Black as diamond, p.23
Black as Diamond, page 23
Death is a commonplace of life. But it should have been him.
And their mother—what would he say to Tenat?
Already he could hear her gut-wrenching caterwaul, born of inconsolable loss. As it drew higher into a deafening whine, Asaru shattered beyond the shell of himself.
His shoulders jumped with sorrowful tremors. Hot tears leaked from the corners of his tightly shut eyes. What remained of his blackened wings dripped listlessly at his back.
Minutes passed, maybe hours, maybe no time at all.
How long had he knelt there, hand in cadaverous hand? It must have been forever.
There was a grounding touch to his shoulder.
He started, a sob catching in his throat. Through blurry tears, Asaru looked up and saw a woman. The wraith wore a wrap of undyed cloth stamped in a motif of silver scales and golden cowries. One long end was thrown over her shoulder while the rest of the raiment trailed like smoke over slippered feet. Bronze bangles lined her arms, clattering as she moved, and around her head was a tight band from which white curls fanned in a cloud. Her face was a carefully blank veneer.
“I had not thought to find you here,” she said in a meandering tone. “I didn’t think you had the time to ask Zaosha—Zodiac damn his spirit—if there was a second embassy. Before you stabbed him in the heart, obviously.”
Creases wrinkled the corners of her eyes as she smiled. As though there were any jest to be found in her words.
Anger curdled in Asaru’s chest, tangling venomous roots through his heart.
“Fuck you,” he spat, scrubbing at frustrated tears.
“Crude.”
Her skirts whisked the floor as she glided as if on water, taking him in with deep blue eyes. Pinned to the spot, Asaru felt her shrewd inspection split and bare the pieces of him wide open.
“I am Chiwatel Dust. Kharess of Ilon. And I know that you”—she tapped his forehead, which earned her a snarl—“are Asaru. The assassin.”
“Fuck off.”
“Honestly.” She tutted, brushing back his crimson-dipped fringe. He jerked away in a rage but was too exhausted to do much else, luckily for the kharess. “I’m trying to help you, Asaru.”
The fur on his tail stood on end. He cast her a sidelong glare.
Chiwatel rounded the slab and traced a finger down the profile of Alvarys’s face. Indignant, heavy tears welled in Asaru’s eyes. What little he cared for in the world was lying on this cold slab, and he couldn’t even be afforded respect in death.
“You’ve found yourself in the Aerie, much to my surprise,” Chiwatel said. “This is, or perhaps was, the Ilonese embassy—a joint creation devised between Zaosha and I after your warden informed us of the Tetrarchia’s mission. It was meant as a temporary stop to gather themselves before their journey to the badlands—but only one warrior arrived.”
She leaned forward, her eyes a pair of coins.
“Now it’s his tomb.”
Her voice warped in Asaru’s ears, and fat teardrops spilled down his cheeks, splashing at his feet.
“He was Alvarys,” he muttered wetly, “and he was my brother.”
“I know,” she sighed. A hand found his head—he hadn’t realized she’d moved—and she brushed through his hair in a mocking reminder of his mother’s embrace. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Asaru was reminded of who she was—where he was—when that hand took him by the chin and forced him to look upward. His vision doubled. The world was a smear of colors as his mind came undone.
“I’m going to tell you something now. All right?”
He nodded—or he thought he nodded. Everything had a slow, sluggish quality to it.
“Good.” She squeezed his cheeks. “The person I gave your Chronicler’s beacon to placed it in a chest enchanted by a ward Aspect. This chest can only be opened by the blood of the person who locked it.”
She cocked her head.
“Do you understand?”
Unflinching eyes assessed him. When it seemed she had found what she was looking for, she smiled. Calm and pleasant, tinted with a cool air.
“This is a fine opportunity.” She hummed, patting his cheek. “You get your beacon back, and I get a nuisance dealt with. Reciprocity is so sweet a gift.”
