Page 25 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame (Heir of Wyvara #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

AMEIRAH

W yfell was a large city surrounded by sand-blasted grass and rolling hills. It sprawled across the road that flowed from the north, all the way down past Morysen, through the forestland of Willow Green, and right to the coast where Ship’s Ruin chewed up trade vessels and spat them out in pieces. Whatever ones made it through the dangerous inlet put their wares on wagons and ended up here.

Wyfell was a loud, fragrant, chaotic trade hub and the market that sprawled across most of the southern part of the city was the epitome of those traits. Outside the mark-scribe’s impressive tent, vendors yelled at the top of their lungs, customers yelled back until voices broke, and the smells of fish, spices, raw meat, log fires, and sweat invaded the hushed space inside the thick canvas. It was a reverent place, where bonds were inked in skin and relationships revealed themselves in sketches of magic. I’d never been anywhere like it.

I’d been excited to get my mark this morning, but now my stomach tangled with nerves. What if my mark was a skull for the death I dealt? What if it was just a huge X because our marriage was going to fail? Across the tent at another scribe’s station, a woman burst into tears. That really wasn’t helping.

I jumped when Varidian rested a broad hand on the small of my back, warmth seeping into me. His closeness and reassuring presence made me feel better, and the way his eyes fixed on me even in a tent full of activity and hushed reverence made me feel… beautiful. Even if the borrowed leather trousers I wore had rubbed my thighs and the jacket pinched my boobs until my breathing was an issue. When Varidian looked at me, I felt like a different person.

“Nervous?” he asked in a murmur.

I bit the inside of my lip. I debated lying, but I wasn’t the best at concealing my emotions. “I wasn’t until I got here. But this is all so…”

“Intimidating?”

“Yes.” I shrank at a glare from the old man preparing his station to ink us both, the enforced quiet around us like being in a library.

“I’m right here with you.” Varidian’s lips brushed the top of my head. “It will only hurt at first.”

“I know.” I’d read enough books to know the process, but my stomach still flopped when the man motioned me forward and I took a seat at the high desk.

“Remove this,” he said briskly, tapping my glove.

“If I remove that, I’ll kill you,” I replied, my nerves making me blunt. I shifted in the uncomfortable wooden chair, dreading his reaction.

“Fascinating,” the scribe replied and seemed to mean it. Strange. “Where do you want your mark?”

“Here.” I unfastened my leather coat and slid it off my shoulders, tapping my upper arm.

The man nodded, his eyes focused and serious beneath exceptionally bushy black eyebrows, his brown face littered with smile lines despite the fact he seemed more likely to curse than laugh. “It will hurt for an hour, then the sting will fade. Don’t scream; it disturbs the peace.”

Varidian’s hands settled on my shoulders, warm and comforting.

“I won’t scream,” I told the mark-scribe, though I couldn’t quite pull off the bravado when he filled a wickedly sharp glass pen with ink that ebbed and flowed like the ocean. Its colour was pure black, but there was a glimmer to it like labradorite and opals. Like magic. I held my breath when he set the sharp tip to my skin and punctured my arm.

I stiffened at the bite of pain, but the nerves that tangled in my stomach were so distracting I barely even noticed the sting after a few seconds. Unlike a normal tattoo, a marriage mark was formed of magic and the ink had a will of its own. Once the pen’s tip pierced my arm, the black ink flowed and pooled under my skin. It shifted like a living thing, forming shapes that were swiftly whisked apart to form others, changing over and over. The pen dragged up my arm and punched again, the magic crashing over and over like waves against a shore, trying to form a shape.

“You’re a stubborn couple, I see,” the mark-scribe muttered. His eyes flicked up to me, then Varidian. “Or a powerful one.”

“Both,” I said, gritting my teeth when the second puncture concentrated the sharp scratch of pain until my arm throbbed. The third was even worse. It took four punctures for the magic to gather into a stable shape, for the scribe to nod in satisfaction, and withdraw the wicked tip of the pen.

