Black as diamond, p.34
Black as Diamond, page 34
A flicker of a smile, a halted eye roll. “A mountain, I know. Everyone knows. We get it a lot.”
Flushing, Wren felt a touch ashamed. He should probably have shut up, but this was the first time he’d ever left Estyria, and he had questions. Damnable curiosity gnawed the inside of his mouth.
“Does anyone, um, know the Chronicler’s here?”
Cocking his head, Sagan tilted his hand side to side with a hum. “They’re quite good at keeping secrets,” he said, adding under his breath a bitter-sounding “even from me, apparently.”
Pushing the steering lever down, Sagan guided the skiff into a busy receiving port.
Docks stretched in ramshackle rows across which a constant swarm of common folk shouted. Lining either side of the dock were statues of oily black stone, twelve of them, with long, thin bodies and crown-shaped crests. Basilisks, Wren’s mind provided at the memory of an all-nighter at the guild spent poring over a tome of folktales with Rishé.
The skiff bumped against the dock, and Sagan leaped out, dragging a rope after him. He looped it around a metal ring on a mooring post and planted his hands on his hips, looking right at home amid lilac- and lavender-haired wraiths. Many humans had also dyed theirs to match, an island of people united under a common shade.
“We don’t have rogue Aspects,” Sagan said, holding out a hand. “You’ll be fine. Trust me.”
Just because Wren was there to learn the ritual didn’t mean he trusted the man. He just wanted to do right. Part of this he was doing to return to the guild and regain a place among their ranks, and yet . . . and yet. For all he thought constantly of them, did they do the same?
Tightness laced his middle, drew him taut like a thread of khetry.
After a lull, he took the offered hand, adjusted the strap of his satchel, and doffed the hood of his suman, as apprehension congealed his blood. Wren wondered, not for the first time, what the Chronicler was like. The usual weight of his hideous self-worth told him that he wouldn’t be enough, that he couldn’t fulfill whatever part he needed to play. That he would once again fail, and he would bring something worse than a backlash down on all of them.
Breathe.
As Sagan glided onto the island proper, Wren squeezed after, thankful his height allowed him to keep the shorter man in sight. His feet found sand, and he stumbled before being steadied by Sagan. The other huffed, smirking up at him through dark lashes.
“Watch your step.”
Something about Peskelos seemed to loosen Sagan’s lips. It made him no less cryptic, but there was something homely about the way he wove around the crowd, returning waves with smiles and gentle kisses.
Everyone contains multitudes, Wren supposed. When he tried to piece together the contradictory, incongruous, frustrating parts of Sagan, all he conjured was a formless red beast impenetrable as the fathomless deep, with an adderowl for a head and two blazing purpled eyes.
They trailed to a nearby bridge, crunching bright red sand underfoot. In the middle of the beach rose the commanding line of an obsidian suvaunoor carved with scarlet suvaugrams. Common folk rested in its long shade and prostrated themselves at its feet.
The bridge rose over a canal, one of many the river split into. While crossing, Wren took in the brightness of everything. It brought to the surface his few memories of his birth clan. The crush of people, the music, the floral fragrance. He didn’t think air could feel different, but yes—even that felt substantially different.
The way up to the peak of the hill-that-was-not-a-hill took them under the arch of an aqueduct. Sandy dirt bled to cobblestone in various shades of flaming sunset, inlaid with what looked to be red diamonds. The same way he saw some common folk veiled in pink cowrie coins—kurigand, his memory supplied—the island itself was wreathed in jeweled splendor. Excessive, but it seemed they had the gems to spare.
As they stepped onto a jungle path, a cluster of thin pastel buildings packed in Bartramian fashion came into view, and the cheer on Sagan’s face faded. It felt as though the both of them were holding their breaths by the time the village was behind them. When it was a good distance away, Sagan stilled by a fox tree. The feathers dappled him in shadow.
On instinct, Wren made to reach out, but paused as Sagan gathered himself, unease melting away. They resumed their trek, and the incline steepened.
