Black as diamond, p.30
Black as Diamond, page 30
As they quarreled—one-sided, since the masked party responded with vague answers—Asaru flipped the tome open. The brittle pages were covered in glyphs of the eresh keyel language. Not the kind of writing they’d found on the bismuth slates, these flowed in a tiny, spidery script looping into itself, as though the author had thought faster than they could write and was rushing to catch up. The ink started out red and neat, but as he turned the pages, it bled to black and grayed gold and the hand became harried. Frenzied. Mad.
A stone dropped in the pit of his stomach as familiar images appeared. Drawings of remnants and black diamond weapons done in cursed blood—a sketch of the same vial he had found at the embassy, shaded entirely black.
This tome belonged to the creator of the curse.
Asaru turned a page and found a diagram depicting a device of science. Protoscience. The profane manipulation of organic matter to splice multiple organisms together with khetry. The banned art from which remnants were born, contaminated effluent of the experiments of its creator.
Oprekhet, the evolutionary. Oprekhet, the betrayer. Oprekhet, who was dead.
A horrid sensation blossomed in his chest at the very thought of her, intangible fingers pressing malice into every inch of his skin. There were two sides to the woman who incited the Founding War. Her name, an omen. She’d urged the wraiths and dolomites to attack Rhenitha’s clan, and after that—war. Deserts of burning glass and fields of fire, all leading to that fateful day the Sea Gate was erected. Oprekhet murdered thousands in her pointless war. And she died a pointless death for it. Or she should have. That was what history told.
Asaru swallowed down both disgust and horror as his mother’s voice curled along his ears. Warrior, brother, son. Come back. The brush of gentle, intangible lips. Come home, son, brother, warrior.
He slammed the tome on the table, silencing his companions. Four pairs of eyes shot to Asaru as his mind whirled to fit this revelation into the puzzle of what he knew. An inferno blazed within as he scowled at the diagram of a centrifuge, six black tubes spinning in a ring. The page was torn almost in half under his fingers. There were no words that were quite apt to describe how he felt. Steely eyed, Asaru lifted his head. Secrets had come to bite and left him bloody with the revelations.
“This belonged to Oprekhet. She is alive.” And she killed my brother.
She was killing him too. Killing Aedyton as they spoke.
The room burst into a cacophony of shouts as everyone spoke at once.
Pursing his lips, Asaru ducked to wipe bile from his chin. The viscous liquid stained his neck, a vulgar smear across his halo. Violet, crimson, ink black—he was drenched in blood down to his feet.
Palenisa flipped through the pages. “How? How is that possible? Even I know how she died.”
Pulling the tome from her, Asaru turned back to the tight scrawl of words—Oprekhet’s words. Utter agony squirmed under his fingertips, touching the raised markings. “She cursed herself as the index case.” He read and was repulsed by the rigorous order of her experiment logs. Every day and every symptom accounted for—almost four hundred years. “From her affliction, two strains of Black Diamond were extracted. The first she seeded into the waters of Aedyton, using Saite as a testing ground. That accounts for the decrease in remnant sightings near the mountains over the last year.”
He turned the page. Drawn on the next was a remnant, its body bent at an unnatural angle, with dripping limbs askew and a dozen bulbous eyes littering its misty form.
“And the second strain—”
“She sent to the embassy,” Sagan finished.
The air grew cold.
“Did you know?” Asaru breathed, the image of a grotesque remnant swimming in his vision. His blank face rose to meet the adderowl. “Did. You. Know?”
“I didn’t, I swear.” Even through the distortion, Sagan sounded equally stunned. It was the truth. That almost hurt worse than if it weren’t.
“The Chronicler?”
Sagan shook his head.
Asaru blinked the fog from his eyes and thumbed the depiction of Oprekhet’s fine work. He understood the numbness that tempered Wren’s emotions through their bond. Anything was better than this. Perhaps even the all-encompassing haze of possession.
“But they will be pleased to hear of this, for the ritual,” Sagan ventured, taking a tentative step closer. He was careful. Good, he should be. At that moment, Asaru felt he would shatter apart at a single wrong move, a misplaced word.