“What is it?” Varidian breathed, rounding the chair to peer at my arm where the magic settled into a wyvern whose wings were formed of sharp curves and wicked points, its body a dagger, the tail a razor-point. It was sharp and beautiful all at once, its wings like swirls of shadow. Wyverns were symbols of a love so powerful they could bring the sky to its feet. I stared at the mark and all my fears swirled away, a strange rush of emotion making my eyes sting, my throat swell.

“I love it,” I breathed.

“Right, husband next,” the scribe barked.

Varidian caressed his thumb over the mark on my arm, brushing away a drop of blood as I stood. I couldn’t stop looking at the marriage mark even as I rested my hands on Varidian’s shoulders like he did for me.

“I want mine here,” he told the small, bushy-eyebrowed man, unfastening his coat and the tunic beneath a few buttons.

“Over your heart. How original.” There was a heavy dose of cynicism in the scribe’s voice, but I barely noticed, my whole body warming at my husband’s choice of placement. It was still a little surreal that he was mine and I got to touch him, keep him, make love to him. I ducked my face to kiss the crown of his head simply because I could.

Varidian tensed when the pen made its first cut, but that was the only sign he showed of pain, sitting in silence while the mark-scribe worked. It took the same number of punctures for his ink to settle, a fact that pleased me. We were equal in both strength and stubbornness. When the scribe sat back and began cleaning his supplies, I moved to look at the black mark on Varidian’s chest. Where the tip of my wyvern’s tail was as sharp as a dagger’s end, his was serrated, a jagged bolt.

His throat bobbed as he looked down at it and, wordless, he quickly buttoned his jacket.

In a move lacking subtlety, the mark-scribe slid a little wooden bowl across the table. Varidian dropped several gold coins into it, and it struck me as bizarre that they bore the king’s face and I was now part of the king’s family.

“Thank you,” Varidian said, a little stiffness to his voice. I rested my hand on his arm, concern furrowing my brows. It couldn’t have been easy to function when he’d just lost his friend, no matter how convincingly he pretended to be fine. I slid my hand down to his hand and entwined our fingers.

But the exchange of money did remind me of an earlier concern. As we left the hushed atmosphere of the scribe tent for the deafening chaos of the market, I said, “I want my own income.”

Varidian glanced down at me in surprise. “Dearling, I have more money than I could possibly have use for. Anything you want is yours.”

“What I want is my own income. How do you have so much money anyway? You’re hardly fond of the king so I doubt he’s lavished fortunes upon you.”

“He tried, and I refused them,” Varidian confirmed, guiding me through the throng of vendors and shoppers, his head lifted as he searched the stalls. “All the money I have is Marrakchi money from my real family. I have an eye for business and investing; that’s where my money has come from, plus the meagre allowance I get as a rider.” He drew me closer when a woman barged past us, a basket overflowing persimmons in her hands. “But if you want your own money, of course you’ll have it. Will you stab me if I offer an allowance?”

“Without hesitation.”

Varidian’s smile was swift and real, and I felt a sense of accomplishment for putting it on his face. “You can have any job you want, work in any sector that draws you. The Red Star is known for its glue, book binding, and quartz.”

My eyes widened as I stared up at his strong jaw. “Book binding?”

His smile deepened, his eyes still scouring the market. “How did I know that would take your interest? If you’re lucky, they might even let you bind the filthy books.”

I jabbed his side. I could bind sweet, sugary romance too.

He laughed. “My mum knows the bibliopegist’s wife; she can set you up when we get home.”

I gasped. “You know the word bibliopegist.”

His head bent towards mine, breath feathering over my mouth, instantly erotic. “Does that make you hot, dearling?”

I grazed my lips over his full bottom lip. “Very.”

“Out of the way, love-fools,” a coarse male barked, and we ducked aside just in time to avoid getting a box of sardines thrown over us.