Through the altered haze, a slip of sense returned. The meaning behind her words tugged free something. A tool, a weapon. It was all he was. Made to be used. The kharess of Ilon was merely doing as his existence demanded.
Murder was easy, as he well knew. And his hands were already drenched gold, black, and red.
III
Cutting
Clarity
Wren
There was a torrent in Wren’s skull, turmoil brewing in his stomach—boiling up his throat—and the wreath over his heart would not stop burning with grief.
It had been hours, and they still hadn’t found Asaru.
Not back down near Marrowstone Door. Not in the main hub, where the flow of traffic was thickest, though they most certainly tried. Not in this side tunnel where Wren clutched his head between his knees.
He was useless, a wreck of overwhelmed nerves and overstimulated senses.
“Hey.” Wren looked up at Palenisa, and her lips flattened. “If he’d been captured, we’d know. All things considered.”
That was not as reassuring as she thought. That was not reassuring at all. Even she had unraveled, working the chains of her skirt into undulating liquid beneath restless fingers. She paced before she paused and leaned against the opposite wall, tapping an impatient foot. Her nerves bled into Wren’s like the world’s most vicious cycle of dread. Feeding off her freneticism, his mind spiraled. A whirl around a single central repetition of your fault, your fault, your fault.
A high squeal of a whine escaped the back of his throat as he rocked back on his heels. Master Vair was right—his propensity for fucking up due to his neuroses was its own phenomenon. Like the three cornerstones themselves. Really, it should be studied. Maybe the academics of Fa Djain would like to crack his skull open and examine the mechanisms that ran him.
Wren had lost him—lost Asaru. Nearly as offensive an insult as summoning him in the first place. He wondered, in a moment of mad hilarity, if this deserved backlash too—what would his new brand look like? A fucking question mark?
All the blood he’d spilled into bone would be for naught. If he could not undo this error, he wouldn’t be able to help Asaru or prove to the guild he was worthy of being more than a failed student. Truthfully, Wren thought he was worth less than half an aur. If that.
Grief swelled through the bond, evincing a wince. Reeled out across a crevasse so deep that to acknowledge it struck an unbearable chord through his bones. A tear fell from his eye, and when Wren wiped it away, another soon took its place.
The clamor of the market was still too close. Thunder rang in his ears in a blare of panic as his breaths came short. Quick. Abrupt.
Then a hand wrapped around his.
His head shot up to find Rishé, concern lining her face as she squeezed his hand. Between their hands was her necklace. As she ran his fingers over the textured facets, over each bump and silvery whorl, the imperfections inherent to rock—Wren’s anxious energies were quelled, and slowly, he calmed.
Once his vision cleared, Rishé’s face came into focus like a cloudless sky. There was the scar on her lip. There was the spray of freckles on her cheeks, so light one had to be inches from her nose to see them. And there were her almond eyes, big and wide and orange.
She held his gaze unwaveringly. “Palenisa.”
The rattling paused, and the wraith hummed in acknowledgment.
“Can you track Asaru by scent?”
Palenisa shook her head, chains clicking like the snap of a razor-billed starwren. “Not if he hasn’t cast a spell recently, and not here. The walls. This flintrock.”
Rishé pushed their clasped hands toward him. Against his chest, the unnatural heat of her pendant seemed to burn as red as the stone itself.
“Can you use your bond?”
Wren . . . hadn’t thought of that. His tears dried up. Why didn’t I think of that? Sitting up, ignoring the twinge that laced down his spine, he blinked, and khetry flared to life. One strand shone brighter, loosely braided threadlike hands that reached into the wreath over his heart and stretched out into the rest of that glimmering web.
Life to life, Asaru to him.
He felt the buzz of the curse. A flood of sadness and anger-tinged grief. And a strange, broiling feeling he knew was Asaru.
“You hadn’t thought of that?” Palenisa asked incredulously. “Well, does it work?”
“I—I think it does?” Wren sounded confused, even to himself.
