Chapter 14

  ZA: Are you not going to say anything?

  ZA: I know it was you.

  ZA: We need to talk, Akkama.

  AK: need we?

  ZA: Yes.

  ZA: Come here so that we can talk.

  AK: yeah no I don’t think so. You might do something you regret ;)

  ZA: Then can you answer my questions?

  AK: sure

  ZA: Why?

  AK: why what?

  AK: still there?

  AK: you’re not crying, are you?

  ZA: why did you murder thaevrit

  AK: don’t worry, it had nothing to do with you

  ZA: What?

  AK: don’t be afraid! I wouldn’t kill YOU

  ZA: That is not the problem, Akkama! I’m not afraid of you

  AK: you sure? ;)

  AK: just kidding!

  AK: you’re my friend, princess

  AK: I did you a favor, really

  AK: you’re next in line now!

  AK: not that it matters

  AK: well I guess you’re busy or something so we’ll talk more later

  AK: oh and you probably know this already but just to make sure: don’t tell the big guy you’ve been talking to me

  AK: see ya!

  Zayana was too angry to respond. She flung her portable computer across the room and shouted wordlessly. Her voice sounded insignificant in the dark, echoey reception hall. She wiped tears from her eyes and sniffed, huddling in on herself in the darkness. She wanted to rage, to break things, to somehow manifest her anger. She wished she were Rasmus, able to tear down these stone walls with his bare hands, or Anthea, able to steer a crushing river of wind. But there was nothing she could do. And now that Thaevrit was gone, the entire castle seemed cold and empty. Colder and emptier than usual. Thaevrit was the one on whom Zayana’s tears had always fallen.

  Zayana cursed and cried and cursed again. May the gods (she raised her left hand) curse Akkama from beyond their cosmic graves. No, may they curse the Desert Watcher. Damn Akkama’s ambition. Damn the Shogunate for what it had done to her. Damn her, Zayana, for letting this happen. Damn the Majesty for being away, unable to prevent it.

  Zayana wanted someone to hug. She wished that Catch were here, or Fiora or Anthea or anyone, even Akkama. If Akkama were here, Zayana would hug her and cry. Maybe that would hurt Akkama more than pain and rage ever could.

  Zayana could remain trapped by her emotions only for so long. She stood at last, stepped across the cold marble floor to retrieve her computer, and then paused. Where to go? The Majesty was elsewhere, grieving alone. Kartha was missing, no doubt doing the same if he was even alive. There weren’t many left in the castle; she sensed the arda of only a few others where once, not all that long ago, the castle had swarmed with light and color.. Slowly, softly, the Great and Eternal Kingdom of Meszria was crumbling. Not broken by war, not smashed by a cataclysm, not overrun by the voidbound. Just…fading. One by one, its citizens died, and they were not replaced. Bit by bit, the magic left, the energy faded. There had been no auroral sweeps this year. The latent arda was uncharged. The voidbound roamed, little threat individually, but they had agglomerated into two hordes of frightening size that cut swaths of destruction through the countryside.

  Zayana had decided to go visit Zsythristria when she received a message from Anthea.

  AN: How are you holding up?

  ZA: I just talked with Akkama.

  AN: “talked”

  ZA: It is like speaking to a wall

  ZA: A stubborn, arrogant wall.

  AN: I am not like a wall.

  ZA: I know. Thanks.

  ZA: I cannot believe she would do this!

  AN: Really?

  AN: Well, it is the first time she’s killed someone she knows personally, as far as I am aware

  AN: And she seems to be okay with it

  ZA: She is not.

  AN: ?

  ZA: I know Akkama

  ZA: She is not okay. Even if she thinks she is.

  AN: What are you feeling right now?

  ZA: It’s all a mess.

  ZA: I don’t know what to think.

  ZA: But I’m calming down now.

  AN: Do you need something to do?

  ZA: Yes. Please.

  AN: Good, because I have another reason for contacting you.

  AN: Though we can speak as long as you like

  ZA: What is the other reason?

  AN: Jeronimy wants to talk to you

  ZA: The feeling is not mutual.

  AN: Not about Thaevrit

  AN: He is waiting at your observatory

  AN: There is something you should see

  ZA: Is it about the Grim King? Because I already know.

  AN: It is related. You should see it for yourself

  AN: It provides us with a very definite timeframe

  AN: Go have a look

  ZA: Ugh. I don’t need Jeronimy right now

  AN: Who does?

  AN: But it might be nice for you

  AN: Just to have someone around

  ZA: You are not trying to get us back together, are you?

  AN: hells no

  AN: Do I sound like Fiora?