Varidian and I glanced at each other and laughter bubbled up easily, the events of the last few days very far away for the moment. It was like he hadn’t been missing, hadn’t been trapped in a storm, and this was the day after our wedding. We exchanged soft glances and teasing words as we made our way from one market road to another, stopping at a table full of ink pots to pick up a dark gold liquid for Nabil. The Azizi colour, I noticed. I’d never been particularly attached to my house colours, had never felt any pride in them.

A hint of secrecy brightened Varidian’s face with mischief as he guided us from the row of paper and ink vendors, through a winding path that told me he’d been here often, ending up at a row of tanners, clothiers, and fabric merchants.

“What are you up to?” I asked with a sideways look, enjoying the warmth of the sun overhead.

“Nothing at all, dearling,” he replied, kissing my temple. His hand had never left mine since we left the mark-scribe’s tent. The mark on my arm stung, but it was a pleasant reminder that I was married, wanted, and accepted for all I was. It was the best kind of pain I’d experienced.

I tried not to look at the stalls full of beautiful, embellished headscarves, but I couldn’t quite stop my stare lingering on one in particular—a fine cotton weave dyed a gradient of purple and crimson, embroidered with suns, stars, and moons. It was like someone had cut a swath of the night sky and sewn it into submission. It twinkled like true stars. I had to physically pull myself away.

No scarf would change who I was, and no matter how I resented her, Xiu was right. It wouldn’t make me fit in when I was the child of an Ithanysian father and a mother from fuck knows where.

I finally realised just what Varidian had planned when we stopped at a massive tailor’s stall hung all over with leather pants, tunics, and coats in every possible colour. My stomach fluttered with a mixture of excitement and discomfort.

“Varidian, this is madness. The sheer cost—”

“Delights me, because spoiling my wife fulfils a soul-deep need.”

Sneaky bastard. I could hardly argue with that.

I smothered my wry smile as the tall, stately woman—who’d clearly been expecting us—shooed me into the tent behind her stall. The interior smelled of leather and talc, a pleasant scent that filled my lungs as the seamstress fluttered around me, barking measurements at the young boy, presumably her son, who waited outside with a notepad and pen. Once she’d poked and prodded me to her satisfaction, my measurements determined, she urged me back outside to choose which leather I wanted made into flight clothes. My head spun a little. I got the sense this woman never sat still for a second of her life; she certainly didn’t like the moment’s delay I took to choose a colour. My surname was now Saber, so purple was a no-brainer, but I hesitated. I certainly couldn’t get far enough away from the Jaouhari gold.

“That dark red there,” I said when the tailor began to tap her foot, scanning the numbers her son had inked in the notebook. The leather was so dark it was almost black, the colour of dried blood. “Can it be sewn with crimson thread?”

For the first time the woman smiled. “Finally, someone with a unique vision. Yes, it can. I can embroider a design across the breast of the jacket and down the leg if you desire.”

The picture formed in my head, and my covetous heart beat faster. But I glanced at Varidian. “I don’t know, that seems exp—”

He silenced me with a kiss, which was both frustrating and hot.

“Tell the woman your desire,” he said with the iron tone of an order. “Anything you desire.”

I debated calling him mad, but he already knew what I thought of that. Instead, I let the vision in my head flow and looked at the swath of deep red leather as if I could already see the twin vipers sewn into it. The seamstress grinned as she took down every detail. My husband simmered with smugness, a lightness even reaching his eyes.

“It could cost you a small fortune,” I told Varidian when we walked away, his arm slung over my shoulder, my side glued to his. “You do realise that?”

“I do, and it thrills me.”

“You could spend it on something worthwhile—”

“There’s nothing more worthwhile than my wife’s happiness. Or her safety atop my wyvern.”

“Like rebuilding the Last Guard or feeding the hungry. Isn’t that your duty as prince of Ithanys?”