“Tut-vaneran takeš?” Wren asked.
“That village,” Sagan replied, his voice a steel bar without inflection, “forced what remained of my clan to work as ‘fortune tellers’ when our guardians died. Indentured servitude. It was an insult to our way of life, to our actual Charmers. Then again, when it comes to the Norvatti, it’s always us. Always the Vana.”
Wren gaped. He . . . hadn’t actually expected an answer. Much less one so honest it was soul baring. Indentured servitude? That practice was said to have died out centuries ago—everywhere. He instantly felt horrible for asking, even though he hadn’t actually asked. So he fell back on what he knew best.
“I, um, I’m sorry.” His hand brushed Sagan’s shoulder.
“It’s fine. Someone stopped them, and Inone took me in. Everything’s fine now.”
It didn’t sound fine. But Sagan shrugged him off and sped up.
Over the crest of the incline, peeking out from a bower, emerged Lake Alhena.
Boulders ringed the border, climbing atop each other to form a cave-riddled perimeter over which the jungle drooped. A column of light shone straight down through the break in the canopy onto the water. Flowers floated across the surface, boiling such that steam warped the air.
Ten crimson-cloaked figures meditated at the lakefront. On the hoods of their cloaks was stitched an eye like the one on the Nest. The figures sat before a half-submerged figure that, at first, Wren thought was a massive statue.
Then it moved.
He started when the figure rose, a torrent raining from sleek, straight hair. Crystal-fly wings sprouted from their back in a drape of lace membrane. Each flutter was the dissonant chime of a bell. A wizened bronze face turned his way. Painted across their nose was a band of gold, looping around their neck was an unusual halo, striated by onyx, and their eyes . . . their eyes.
Shades of indigo with spinning silver stars for pupils, strange constellations formed with each blink. Khetry threads swam through the liquid iris like blood clots swirling down a drain.
Wren’s own eyes widened. Nerves choked the words from his mouth. His many shortcomings and deficiencies filled the emptiness left behind as he stared upon the grandeur of the Chronicler.
He wondered if he was looking upon divinity made flesh.
They extended a sun-browned hand. Water showered from their fingers, dotted in gold and ringed in silver all the way up the wrist. Wren wasn’t sure when he moved, drawn closer by their reverent nature, as if he were one of their cloaked supplicants. Unsure what to do with his own hands, which spasmed at his sides, Wren clasped them together at his front, then folded them behind his back.
“Wren Anemone du Ingoscu-Velanescu, bonsou,” they intoned. Welcome. “I am Niekthe.”
If Wren’s eyes got any wider, they would pop out of his head.
The eresh keyel who disappeared after killing their sister, who ended the Founding War but let their name fade from the minds of the masses, as Wren’s ancestor crowned herself in their absence.
“Um,” he stuttered. “Just Wren is fine. And, um, I’m . . . not a Velanescu?”
They cocked their head with a secret smile. “Oh?”
At his side, he heard Sagan snicker and wanted to sink into the ground. His lips thinned as he looked at his boots.
“Why are you here, Wren?” Their resonant voice thrummed through him, layered atop itself both impossibly high and impossibly deep. A shudder rolled up from Wren’s feet to a spot at the base of his brain, unraveling him like a spell knotted into khetry.
A shaky exhale escaped. “T-To . . . to learn the ritual?”
Glancing up through his fringe, he saw the Chronicler smile. Their eyes crinkled, lines deepening at the corners. Despite their placidity, the upward canting of their lips resembled the deadly curve of a scythe. The expression shot a bolt through his abdomen feeling somewhere between mild terror and awe.
“Try again. The truth this time, if you please.”
Absently, Wren brushed his heart. Somehow, he feared they knew about the bone that drank his blood, the pathetic desperation he’d plunged into in order to repair what he’d so badly broken.
“To make up for what I did . . . what I’ve done. At any cost,” he said, determination woven into his words. His fingers tightened, itching to reach inside the brand—to the needle, calling to him to finish it. “Especially to myself.”