  AN: I recall warning you about that relationship in the first place

  ZA: Sigh. Mistakes.

  AN: Mistakes

  ZA: And speaking of couples, in this case much better suited ones...

  AN: Acarnus and I are doing just fine.

  AN: You know what he said the other day?

  AN: He said the end of the world was romantic

  AN: I said WHY

  AN: He said the dissolution and chaos, and the unpredictability of once-stable systems, that it reflected his emotional state regarding me!

  AN: or something

  ZA: That is too cute.

  AN: he was completely serious when he said that, you know how he is

  ZA: That is wonderful.

  ZA: And so very, extraordinarily unlike Jeronimy.

  ZA: What did I see in him? What does Fiora?

  AN: You hush about that. She doesn’t want anyone to know.

  ZA: Everyone already knows! She has the guile of an actual frog.

  AN: Just don’t bring it up around Jeronimy.

  ZA: I assure you, I will be all-business.

  ZA: He is there now? Waiting?

  AN: Hard to believe, isn’t it?

  ZA: If there is one thing he hates, it is waiting.

  AN: In that case...

  AN: We could keep talking for a while

  ZA: Thank you, Anthea. But I will go. I want to ride, anyway. Clear my head.

  AN: Oh, the unicorn?

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  ZA: Zsythristria? Yes.

  AN: How lovely

  AN: She’s so beautiful

  ZA: Yes.

  ZA: Did you know she has been spending a lot of time with Catch?

  AN: !

  AN: Now THIS is gossip

  ZA: I will ask her about it and fill you in later.

  AN: I will hold you to that. The dragons...well, they might not come back for a while.

  ZA: Did something happen?

  AN: Emmius

  ZA: Oh...

  AN: It’s fine. Go. We’ll talk

  ZA: Okay. Goodbye, and thanks again.

  Zayana freshened up in her chambers before descending to the gardens where Zsythristria could be found. Zayana spoke to the Westing cloud on the way, offering it violet arda infused with her anger and frustration toward Akkama. The Westing cloud was grateful; it had not eaten anger in some time. It showed her little that she did not already know. One interesting fact it provided to her was that the Majesty was doing something powerful on the distant cliffs across the waters. The Westing cloud could taste the dark intent radiating from that way, and all the sky above the entire bay buzzed with the Majesty’s might. Zayana could easily sense him now that she paid attention—a distant violet sun shedding torrents of energy. Zayana made a mental note to investigate this later. Even after all these years, she still wasn’t quite sure what the Majesty was really capable of. Could he reach his might around the world to locate and smite Akkama from afar in an act of righteous retribution? The idea filled her with a bitter cocktail of sorrow, awe, fear, and dark glee.

  The gardens were in shadow from night and storm. Zayana heard no thunder, but rain speckled the cool pavement as she entered the dim, overgrown groves. Zayana noticed the unicorn’s presence as soon as she spoke its name. That was the way of Zsythristria—utter her name and she would coincidentally wander by, or else you’d suddenly notice her as though she’d been there all along. Here, Zayana turned and saw the creature watching her with soft starry eyes from behind a wrought-iron latticework grown thick with rain-jeweled green flowers.

  Zsythristria was heart-stoppingly beautiful, in such a way that it made perfect sense for her and Catch to be such close friends. She was like a silver-furred horse in appearance, but she had cloven hooves, a long and slender neck, a sleeker body and thin, almost delicate legs. Her eyes were larger than a horse’s, her tufted ears longer, her white mane and tail fuller, longer, sleeker. Her pearly horn gleamed in the starlight despite the intervening clouds. In what seemed a confusing optical trick, the unicorn almost cast light around herself. In peripheral vision, or when out of focus, she was a pale moonbeam shining in the dark.

  Zsythristria knew all about what had happened to Thaevrit. Thaevrit had taken care of her, had brought her here, had rescued her from the Ephathic Remnant in order to do so. Thaevrit and Kartha had returned from that adventure bearing new scars and new love for each other. In a way, this unicorn had led to their happy coalescence.

  Zayana approached the beautiful creature and placed a hand on Zsythristria’s forehead. They both closed their eyes, and for a time they took silent comfort in each other.

  “Have you talked to Catch?” Zayana asked. The unicorn grieved for Thaevrit, and being with Catch always made Zsythristria, or anyone, feel better.

  Zsythristria had spoken to Catch. He had passed by here on his search for female vesta. He had been unsuccessful in finding any, and she had comforted him. They had raced around the Sea of Brass, and she had won, though he accused her of cheating by running part of the way on the water. She thought this was nonsense, for Catch had run part of the way on the wind.