“I’m very close to being stripped of that title, but you’re right, and I already have a sizable donation leaving my vault. Let me spoil you, Ameirah. I want to.”

I gave him a dry look and shrugged. “If you want to be irresponsible with your—”

A shout cracked through the souk like a thunderclap and I jumped. All levity left Varidian’s face, his body snapping into alertness and readiness to battle. Another roar came, then another, gathering volume in a ripple effect—voices raised in surprise, then shouts of alarm, and other, louder calls that sounded like warriors giving commands.

I peered up at Varidian, uneasy. “Is there a legion here…?”

“There shouldn’t be,” he replied, tucking me tighter into his side. “A handful of riders live in Wyfell, but I don’t see why they’d be shouting commands.”

Because they were commands; I could hear them now. Be calm, do not panic, join us in the Solemn Square for an urgent announcement.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Varidian muttered, his head swivelling, trying to find the source of the commands. “You don’t leave my side until we know what’s happening. If this is a legion, we follow orders until we can get back to Mak.”

“Do you recognise his voice?” I asked, jumping when the panicked cries surged louder, the commands suddenly closer like the market crowd had parted for someone.

“Move to the Solemn Square for an important announcement,” a male voice yelled, magic amplifying his gruff voice. “Stay calm, all will be explained.”

The crowd parted and I caught a split second glimpse of who spoke—a tall, bearded man wrapped in a floor-length coat in fabric so black it was like he’d dressed in ink, a matching hood pulled over his face. Not rider leathers. On the breast of the coat the clergy symbol was sewn in silver, a minaret surrounded by stars, but I’d never seen a clergy dress like this before. Or issue orders like a legion rider or ground warrior.

A shiver went down my spine, worsening when I realised there wasn’t only one man; there were twenty clergy, herding shoppers and vendors alike, as if we were sheep.

“I’ve seen them before,” Varidian whispered, his head dipped so only I heard. “This is the third time I’ve seen them, but I’ve never seen more than four of them in one place. Or so far from the wall. They’re escalating.”

“Who are they?” My heart hammered a rapid beat into my ribs. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck. I sensed nothing but calm from Varidian, not even the bond of the marriage mark suggesting he was worried. I wished I could hide my panic as well.

“We thought they were Kaldic at first.” He stiffened when the flow of people turned, bodies pressing closer to us, everyone tense with fear. “They attacked a border town when it refused to accept their rule. We thought the tiger riders were conquering the border for themselves, but now…”

“They’re wearing the same clothes as the rider at the Last Guard.”

He began to reply but we were caught up in the surge of movement and he mashed me to his side, his arm like solid metal around me. “We follow commands for now, do whatever they say, and wait to plan our move. They’re outnumbered by civilians, but we don’t know what they’ll do when crossed.”

Fear crouched on my chest, pushing all the air out of it. I nodded and jumped when a woman clutching a young girl rushed past me, sensing what I did—that no clergy in those numbers had our best interests at heart. I’d known clergymen all my life, had known the kindest men and the most cunning, but none had ever assembled in these numbers and ushered a whole city's population towards the square. Even in the council, only ten clergy gathered at once. Whatever this announcement was, I knew it wouldn’t be good news.

Had Kalder breached the Wall of Hydaran? Was this an elite unit of clergy riders summoned to deal with them? But then why wouldn’t Varidian know about it, as a commander of a legion? None of this made sense. Clergy were lawmakers and holy men. They didn’t yell commands; they didn’t need to.

We followed the flow of the crowd, anticipation and confusion like a black cloud in the air until I could no longer smell saffron and cooked meats and raw fish; all I smelled was sweat and fear and the comforting amber and oud scent of my husband.

“What do we do if they’re Kaldic?” I whispered to him when we turned a corner, close enough to the square now that the volume of voices rose.

His eyes were troubled, a darker shade of blue when he looked at me. “If this turns ugly, I want you to run to Mak. He’ll take you to the Red Star where you can warn the legion.”

