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Chapter Twenty-Three

Daeros—Tenebris

Candlesticks gleam bright on Kallias’s dining table, every one of them lit with magic. They spark purple and green, silver and blue, a few a writhing, eerie black. I wonder which of the Iljaria lit the candles, or if it was just my brother, with a casual snap of his fingers.

He sits at the head of the table in Kallias’s place, dressed in a thin silk robe of green and yellow. I’m on his right, Ballast’s usual chair, and I’m the only one in the room wearing furs, because I don’t have my magic to warm me.

I try not to think about Ballast, somewhere below me, locked in agony.

I try not to think of Saga and Vil, Pala and Leifur, cursing the day I was born.

I try not to think about my magic, about why it’s still locked deep inside me even though my father is gone.

The magic he used to change my hair must have been of a lesser kind than the sort he used to bind my power.

I am afraid that without him, I won’t be able to get it back.

I try not to think about all those things. I fail utterly.

There are about twenty-five Iljaria around the table, each with a gem the color of their main power bound to their foreheads. I wonder absently if they’ve brought a bronze gem for me to wear on my own forehead, or if I even have the right to wear one, when I have no magic at my command.

I don’t recognize anyone at the table, and my heart sinks when I realize I’m searching in vain for my mother, an aunt, a cousin, someone . But these people—my own people—are nothing more than strangers to me.

Brandr introduces me to a few of them, including the woman who was with us earlier in the mountain’s heart—Gróa, Brandr’s scribe—and a man called Drengur, Brandr’s steward, who can’t be many years older than Brandr and me. Drengur has dark-brown skin, with swirls of white tattooed on his arms.

Kallias didn’t know, of course, that Brandr had brought so many of our people with him. The larger part of the Iljaria stayed hidden in an ice cave a ways out from the mountain, and Brandr snuck them into the palace a few at a time, concealing them with his magic.

I’m not entirely sure what’s been done about the Daerosian army encampment, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Brandr has another host of Iljaria relieving them of their weapons and herding them into prison at this very moment.

The thought of prison sends me right back to Ballast and Saga and Vil.

I don’t dare ask Brandr to remove Ballast’s collar—not after their earlier exchange.

My brother fears Ballast’s power. I sensed that, from their first meeting.

I still mean to go and free him of it, as soon as I can slip away from dinner.

I have no illusions that he’ll be on my side.

He offered his hand of cards, but I didn’t offer mine because I’m the one who had the Ghost God card.

Now I’ve played it, and I can’t help but think that everyone has lost the game, even me. Especially me.

I haven’t decided what to do about Saga and Vil. I never wanted them to hate me. And I never wanted to care what anyone thought about me, but I do care. I’ve always cared, no matter how hard I denied it. The caring twists through me like hot knives, and I hate myself.

Polite conversation ripples around the table, most of it regarding the success of our people’s endeavors in retaking Tenebris—without any reference to me—and of plans to reshape and rebuild the land in the aftermath of unleashing the Yellow Lord’s power.

The Iljaria whose patrons are the Green Lady and the Brown Lady will be very much in demand, but everyone’s magic will be put to use.

All this is discussed so mildly it makes my insides squirm.

Is this really what the First Ones want?

Annihilation of everything that has gone before, a wholly new beginning?

Surely the magic wound into the stones of our most ancient cities will protect them, but in the fury of the Yellow Lord’s power—everything else will be reduced to ashes.

I can’t understand why this seems to mean nothing to my kinsfolk. It’s like we are stones, changing little with time, not heeding the fates of the mayflies who live and die all around us. Maybe it’s my own fault, for pretending to be a mayfly. But I don’t want to be a stone.

I flick my eyes to Brandr. “How did our father die?” I’m not sure it’s a safe question, but then I doubt that any of my questions are safe ones.

My brother takes a sip of wine from a silver goblet and glances over at me as he sets it back on the table. He’s lined his eyes with bright-blue kohl, which makes him look both dangerous and regal. I can’t help but think that blue is Ballast’s color.

“He died of old age,” Brandr says.

“But he wasn’t old,” I object. “Not even three hundred.”

The Iljaria sitting nearest us cease their conversation and frown at me for arguing with my brother. They don’t know what to do with me. What to think about me.