  Zayana laughed. “Can you take me to the observatory, Zsythristria?”

  The unicorn nickered and pranced, happy to be of use. She lowered herself and allowed Zayana to settle carefully onto her back.

  The unicorn rose. The wind streamed through Zayana’s hair, and as always, it seemed she had entirely missed the transition from complete standstill to exhilarating speed. Faster than any speeder, her delicate legs strong and sure, Zsythristria carried Zayana like a night wind through the rain-speckled dusk of the high plains.

  Zayana sighed and leaned down to hug her mount around the neck as they went. The unicorn glanced back at her for a moment. The ride was almost unbelievably smooth and silent. Zayana might have been in a dream, soaring on her own through the darkness, skimming the ground, the rain like tiny bullets peppering her face as she looked ahead.

  All too soon, they came to a halt. Zayana sighed. She would rather have gone riding on Zsythristria all night. She didn’t want to talk to Jeronimy. She didn’t want to worry about the coming disaster, the end of the world. She wanted to ride the unicorn, eat something, take a hot bath, and play her harp until she fell asleep.

  She remained on Zsythristria’s back for a minute before sliding off, her contact with the solid ground feeling like the return of hard reality after a dream. Zsythristria, hardly winded after speeding dozens of miles in a matter of minutes, turned a single eye, deep and wise and old, to Zayana.

  “Stay,” Zayana asked of her. “I don’t think I will be long.”

  The unicorn drifted to a nearby clump of grasses and lowered her neck to eat. Zayana turned to the imposing structure of the observatory. It rested near the summit of the mountain, beside a steep cliff that allowed a spectacular view of the high plains and the stars when the weather was good. For now, the storm still grumbled overhead. The observatory looked empty and unused. No lights on within. The only lights in view were those of a handful of scattered houses or outposts down there on the dark and damp plains, far away and below, flickering weakly across miles of drizzling rain.

  Zsythristria told her, as Zayana moved to enter the observatory, that she would be there in a moment if Zayana needed help. The unicorn knew what was in there. She knew Jeronimy, but like Catch, she did not trust him. Almost no creature did. And the way Jeronimy behaved, Zayana could hardly blame them.

  Zayana sighed, took a final lingering look at Zsythristria in the rain, and then pushed through the door. Glowlamps activated at a snap of her fingers, flooding the empty show floor with a warm light. Though not strong, the light was enough to blind her for a moment.

  She made her way across the tiled floor, past the benches and tanks, beneath the levitating model of the solar system, to the main staircase. Two flights up and she entered the main observation deck, the largest room in the observatory. Rain pattered on the plasteel dome that arced overhead, filling the dark echoey space with a soft white noise. She smelled the rain. The lights were off, but several of the great machines hummed in the dark, their own dotted constellations blinking. A screen bigger than herself lit a swath of tile across the room, its light outlining a lean figure. The figure’s restless shadow stretched until it merged with the darkness.

  “Took your fucking time,” said Jeronimy. He kept staring at the screen, doing something on a holographic keypad, not bothering even to turn around.

  Despite herself, Zayana felt a twinge of comfort simply at seeing someone she knew, even if it was Jeronimy. He was still her friend, in a way, though he refused to behave like it. Coming to meet him like this reminded her of the old times with him, though those times had not been so long ago. It reminded her of years even earlier, when she had snuck out of the castle to meet Akkama out on the fields, or in town, or by the sea. That had been before the accursed Desert Watcher had changed everything. Before Akkama had changed.

  She stood in the dark and watched the backlit form of Jeronimy. As always, he seemed to fade into his own shadow. The spiky protrusions of his arda were unmoving on his body, but on his shadow they crawled, shifted.

  She closed her eyes and listened to the rain tapping softly on the dome. The sound relaxed her.

  “You just gonna stand there?” Jeronimy’s voice, thin and whiny. “Just gonna fucking cry?”

  She wasn’t crying, but her voice shook a little when she spoke. From anger, mostly. “So you’ve heard?”

  “‘Course I fuckin heard. Akkama’s lost her shit. I never really liked the princess-heir, but damn. Akkama knew you two were close. Didn’t Thaevrit cover for you two when Akkama snuck on over here? Now that crazy bitch kills her to be part of some stupid assassin club. That’s fuckin cold.”

  Anger burned within Zayana. “Jeronimy. Stop.”

  He laughed. “Mad?”

  “Oh, is it obvious?”

  “Why not break some shit?”

  “Oh, is that all? Will that help me, Jeronimy? Breaking some shit? Will that fix things?”