“I won’t leave without you.” The thought made me sick so soon after accepting he’d died.

Varidian’s expression sharpened as the square finally spread out before us, and the true horror was revealed—thousands of civilians faced a flight of stone steps to a platform where a musical performance had clearly been taking place. Instruments had been abandoned, a lute discarded on the platform beside drums and a hadjuj. So many black-clad figures stood on the platform, yet more among the crowd, keeping people calm. Or afraid.

“How many?” I whispered to Varidian, cold dousing my blood.

“A hundred,” he replied, low and steely. “At least.”

Still more were flowing into the edges of the square with the civilians they’d rounded up, the market almost silent behind us now that everyone had crammed in around us. A hundred unidentified clergy gathering up this many people could never be a good thing.

“You have been gathered,” a loud voice boomed, clearly amplified by magic, “to issue a warning. Darkness has been born among you, and you deserve to know about it.”

I exchanged a glance with Varidian, his expression turning from cold to glacial. His arm tightened around me, fingers curled firmly around my shoulder. The way we’d smiled and teased after getting our marriage marks seemed a hundred years ago. A pit opened in my stomach.

“Twelve hundred years ago our powerful god gave his prophet a warning,” the spokesman of the dark clergy shouted, an instant hush falling over the crowd at his words. “A storm would rage for three days, broken by a single lightning strike, and the one struck would be the downfall of us all.”

I inhaled a sharp breath. I knew what he was talking about, but there hadn’t been someone struck by lightning for centuries.

“You know the darkness inflicted on us by the last lightning soul.” A rush of gasps and horror went through the crowd at those two words. No one spoke of lightning souls. The fear was ingrained too deep to speak the name. Varidian wasn’t breathing beside me. “Thousands were slaughtered by its magic. Others were corrupted by its power, seduced by sin and magic. It was the darkest time in Ithanysian history, and we are here in your square to warn you so it never happens again.”

I jumped at a sudden thump, scanning the crowd, finally finding the source when the woman beside me pointed. A clergyman dressed head to toe in strange black robes nailed a poster to a wooden post, the strikes of hammer to wood violent in the hush that followed the words lightning soul. They were the things of dark stories, creatures of nightmares. Struck with pure power, so much that a single person could never hope to contain it, they went mad, corrupted beyond belief, and refused to listen to reason. Lawless and uncontrollable, the last lightning soul had gathered an army, marched on Morysen and shattered most of the city.

It was why the palace was silver and gleaming—the former one had turned to rubble. People had been burned alive from the inside of their bodies, had died screaming. A fate a thousand times worse than wyvernfyre. A wyvern could kill twenty, thirty people at once. A lightning soul could kill hundreds.

Most of the stories had been lost; we never found out why they mass-slaughtered people, why they attacked the capital, why the then-king had been killed. All that remained was the fear, and the warnings. They were stark enough that my chest filled with cold at the thought of one being made by the storm.

“The storm and single strike were foretold,” the bearded man called over the crowd. “Which means a lightning soul is loose and must be caught at all costs. The abomination is an enemy to us all; if it manages to amass even a small following, we are all at risk. Be vigilant, trust no newcomers, and send word if you suspect someone you know is harbouring secrets.”

“Shit,” I whispered. They were whipping up a frenzy of fear. I’d been called an abomination enough times for that word—and the clergy’s decrees—to send ice into my blood. I’d known suspicion was coming at some point, had known I’d be blamed for an unexplainable mystery or sudden death, but I’d expected that to come from my father, or our household, or the people of Strava. From ordinary people. Not from a hundred gentry in strange clothing, acting out of character. Had this been sanctioned by the king? By his council?

Varidian shushed me, squeezing my shoulder. “They just want to issue a warning, then we’ll be dismissed. We’re fine.” His lips pressed to my temple, offering the thinnest scrap of comfort.