A hand pressed between his hidden wings, and he cast emotionless eyes up to Wren. Surprise sparked faintly at the edge of his awareness, but he remained mostly empty inside. A yawning cavern left him a gutless husk.
“But how did she cast the curse in the first place?” Wren asked, looking at the tome over his shoulder. “The cursed object is black diamond, but didn’t the warden at the time dispose of every last diamond in the Sea of Tranquility?”
“It seems she managed to find more,” Asaru said flatly, turning to a diagram of the gem. Every quality and important feature was noted—its use as a weapon, its use as a curse.
Palenisa slouched against the desk with a frustrated huff, tugging her snowy curls. “She also managed to come back to life.”
With a thoughtful expression, Rishé pulled a bismuth slate from the deep pockets of her tunic. She set it on the desk with a light thunk. “But if this ritual works, then we know how to stop her.” She inclined her head. “And we know where to find that diamondglass.”
Asaru shut the tome. Dust and flecks of dried blood puffed into the air. “Where?”
“It was all her,” she said, lightly checking Palenisa’s hip. Shying away, the taller woman crossed her arms. “Treveyna. The island used to be part of Anticarta, and research excursions there found traces of the gem. Maybe there’s more.”
He frowned. “Is that for certain?”
She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Better than nothing.”
If bone could smile, Asaru was certain the adderowl skull would be wearing a rictus grin. His hands itched to wrap themselves around that pale neck and squeeze and squeeze until there was blessed quiet. “You already knew.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Sagan swayed, shifting on his toes. “Your luck is finally turning.”
“You were the reason for at least a tenth of that bad luck,” Rishé snarked, waving a hand by his face.
Sagan pushed her hands down and continued as if she hadn’t spoken. He would have made an excellent snake in another life, moving around the room in that infuriating manner of his. “You might be able to stop Oprekhet before she can curse all of Aedyton,” he said. “Take heart. Have hope.”
Where had hope gotten Asaru? He had made himself believe his brother was waiting for him. Instead, he had received a dreadful taste in his mouth that lingered when he set the tome down. The thump of it was decisive. This was it. Soon, he would go home. Soon, he would return to his kin, beset by the curse. To his mother, who called him. The feeling was tinged with a bittersweetness. After all, what kind of gift was ash and the death of a firstborn son?
From its placement at the center of his spine, Wren’s hand slid down to the inside of his arm. Their index fingers hooked together in the tiniest connection. Then tightened. The rest followed until their hands were joined. A seamless clasp of black. Asaru caught a glimpse of the affection sent his way, terrified to bear the enormity of its meaning. It spread over every inch of his skin. Like honey. Like blood spiraling into water.
Take heart. Have hope.
There was an end in sight, and a cursed sword at his neck. But one could only do so much; and hope was so fleeting.
Wren
The needle was red. Almost entirely red.
As he drew his blood into the bone, khetry whirling in a weave around his wrists, Wren wondered if this was what exsanguination felt like.
Starwrens whistled past in the late-morning sky. A gentle blue across which thin clouds floated, obscuring the sun a moment before casting him back under its unbearable gaze, giving him the sensation of being watched. But even more so by a single bird that decided to settle on the tower’s edge, staring. Its razor beak released a trill as it puffed its chest, and there was a judgmental cast to those beady little eyes. Wren could feel it gnawing at him.
“I know what I’m doing,” he muttered darkly. And I know it’s not right.
But he had to.
Determination surged through him, and he pressed his hand firmer to the bloody page of the primer, repeating the refrain. Khetry tightened. His palms wept blood through the spell circle, and the needle drank it deeply, drank gluttonously like this had been its entire purpose. As Wren drained himself of his vigor in pursuit of piteous power, he didn’t know what lay at the end, what the lived experience of a Weaver truly was or what the title meant, but he believed—he had to—the ritual sketched in the primer. It was a foolhardy venture. Still, what else could he do, drained as he was and in search of absolution?