  “Fuckin’ yeah. Here.” His holoscreen vanished as he stepped aside into the darkness, fully concealed. A rustle, a clatter, and then a prolonged metallic clanging as something slid toward Zayana across the floor. It collided with her right foot. It was a long titanium wrench, used to adjust the huge lens bolts of the largest telescope.

  Jeronimy returned to his place in front of the screen. He waved a hand off to one side. “We don’t need the reflector anymore. It’s trash. Go for it.”

  “Go…?” she looked from his outline to the tool at her feet.

  “Smash it to the fucking hells. Pretend it’s Akkama. I don’t care.”

  Zayana hesitated. She bent down and picked up the wrench. It was heavy. Heavy, hard, cold. Its weight and heft felt good in her hands. She looked at the vague shape of the reflector in the darkness, abandoned and unused in the corner of the room.

  A moment later, the soft pattering of rain was joined by another sound, much more violent. Metal clanged against metal. Glass shattered. Control panels crunched, were dented, were broken. For minutes it went on, until a grunt of effort preceded each crash, until the strikes became infrequent, until the sound of angry sobbing echoed in the dark.

  “Holy shit, you fucking wrecked it,” said Jeronimy when it seemed to be over. “Nice.” He stood unseen in the shadows near a panting Zayana, his step noiseless even over the layer of shattered glass. “Hey, I think there’s more lenses over here. I’ll even put some music on.”

  They played a sort of game in which Jeronimy rolled lenses of variable size out of the darkness toward Zayana, who struck them one-by-one with the wrench. Some were too large to shatter; they only cracked and fell over. Their fragments sprayed in the corridor of light reaching from the illuminated screen, like showers of meteors that vanished into the shadows. Again and again, while Jeronimy’s weird music thumped in the darkness, until there were no more spare lenses and Zayana stood dripping sweat amid the carnage of dozens of useless telescope optics.

  “Feel better?” asked Jeronimy. “Just kidding, don’t fucking care.” He returned to the screen and cut out the music with a snap of his fingers.

  Zayana realized, as she caught her breath, that she did feel better. Not because she had been imagining the lenses as Akkama; she didn’t want that. Akkama, somehow, was still her friend. But maybe…maybe it was just the catharsis of destruction. Trust Jeronimy to know all about that.

  After a moment, she dropped the wrench and crunched across the glass to stand behind him. “So why am I here?” she asked, breathing heavily. The screen displayed several images of a bright streak in the darkness—a fuzzy pale orb with a hint of purplish blue at its center, leaving a trail as though smeared across a black canvas. She recognized it at once. Solesta, the King’s Comet.

  Jeronimy lowered the holoscreen and gestured vaguely at the images. “These are live,” he said.

  Zayana took a closer look. Her eyes widened when she understood. “The magnification…that means…”

  “Yeah. It’s about eight fucking years early.”

  “And the King?”

  Jeronimy produced an annoyed growl in response, a noise Zayana had once found endearing and understood to mean assent. The Grim King, which chased this comet through the void, was also, somehow, roughly eight years early. Zayana recalled Anthea’s words about “a very definite timeline.”

  “Is it accelerating?”

  “Its speed is stable, best I can tell. But the equipment…” He didn’t have to finish. This was Zayana’s observatory, after all, and she knew perfectly well that the accuracy of the telescopes was rapidly deteriorating. That, or the stars were moving. Perhaps a little of both.

  “At this rate, Solesta will be visible in a few months,” she said.

  “Three. Perihelion about three months later. With a massive fucking margin of error, obviously. And it’ll come close. Too fucking close.”

  Zayana summoned her own holographic control screen and flipped through some charts, set the machinery to calculating. “Closer than ever before,” she muttered to herself. “Magnitude…negative twenty? That’s brighter than the moon.”

  “A lot fucking brighter.”

  “So…why is this so urgent?” she asked.

  “Well for one thing, Anthea wants you to tell the big guy. The Grim King might be paying a visit in half a year. Personally, I don’t think it fucking matters. We’ll all be joining your sister-heir around that time.”

  “It matters,” said a voice, Anthea’s voice, from the darkness above. “I’ve told you, Jeronimy, it’s not the end.”

  “Oh nice,” said Jeronimy. “Wow, like, great. Just fucking great. I guess I can’t even take a shit without someone creeping on me and listening to every fucking word I say. I won’t even bother asking how you’re talking to us through the gods-damned PA system. But why are you here?”

  “Can you patch my video through?”

  Zayana watched Jeronimy as he tapped a few times on his control screen, then hesitated. He glanced up. “No,” he said after an uncomfortable pause. “I can’t.”