I was strange and unusual, I looked Ithanysian but not Ithanysian enough, my mother was from another kingdom, her identity unknown, and I was a newcomer to the Red Star. If anyone would be reported, it would be me. The only relief I had was these clergy hadn’t visited Red Manniston. Yet.

You’re the king’s daughter, you’re Varidian’s wife, I told myself. But where it had felt like armour on my wedding day, now it felt like cobwebs and silk. Easily shredded. There were so many of these clergy, all wearing stern expressions, ready to take on any enemy to protect Ithanys. Would they accept that I wasn’t an enemy? Or would they take one look at my eyes, my hands, and deem me guilty?

“Shh,” Varidian repeated, holding me tighter. “No one’s going to hurt you, Ameirah. I won’t let them.”

He knew they’d come for me, too.

But… they would come for him, wouldn’t they? His magic was dark, dangerous. He might be a prince, might be a legion commander and renowned warrior, but his control magic made him a threat.

“A death order,” the woman beside us murmured to an older, taller version of her. “They’ve issued a death order.”

The lightning soul would be found and killed; that didn’t surprise me. We were safer with it gone, with that volatile power removed from Ithanys. But everyone who’d be lost in the act of finding the lightning soul was what worried me. Accusations would be cast. Innocents would be tried and found guilty, even just to appease the fear that had already begun to spread like disease at the words lightning soul.

“This man saw the lightning strike!” the bearded clergy yelled, his voice rising. An old man in a dirty kaftan was brought forward, struggling between two clergy, fear in the whites of his eyes as he stared at the crowd. “He lives in a hut near the wall and witnessed the single strike.”

“Fuck,” Varidian breathed. “Don’t look, Ameirah.”

I stared at my husband with questions in my eyes, but he was already two steps ahead of me, figuring out what this really was—not a plea for information, but a warning in blood.

“But we have reason to believe he’s harbouring them,” the clergy shouted, his voice impassioned the way I’d heard so many imams through my life. But no imam would spread fear and panic like this. Their subtle magic was in calming fears, soothing panic. I’d seen an imam solve a quarrel between feuding brothers with a single line of scripture and a pointed look. There were no soothing fears or easing tempers here; all this did was make me feel unsafe, and judging by the restlessness around us, others felt the same.

“This man saw the lightning strike, watched it spread its darkness into one of us, and refuses to tell us who. He’ll damn us all to protect the lightning soul!”

“He doesn’t even know who it struck,” Varidian muttered. “I doubt he even saw the strike.”

“Will you tell us the identity of the lightning soul?” the bearded clergyman demanded as the man tried to tear free. If he could just jump off the stone platform and into the crowd, he could disappear. But the men holding him were tall and broad and clearly strong. What kind of holy men were these? The ice spread further through me until I shuddered.

None at all was the clear answer. But why the sigil?

“No!” the man shouted, his panic clear. He lunged forward and the crowd gasped, leaning away in fear. Could no one else see that his panic was real? If they did, they ignored it in favour of their own. “Let me go, I don’t know anything! What are you doing? I’m just an olive farmer.”

“We need to get him away from them,” I whispered, shifting on my feet.

Varidian’s grip tightened until he risked bruising me. “We can’t without getting ourselves killed. We’ll be implicated.”

Fuck. I hated that he was right. “Can’t Mak—”

“We will not tolerate lightning soul sympathisers,” the clergy shouted, his voice like a thunderclap, like a storm itself. “They would send us all to our deaths to seek their own power. But Wyfell is under the control of the church, and we will not allow that evil to take you for itself.”

It happened before I could even notice the shorter, clean-shaven clergy break from the lines on the platform. His hand whisked across the farmer’s throat, so fast that there was a moment before blood spilled. From this far back, I didn’t see the knife, only the blood, and then the body of the man as he thudded to the platform.

There was a moment of silence, of shock. And then the chaos began.