—” He cuts himself off. “Red God damn me.”

Pity and grief twist sharp. “And why wouldn’t she have?” I say tightly. “She was the enemy. Isn’t that what you said?”

“And we’re about to meet the man who sent her to spy on us. But why now? It’s been hundreds of years since the Iljaria lived in this mountain.”

“The Prism Master is hundreds of years old himself, isn’t he? The Iljaria can afford to be patient.”

“I always forget how long they live. I always forget that they’re essentially different creatures than us.”

Something vicious and feral rears up inside me. “Was Indridi a different creature , Vil?”

He hangs his head and doesn’t answer.

I don’t want to talk about Indridi anymore, or the Prism Master, either. Be calm, I tell myself. Be still. I grasp for something else to say. “What do you plan to do with the weapon, Vil? When you rule Daeros.”

He clenches and unclenches his jaw. “Rule justly. I would never seize Skaanda from Saga—I hope you know that. Daeros would truly be an extension of Skaanda. I would still be under Saga’s rule.”

“Does that bother you?”

“A little,” he admits. “But I would be content, I think, with Daeros.”

“The weapon, Vil.”

“I would defend the peninsula from the Aeronan Empire.”

“Aelia won’t like that .”

“What do I care what Aelia likes?”

“She certainly didn’t mind seeing you in your bathrobe.”

Vil scowls at me. “I’d keep Skaanda safe, and keep the Iljaria at bay.”

“Keep them at bay, or conquer them?”

We walk in silence a few moments, our shoes thudding on cold stone.

“I suppose it depends,” he says.

“On what?”

He takes a breath, eyes locking hard on mine. “On what the weapon can do. On how powerful it is.”

I have no time to answer; we reach the great hall and step in through the double doors, and it is both a relief and a horror.

Kallias lounges on his ivory throne, which has been centered against the glass wall.

All the sky and stars are at his back, as if they, too, are under his control.

Ballast stands beside his father, dressed in blue and gray, a gold circlet pressed onto his white-and-black hair.

My heart stutters at the sight of him, and I hate that I have not yet taught it to be quiet.

Aelia must have arrived just ahead of us; she’s taking her place beside Kallias and Ballast, her white-and-rose skirt pooling on the marble floor like confectioner’s cream. Vil and I cross the room in her wake. We bow before the king and Kallias smiles at me, slick and cruel.

“Just in time,” he says.

I turn to face the doors as the Iljaria envoys sweep into the hall like great birds of prey.

Their leader is jarringly, eerily familiar, and Vil curses under his breath at the sight of him—it’s the arrogant young Iljaria man whose company we passed on the road.

His hair is still bound in long white braids, crimped at the end with intricately carved metal beads.

He wears a shirt of thin silver silk, with loose trousers and jeweled sandals, as though he walks the southern shores of the world, where it’s said snow has never once fallen.

A jewel bound to his forehead glints every color, and yet none, all at once.

He is the Prism Master, and his magic is even stronger than I remember from our previous encounter. It writhes round him in tangles of violet and orange, silver and green. It twists and twists, never still. He could tell the universe to heel, I think, and it would have to obey him.

Four other Iljaria follow him, different from his companions on the road.

They are dressed in green, white, red, and gray, respectively, and like the Prism Master’s, their robes are made of thin silk.

Jewels are bound to their foreheads, each the color of their robes, their magic, and tattoos swirl up their arms. Their presence and their power suffocate me.

Kallias rises lazily from his throne as the Prism Master and his entourage stop a handful of paces away, but gives no word of greeting.

I bow without meaning to, sinking low, low to the floor, and I realize we all are, even Ballast, even Kallias. Because the Prism Master has compelled us with his magic.

I rise again, trying to think around my anger and the mad pulse of my heart. I am so, so tired, of being controlled.

The Prism Master makes no bow in return, his eyes flicking impassively across all our faces. Surely he remembers Vil and me from the road.

His magic chokes me; I have to fight for breath.