Resolute, Wren raised his head. The Chronicler’s smile sharpened, and they nodded. Power emanated from their form, rawer and older than any spell he’d felt before. Almost as wild as the living web itself.
“Come. Join us.” They sank into the lake until only their calculating eyes remained.
Wren’s heart beat a fraught rhythm as he knelt. The brand burned. He closed his eyes. On the backs of his eyelids, he saw an amethyst halo, gentle hands that held so much strength, and the fondness on Asaru’s face, soft as a grazing kiss.
Days passed like rushing water, and soon so had a week.
From dawn to dusk over seven days, Wren woke to join the Doyisha, the Chronicler’s crimson-cloaked supplicants. During the morning, they studied the mechanics of the ritual, drawing its spellwork over and over until the symbols were deemed acceptable. And in the latter half of the day, they meditated until the sky turned as blue as the swirl of emotions inside him.
Nausea took him and he heaved, expelling the contents of his stomach into the lake.
Meditation sickness. The thought was interrupted by another swell of vomit, which he promptly emptied. Boiling heat fanned his cheeks, unbearably warm.
Vaguely, Wren heard Niekthe call for a break as he rinsed out his sour mouth.
The Doyisha dispersed, including Sagan, leaving him alone with Niekthe. They swanned closer to rest their chin on the rocky embankment before him.
“I can keep going,” Wren groaned.
“You cannot.”
“But I—”
“Wren.” Their voice left no room for argument.
Frustrated, he frowned at his rippling reflection. Black curls fell to his upper back and hung over his shoulders and around his face, the ends trailing the water. The person staring back was him, but it was also his father. He’d never seen Zaosha, beyond half-accurate depictions on holographic screens, and the wistful descriptions his mother had given the few times she was willing to talk about his father.
Wren frowned and broke the image before sitting back on his knees.
“How is your study progressing?” Niekthe asked. The corner of their lips quirked, but their face remained impassive.
“A little more every day.” The studying wasn’t the problem—Wren had spent years at the guild. In fact, he gained an almost Rishé-like delight each time he drew the correct spellwork, each little discovery feeling like an advancement in personal knowledge.
But learning the mechanics was one thing. Actually understanding the ritual, the meaning of the sacred geometry, was another thing entirely. It strained every bit of focus he possessed to keep his mind on this sole task, to not wander off in worry about his friends. Or the perhaps not-so-irrational fear that everyone could see the needle burning a hole through his pocket.
Wetness dripped down his chin. Wincing, Wren pinched the bridge of his nose and let it dribble into the lake, three red dots vanishing in the water.
“I was wondering, though . . . about the nature of curse breaking?” He licked his upper lip, tasted blood. His face was most surely a smeared mess. Fitting, since one needed blood to work a curse.
Niekthe hummed, amused. They opened a single large eye, pupil white as bone. “Well, we’re not breaking the curse.”
“But you—we’re . . . not, um, killing the creator either.”
Their appraising look seared straight through him. For a delirious second, Wren thought that it fell to his chest pocket. They know; they know. “Do you think you could kill someone?”
Biting the inside of his cheek, he glanced at the reflection. Him, his father, and also his mother.
“No,” he said softly.
There was a whisper in the silence, like the whisking of leaves on stone. He felt more than heard their breathing, each a gale in its large lonesomeness. They moved with the rustle of wet fabric.
“We know black diamonds are the cursed object, and diamondglass its opposite in every way—heal to its hurt, the light to its dark,” they explained. “The ritual allows us to use this connection to void the effects of the curse.”
“How?”
“By transferring it into a new object. A crucible.”
“Crucible?” He was short on words but rich with anxieties.
“Whatever, whomever, khetry deems deserving of it.”
Wren gulped, feeling a chill rise. “And what . . . who deserves it?”
Niekthe locked eyes with him. The unflinching stare, empty as a void, forced him to turn aside. His brand stung at the thought of the crucible being anyone but him. The thought of someone innocent burdened by the consequences of Oprekhet’s retribution. Unlike him, for he was all too deserving. Wren should have offered himself in service. Another opportunity for rightful self-flagellation as the chronic vessel of sole blame for this sorry mess—and Asaru’s misfortune.