There was a bright cast to Rishé’s eyes as she cocked her head. She’d already assumed as much, hadn’t she—with her scholar’s mind, tumbling over theories and possibilities the moment he’d confessed to the backlash. Drawing conclusions from instances in legend, legacy, and lore. Neither of them smiled, but something shifted. Ever further into place, not as it once was—but as it could be.
“Come on, then.” Rishé signed for him to stand. “Let’s go find him.”
Wren’s resolve was a watery thing. He grabbed for it, tried to form it into something more solid, though it would never quite resemble steel. His will was weak, so he let Rishé pull him up. Their connection never broke.
Wren let instinct guide him. He felt past the numb grief tempering the edges of the bond like glass. So fragile that it felt as if a mere wrong move would shatter him to pieces. Pressing his free hand over his heart, he followed the tug, led his companions through the backstreets. Left, right, then left again to the end of a dusty path where two side streets crossed.
Set into the wall was a niche sculpted in the shape of doors. He pressed the raised relief of an eye, but it was Palenisa who slipped a palm into the imagined gap between the doors and pried open the earth. It was a bit unnerving, but Wren was far more enthralled by the twirl of that one shining red strand.
Palenisa sealed the secret door, and they held their gathered breaths as a guard wurm snuffled in its sleep. The pink beast wriggled when they stepped over its pointed tail, shifting as they ascended the winding stairs. It was doing a poor job of protecting.
There was a door on the landing. It was etched with white spellwork and recklessly knotted in a programmed spell. Someone was trying to hide something. And it had his worries rising.
The sensation nudged him forward.
They pushed the door open, and when it shut, all Wren could see was a slab and a hunched form holding somber vigil over it.
“Asaru,” he breathed, dropping Rishé’s grip and taking a step forward. Then another and another, sliding to his knees by the white slab. Beneath the shroud was a body. He had never met them, but he already knew who it was.
Asaru slumped against the side of the diorite slab, staring at nothing. He barely registered the three of them, save a flicker of a glance. Silver slits had dimmed to a matte gray. His wings dripped from his shoulder blades, black miring the spotted brown. It was hard to tell where the broken feathers had been under the curse’s slick.
Wren held his hands aloft, uncertain if his touch would be welcome.
Dull hazel eyes turned to him, two pearlescent drops hovering at the corners.
There was a heavy pause as they stared at each other. It felt like he wasn’t breathing; it felt like no one was breathing.
Salt tracked Asaru’s cheek as he moved a hand from the corpse’s grip to wipe bile from the corner of his mouth. “My brother’s dead.”
Wren’s heart shook the bars of his ribs. He didn’t know what to say. The others were in similar states of shock, confusion, and disbelief. Rishé stood beside one column, eyes large and haunted and never moving from the veiled body. She squeezed at her necklace as if it might spill between those small fingers.
“What happened?” Palenisa asked, padding carefully closer. She gazed around the room in shaken awe. “What is this place?”
With great effort, Asaru rolled a shoulder, and Wren felt the shared twinge in his.
“Kharess Dust told me where the beacon will be tonight.” He sounded so very tired.
Crouching, Palenisa trailed a hand over the scaled mosaic and cupped her mouth. He caught snippets of her mutterings—How could I not have known? How could the coterie not have known? What else did—
“You should go.” Sighing, Asaru brought his brother’s hand to his forehead. Dark lashes trembled. “You don’t need to entangle yourselves further in my . . . my issues. I can do this alone.”
Wren started at that. They could help—he could help. He would help. He had come too far not to. The needle burned a hole in his pocket, searing through to his skin, painting him red. “No, you can’t,” he said, surprising himself at the firmness of his voice. Asaru’s gaze rose, a curious flash of light seeping in. “And no, we won’t. Go, that is.”
Wren looked at Palenisa, and despite her shakiness, she nodded. When he looked at Rishé, she pressed the silver-crimson stone to her lips, turned away from the slab, and nodded too. Tentatively, he reached out.
One, two, three, four, five.