  Zayana rolled her eyes. He hadn’t even tried. Anthea intimidated Jeronimy. He wanted to be like her, or something. Maybe it was uncomfortable gratitude for her saving his life at the Iterator years ago. He usually changed the subject when Anthea was mentioned. And he was perfectly able to patch her video through.

  “Is this about the kaleidoscope?” asked Zayana.

  “It’s about surviving the end of the world,” said Anthea.

  “You’ve been pretty fucking vague on how we’re gonna do that,” Jeronimy growled under his breath.

  “We’re working on it,” said Anthea.

  “‘We?’ Who the fuck is ‘we?’ And what the fuck makes you so confident about surviving the gods-damned end of the world?”

  Anthea paused before responding, and when she spoke next, her voice had changed. Gone was the playful, witty creature who danced on mountaintops. In her place spoke a commander, confident and sure. It was the kind of voice that Zayana instinctively wanted to trust, to obey. It reminded her of the Majesty.

  “I know it, for the dragons have told me,” she said. Jeronimy shrank at her tone. “Derxis knows it, for he has thus prophesied. Rasmus knows it from his godshatter.” She paused. “The world may be ending, Jeronimy, but there is a way out. There is hope. And you are part of that hope. You will finish that kaleidoscope. You will tell me when Solesta’s arrival can be calculated with greater accuracy. That is how much time we have.”

  Out of what Zayana knew to be sheer stubborn defiance, Jeronimy scoffed. “Firstly, the word of Derxis isn’t worth the shit I took yesterday and you know it. And secondly, what if I don’t fucking want to?”

  “You already are,” said Anthea. He was building the kaleidoscope, and was close to finishing it, though Zayana worried that being advised to do so would make him abandon the project out of spite. “And more to the point,” Anthea continued, “only you can do so. None of the rest of us can see the Voidlight. We need you.”

  Jeronimy became very uncomfortable upon hearing that. He shuffled, mumbled something inaudible, uttered a string of curses. His shadow writhed behind him.

  “We’ll be in touch,” said Anthea. And then she spoke no more, although that didn’t necessarily mean she was gone. Zayana didn’t mind if Anthea was still listening, but the idea clearly made Jeronimy nervous.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  “So,” said Zayana. “I’ll tell the Majesty about Solesta. Six months.”

  “Fuck.”

  “And the kaleidoscope is important. Hmm. I cannot imagine it was the dragons that said so. They so mistrust machines.”

  “Fuck the dragons.”

  Zayana sighed. “Can you at least pretend to care, Jeronimy?”

  “You really want that? You want to see me pretend to care? Okay, here we go. Ahem. ‘Wow, holy hells, I’m just fucking ecstatic about the end of the gods-damned world. It sure does keep me right the fuck up at night when the princess of Meszria eats it because Akkama the fucking psychopath kills her so she can join a superfluous band of fellow murderous bitches.’”

  “Okay. Stop.”

  “What else? Oh yeah, it sure is a bummer that the Iterators are stuck in a living hell from which they can’t escape, and that the whole fucking world is being overrun by the songless husks of dead daimon, and boy you can just fucking bet it brings a gods-damned tear to my eye that everyone thinks I’m one of them.”

  “Jeronimy.”

  “Guess who just fucking wept over the graves of every person that died in that fucking catastrophe of a ‘war?’ This guy. Am I caring enough yet? What if I tell you that I devote my every waking hour to making these fucking hoverchairs for the elderly so that they can like get a nice comfy view of the Grim King himself when he comes by to slaughter them. Oh, and I’ve actually started letting Fiora dictate my every move, ‘cause we all know nothing could fucking go wrong if we all just did whatever dumbass thing she—hey, you’re leaving?”

  Zayana did not reply, nor look back. Fists clenched tight, she crunched over the broken glass, down the stairs, and outside into the rain. The rain had increased since she’d gone in. Still no downpour, it nevertheless shrouded the lights on the plains below. Cool, refreshing. She stood in it for a moment.

  A soft footstep nearby. Zsythristria. The unicorn touched Zayana gently with her pearlescent horn. A cool tingle washed over Zayana as though she’d been dipped in a pool. It disappeared as suddenly as it had come, but it took with it her frustration, her anger, her sorrow, her pain. It left her numb.

  “Thank you,” said Zayana. She leaned against the soft shoulder of the beautiful creature. Zsythristria knelt gracefully to allow Zayana to slide on.

  “I need sleep,” she said. “But first, take me to the Majesty.” He was still out there, wreaking some greatness in the distant storm.