Sometimes Wren imagined kneeling at Asaru’s feet, presenting him this thin red blade with a waterfall of apologies. See, he would say, I did this for you.
The senseless thought fanned heat across his cheeks. Whether that rapid pulse in his chest was his heart or the brand, it rushed to his ears, smoothing them flat against the sides of his head. The phantom sensation of another forehead against his bloomed, the tender brush of a hand along the jut of his chin. Blackened fingers curled around his wrist.
By Eșarpe, he was a fool. He and his feelings for the man he’d summoned and bound to himself. It was khetry’s worst joke, branding them both with the wreath of acorns. The fourth card in the Weave of Fate, whose other name was . . . the Lovers.
Wren shut his eyes, flustered. Told himself not to think about it, because there was nothing to be thought about there. He and Asaru were friends. When he opened his eyes, he watched, lightheaded, as the starwren took flight. He stared after it for a melancholy moment.
Catching himself, he shook his head to refocus, but the world swam in an oil-slick haze as his fingers numbed. His eyes fell to his other arm and the pattern stitched onto it. Delicate red stitching formed a single black dahlia, petals blooming in a burst like tiny scales. There was one reason the Rosatay sewed these flowers into their flesh. Tradition compelled, though he did not think this particular departed had been deserving.
Wren hadn’t lied that night: Zaosha was not his family. He bore no love nor memory of the man who broke his mother’s heart and made them outsiders to their clan in a single careless act.
Truthfully, he’d done the stitching only because sewing the thread through his skin had quelled the conflict within him to a low-grade rumble he was more than happy to ignore.
The corners of his vision darkened from blood loss, while his fingers numbed further, sending a shiver through him. At that, he knew he’d spent enough of himself for the day. All who sought a Weaver ritual had disappeared or were dead, Ahndat had said. That couldn’t be him. Not when he was so close.
The needle, which he tucked back into the pocket over his heart, was almost entirely red.
Sighing, Wren tugged the string tassels at his veilari collar in an absent habit. He ran a hand through his hair and bound it in a loose half tail that reached the middle of his back. For a second, he let himself preen in the viridian sunlight. For a second, it seemed as if the world was at peace.
He made his way down the tower to the rear of the castle, where the palings formed a terrace overlooking the peaceful sea. The tower cast a long, dark finger of shadow behind Wren when he stepped out to join the others. Perched on the banister, Sagan sat, legs dangling precariously over the cliff, with little regard for the sheer drop. There was something about him that seemed to drink in risk and provocation like amber wine.
At the sound of the door sliding closed, a pair of eerily glowing eyes met Wren’s. The adderowl acknowledged him with a nod. By habit of manners, Wren raised his hand, but the skull had already turned, and he was left feeling just slightly awkward. Ducking his head, he moved to join the others spread out along the banister. They watched the empty horizon, waiting. Anticipating.
Beside him, Asaru glanced up. They perceived each other through the bond in an instant, like a bell chiming at the base of his brain. Drawn to each other like a pair of glass moths circling a khetrical flame. Threads braided taut, tightening as a noose that pulled them closer to an inevitably horrible end. This should have been his punishment alone—he wished he hadn’t had to drag Asaru along with him.
The curse was devouring Asaru, fastening a dark circlet of keloids around his jeweled neck. The amethysts of his halo had lost much of their luster. His eyes were drowning in black, and the markings hooked beneath them blended into the tendrils snaking from their corners. The remaining snakeskin was draped over his shoulders, and beneath it, he, too, wore a cooling veilari garment: a black high-necked tunic open to reveal the pleated backplate of his binder, sleeves bunched at his elbows.
Wren found himself reaching out. And Asaru intertwined their hands. In one unbroken black line, they looked like they belonged together. Fated. Just as false as luck spells. Wren received a gentle glance from beneath dark lashes, affection flowing through the bond in gentle waves.
A very small, very ravenous part of him wanted to sink into the sensation. Into the other half of the bond until they merged in rippling waves of flesh pouring into a single chalice. Beyond sex—an attraction that he did not feel—this was something far more base. His eye throbbed in a wince—this was something far more khetrical.