His hand found Asaru’s shoulder, and tension bandied between them.
“We are with you—you know that, right?”
Asaru’s face shuttered closed. Hazel eyes peered into Wren’s, daggering him apart. He felt raw at the edges, open in a way that hurt—but also didn’t. Thickness at the back of his throat stilled his breathing. One, two, three, four, five. A palm covered his, and Asaru squeezed, though the flat expression he wore never wavered.
Wren froze when Asaru leaned in. Tensed when Asaru’s head fell onto his shoulder. Choked on air when Asaru pressed his nose—bare—against the side of his neck—also very much bare.
“Thanks.”
But Wren scarcely heard it over the rush of blood in his ears; the warm, steady breaths prickling across his skin; the burning throb of his brand, double time—like a heartbeat.
Asaru
Asaru.
Warrior, son, brother.
Brother, son, warrior—prince.
Chanting. Come back. His mother’s voice was chanting. Come home. His mother’s chant dragged through his ear, twisting with all the rest of them—that droning chorus who watched with dead, unseeing eyes. Phantom hands squeezed his throat with hundreds of fingers.
“Asaru.”
He started as a hand snapped before him.
Rishé tapped two fingers together by her mouth like a beak, formed a fist to sign his name. The call pulled him back to the present, but as Asaru stared at the night sky, he felt disconnected from everything. The world was crimson at the edges. He was back in reality but not back with reality.
He remembered where he was when the swaying of the wagon tumbled him into Wren’s side. A hesitant arm hovered over his waist, and he glanced up, nodding. The hand settled where Asaru’s wound had healed yellow green around the puckered purple starburst. Still, he was forced, albeit gently, to keep silk tightly wrapped around it.
Absently thumbing his hidden wejat, Asaru recalled how the leader of his contingent had inked the tattoo. The day he became a warrior was a good memory, untainted.
As the intangible hands of his grief-stained daydreams settled around his throat, he couldn’t help but dwell silently on how disappointed Alvarys would be in him.
One of the only people who’d cared for him was dead, never to return. People didn’t come back from the dead. Once they were gone, they were gone.
The phantom of loss echoed through him.
His nape throbbed.
The night wagon trundled over the stony road to the chief’s estate, brimming with passengers. Their eager energy washed over and past him as he sidled closer to his companions in their little corner at the back. The four of them wore cloaks with a verdant shimmer that warped the fabric like a lie, falling to sweep their feet. “Enchanted,” Palenisa had said after Rishé purchased them, “by ward Aspects.” It was similar, he assumed, to the spell cast over the snakeskins. It hid his halo and face but had no slits through which to free his slick wings. Better to be protected than free; better alive than dead too—but he wouldn’t have that luxury much longer.
Against his better judgment, Asaru had let them join him. It was a foolish decision, but one his raw heart had no strength to counter. He held himself together as if by gutstring, because the moment he released his resolve, grief—with its wretched, pitying faces—would grab him and never let go.
Embers chased the clamor of music into the Sky Court. From somewhere in the distance, a drum rang like a bell around his head. The scent of cloves and fragrant flowers blew in with spices on the wind as the wagon rolled into the gated estate. While the road had been dimly lit by fusion globes swaying from palm leaves, the manse was a brilliant bouquet of lights buzzing like shadowflies.
The courtyard was overfull with all manner of transport and the crowd trickling in. Open to common folk and nobility alike, the gala was awash with sounds and sights. The mass swarmed into the manse through the hulking mouth of a door. The frame was wrought into a serpent that wound along the edge toward the center, a pair of bloody garnets resting in the hollows of its titanium head.
Everywhere Asaru looked, there was life and revelry. He wanted to hate it. Why couldn’t it let him mourn in peace?
His claws pressed dots into his palms as Asaru slid from the wagon. It was horribly easy for them to blend in with the crowd. Just four more faces among many, they disappeared through an entrance hidden in the panels of the walls. The gala faded into the background, and a little of the tense tangle in his chest loosened.