“Welcome to my mountain, High Master,” says Kallias. “Welcome to Tenebris.” His tone is casual, but I can see the rage in him, and I want to laugh. He is not used to being in someone else’s control.

“Tenebris does not belong to you,” says the Prism Master. His voice is cool. Dismissive. “It has come to my attention that a truce is being negotiated between Daeros and Skaanda. That concerns Iljaria. I am here to preside over these negotiations.”

“We did not ask you to come,” says Vil.

The Prism Master’s gaze fixes on him. “I never did catch your name, Forsaken one.”

Vil grinds his jaw. “I am Vilhjalmur Stjornu, crown prince of Skaanda. I thought you were going to the shrine in the mountains. Since when does anything of actual importance on this peninsula concern the Iljaria, Prism Master ?”

One side of the Prism Master’s mouth turns up. “We do not dirty our hands with your wars, Vilhjalmur Stjornu, but that does not mean we are not watching.” He turns to Kallias. “Is this your welcome of me, little king?”

I think Kallias might implode. He gives the Iljaria man a thin smile. “I met the Prism Master nigh on a decade ago now, here in my mountain . You are not him, or you have lost all sense of courtesy since then. Can you change your shape by magic, too, when you grow tired of it?”

A muscle jumps in the Prism Master’s face—Kallias has scored a point. “It was my father, Hinrik Eldingar, who you met before.”

My mouth goes dry. The Prism Master’s oppressive magic is making my head spin.

“And what is your name, sir?” asks Aelia, fearless and angry. “I will give you mine: Aelia Cloelia Naeus, imperial heir of Aerona. I am proceeding over these negotiations on behalf of the empire. Iljaria is not needed here.”

He barely looks at her, his gaze fixed on Kallias. “Iljaria goes where Iljaria wishes. You all are so small, your lives so fleeting, like moths, like worms. You forget the whole of this peninsula belongs to the Iljaria. That our ancestors created the world. That your gods still walk among you.”

Vil gives a cry of outrage at this flagrant heresy. I grab his arm to keep him from lunging at the Prism Master.

“Are you so far above us, then, that you have no name?”

I glance at Ballast in surprise. He stares down the Prism Master with his one eye, unafraid. I can sense the anger beneath his skin, raging and wild, barely contained.

The Prism Master turns his sharp smile on Ballast. “Do you think to challenge me, half blood?”

“Forgive my son,” says Kallias. “I have not yet taught him to respect authority.”

My stomach turns over. I’m going to be sick, and gods I can’t breathe .

“We are happy to receive you in Daeros,” Kallias goes on.

“Allow us to honor you with a feast and ball tonight. Tomorrow, we will revisit the terms of peace between Daeros and Skaanda presided over by Aerona”—he nods at Aelia—“and Iljaria. Witnessed by myself and my heir, Ballast Vallin, as well as Prince Vilhjalmur and Princess Astridur Sindri of Skaanda.”

The earth is falling out from beneath my feet. No matter what Vil says, the Iljaria being here utterly ruins his plans. There is still more than a month to go before the end of Gods’ Fall and the arrival of the Skaandan army.

“Very well,” says the Prism Master. I find his eyes suddenly fixed on me, like he’s trying, for a moment, to see straight through my skin.

Then his gaze returns to Kallias, and I nearly collapse to the floor with relief.

“My name is Brandr Eldingar,” he says. “Do not mistake my intentions, Kallias of Daeros. I will attend your dinners and dance your dances, but I am here to reorder the universe according to my will. You will fall in line. Or you will be crushed.”

And the Prism Master turns and stalks from the room, the other Iljaria behind him. Their magic lingers on in the air, even when they are gone.

For a moment silence reigns, Vil and I, Aelia, Ballast, and Kallias all brought to the same level.

Then Kallias curses and slams his fist into Ballast’s jaw. Ballast falls, his gold circlet knocked loose from his head and clattering on the marble. I grab his hands and pull him to his feet again without thinking. It’s a terrible, terrible mistake.

I release him the next second, but Kallias glances between us, a smile on his lips.

Worse, perhaps, is the thundercloud on Vil’s brow.