But he remained silent, and his fingers formed lax shapes as he picked at a fingernail.
“All this,” he said, “are you truly doing all this to stop your sister?”
“Oprekhet and I . . .” They trailed off, equally soft. “You see, my sister and I are . . . alien to this world. We are the last two feyinesh left, precursors to the eresh keyel from another realm, and our arrival was an accident.”
Reeling, Wren was lost for words as everything they said rewired his brain. What was he supposed to say? Oh, it’s all right, thank you for upending my very understanding of the natural order of the world.
They continued, anger threading their words in a delicate balance. “I remember fragments of fighting—cleansing, we called it. Cleaning corruption from another realm. I remember a time when our older sister, Madib, was not your goddess or a warden. I remember stepping through a rift ripped in reality, being stranded here when khetry was but a whimper.”
“That’s impossible. Khetry is older than everything.”
Impossible, impossible, impossible. The refrain leashed his senses.
Waving a hand, Niekthe tugged at khetry. Threads snaked across their arm, an old creature coming to meet a familiar friend. It looked almost sentient. More than alive—it had a thinking, feeling, reeling mind of its own.
“On our home world, we were deathless. I suppose that afforded us a longer-than-average lifespan here. To be honest, I am not sure we would have learned we were mortal had Madib not . . . passed. Mysteriously.”
Mysteriously, Wren echoed. He swallowed. Unable to meet their eye, he watched them in his periphery.
“Oprekhet also passed.”
The lake rippled as Niekthe sank lower. There was knowing, and there was knowing. Desperate for the truth, Wren let his need come ashore in a question he feared the answer to.
“But how is she still alive?”
Beams of twilight fell through the canopy, fallen leaves suspended on the lake. Niekthe locked eyes with him.
“Because I resurrected her.”
What?
Wren’s eyes were hot—was he crying? He felt like crying. At a sudden gust of anger, his stomach sank. In it gurgled revulsion and rage. If the lake weren’t already burning, it would have burst into flames.
“Why?”
The Chronicler sighed. “I did not even know I could, that I was a Weaver, until it happened.”
His heart stopped. Weaver. They knew, he feared, they knew, they knew.
“Now she is a revenant detached from khetry, aetherless. She cannot die. She cannot be killed. But she is still my sister.”
A tear slipped free, and Wren wiped it away. He was a ball of hatred and despair, all the bitter emotions he was often too muffled by his melancholy to feel. To truly feel. They rumbled across his skin, cored grooves through him.
She was the reason Alvarys was dead, the reason Asaru was dying—and she had been resurrected. By the same sibling who ended her life. To break the three cornerstones with such flagrant disregard warranted more than just a backlash. It was to court the wrath of reality itself.
Wren knew he would do anything, anything, to rectify all he had done.
He wasn’t sure he would do this.
The sibilant spread of frost crusted still waters. Moonlight danced across the slick surface where hot met cold. Infinite anger consuming itself only to surge again, brighter.
Standing, Wren turned away from the Chronicler. Without another word, he stalked off. The needle pricked his skin, thirsting for blood.
There was more work to be done.
In a cave hidden behind the waterfall, Wren was soaked in red to the elbow. It dripped down his nose, into his mouth, coloring the edges of his vision. The world was a scarlet glaze that doubled as he swayed, dizzy.
Less than a finger’s width of bone remained to fill the needle. There was no going back.
He grasped his wrist, shoved down harder, splitting his finger on the tiny point. Steam rose from the pool to obscure his vision. Its murky water darkened the bottom of his trousers up to the knee, thighs stained with spots of red.
Khetry pulled blood down from his wrists, from his fingers—and the needle drank it with great vigor. It hurt. Badly. The pain sizzled in his bones, like he was being cut open with cauterizing shears. But that didn’t matter, because it was real. The ritual, Weavers, the powers they were said to gain for their piteous sacrifice. All real.