Brandr gives a careless shrug. “The burden of Prism Master weighed heavily on him. I suppose it was too much for him, at the last.”

Frustration buzzes through me. Our father was the strongest, most powerful man I have ever met. He ought to have lived another century at least. “Did he—did he ... did he send any messages with you?”

Brandr frowns. “Messages?”

I force down my anger, my hurt. “I thought he might want to say goodbye.” I don’t say what I really wanted from my father: for him to tell me he missed me, for him to acknowledge and regret my sacrifice. Something, anything, to show that he cared.

Brandr waves a dismissive hand. “He bid you farewell when you left us, Brynja. We all did. Why would he need to say it again?”

I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. “What about Mother? Did she—”

“There are other things to discuss besides our family, sister. We bore the rest of the company.”

Brandr’s scribe, Gróa, and steward, Drengur, give me matching thin smiles, emphasizing Brandr’s point.

I ignore them. “ I want to know about our family. I haven’t seen them in over a decade. How is our mother? How was Father before he died? What’s become of Lilja’s inventions? Is Sparrow still hunting mice in the garden?” The memory of my cat makes my heart pinch.

“Brynja.” Brandr’s tone is cold and final. “We will not discuss this now.”

I can’t help myself, growing more frantic by the moment. “What about you? How did you develop your magic enough to become Prism Master?”

“He worked very hard,” says Gróa, who sits opposite me. “The power was in him always. It’s what made him weak, until he learned to control it.” Her voice is cool and smooth, and she looks to Brandr with undisguised admiration.

“Father trained me,” says Brandr. “After he was done with you.”

Resentment bubbles up in me at the bitterness in his words.

Here is the Brandr I remember—but what does he have to be bitter about anymore?

He wasn’t sent away and forgotten, wasn’t sacrificed for the greater good.

He’s shed his weakness like a butterfly bursting from a cocoon.

He has power now. He has everything he ever wanted.

I take a deep breath and ask another question I know isn’t safe. “Father locked my magic away inside of me. Can you unlock it?”

Brandr gives me an infuriatingly indulgent smile. “We will discuss it later, Brynja.” He turns to speak to Gróa, who gladly soaks in his attention.

“I have sent word to Her Majesty,” Gróa tells him, putting one hand on my brother’s arm and tracing his tattoos with her fingers.

“I expect her reply via blue kestrel within a day, possibly two, with her arriving shortly after. Drengur and I will of course ready the grandest rooms for her we can find.”

“The queen is coming here ?” I blurt.

Brandr frowns but doesn’t answer.

Gróa looks at me with utter condescension. “Naturally our queen wishes to be present at the Yellow Lord’s unleashing and the long-awaited cleansing of our world.”

“Did you think our father orchestrated this entire plot alone?” Brandr asks me pointedly. “Did you think I was here against our queen’s will? I am not the ruler of the Iljaria.”

You’re certainly acting like it, I want to tell him, but don’t quite dare.

For the remainder of the dinner, Brandr ignores me.

Drengur, Brandr’s steward, tells me briefly about how his power of music—his patron is the White Lady—is actually more useful than I might think.

If one’s magic is strong—which his is—the vibrations of musical notes can be used to manipulate and move matter, similar to the power of the Brown Lady, although her power is generally limited to earth and rock.

When I don’t display the correct amount of awe at this explanation, he tires of me quickly and turns to speak with someone else.

I have outlived my usefulness, I suppose. Fulfilled my duty. And what good am I now, an Iljaria with no magic? Not even worth the effort of conversation.

As soon as dinner is over, I catch Brandr’s arm and pull him into an alcove off the main corridor, where wine bottles are locked in a wood-and-glass cabinet. Their scent permeates the air, sweet and strong.

“Can you unlock my magic or not?” I demand, not even attempting to hide my anger.

Brandr jerks his sleeve from my grasp, magic crackling over his skin. He’s angry, too, and his anger terrifies me. “Your magic has nothing to do with me. It never has.”

I’m thrown back to our childhood, him shut up in his rooms with his books, me making the plates and silverware dance out of their cupboards in the kitchen, seeing how many I could keep track of at once.

The answer was all. All of them, until a servant came in and startled me and every last one came crashing to the floor.