“What are we waiting for?” Rishé asked with a yawn, dragging him to the present. She stood to his left, rocking back on her heels so that the layers of her tunic swayed from her absurd collection of belts.
“A sign,” Sagan answered.
The sign came in the form of a sailbird. Wings spotted silver spread wide like eponymous sails, gliding on wind streams.
Sagan crossed his legs and laid his staff across his lap. He held out an arm wrapped in thick brown cloth for the white bird. It landed seamlessly, twitching its silver-crowned head as its talons dug for purchase.
As he removed and scanned the parchment attached to its leg, Wren appraised him. With the mask, he was a mystery. His body was a slender line, every cryptic act deliberate.
He recalled how, a few nights after they’d found him handling the jewels belonging to Dowager Queen Raine and her children, Sagan had told them they needed to part ways. While the others sailed to Treveyna, he would take Wren to the Chronicler. Again, Palenisa had protested, as had Asaru. But Sagan had held fast—the Chronicler would meet only Wren. The ritual had no chance without diamondglass. Enough to save an island drowning beneath a cursed tide. And when Rishé had asked how he planned for them to reach Treveyna—Sagan had shrugged, slipped on his mask, and said he knew someone.
“Oh,” Rishé gasped, pointing over the banister. “Is that it?”
Wren followed her finger to the horizon, no longer empty.
Amid the vast blue, a dot grew into a ship larger than any merchant vessel he’d seen before. As the sea bore it closer, the black pennant trailing from the main mast came into view. On the flowing fabric, he could make out decaying flowers cradled in a mass of bones. Crimson-skinned Chilawari flashed in his mind’s eye—the impossible thought of sailing somewhere else, sailing somewhere south.
“Pirates,” Wren said flatly. “When you said you knew someone, you meant pirates.”
He was sure that beneath the mask, Sagan was smiling as the man tossed him a loose shrug.
The Nest was meant to be a secret—Aedyton’s greatest-kept secret. Unfortunately, secrets seemed to have a way of crawling free.
“Looks like another ego trip to me.” Palenisa rolled her eyes, leaning back on her elbow against the banister.
“She’s a pirate. They tend toward—” Sagan stiffened and shot up. He leaped from the banister, head tilted to the air like a bloodhound. Like an adderowl. Under his breath, he cursed in a dialect that Wren couldn’t fully catch. “Someone’s coming.”
That was when the earth rumbled. The castle shook like loose teeth in a bleached skull, and the castle’s ward flickered to life. It felt as though the world would never stop shaking. But it did, and Sagan sprinted inside in a panicked sweep of cloth. The four of them looked at each other and hurried after.
“How did I not notice,” Sagan said to himself, shoving down his mask as he swung the grand doors open. The words fell from his lips, stacked atop one another. His eyes were wide as bowls, laden, for once, with obvious emotion—concern. “Freelancers.”
Approaching quickly from the base of the incline were five figures, all dark, save for the white of their hair stark against the desert.
Palenisa swore. “They tracked me here.”
“Not you.” Sagan stepped outside, leaving them to peer around the door from within the castle’s protection. Sun fell over him in bars of green light. “More likely, the chief’s family put up a kill contract after Asaru assassinated him.”
Aghast, Wren looked at Asaru. Mildly, he registered they were still holding hands, and his heart fluttered foolishly. He recalled the sensation of them wrapped around his middle and coated in blood. He remembered how no one had spoken of it, the truth that hung unacknowledged as they fled from Ilon.
As if he were confirming the weather, Asaru shrugged.
Clutching at her hair, Palenisa groaned. “Zodiac give me fucking strength!”
As if in response, the ground groaned like a starved belly. The ward shuddered and faded, granting clearer sight of the Aspects below. Fire wreathed the arms of four of them. The fifth trailed after the others at a terrifying, unaffected pace. He had an inkling of what kind of Aspect they were but wanted to neither say nor think it.
