Chapter 10

  Zayana: one year BK

  A messenger came to Meszria from Ys, the sunken city. She came unbidden by the Majesty, who allowed the bell-ringers of Ys to operate with autonomy. That she came unannounced and uncalled for was troubling news, and Zayana pondered its meaning as she swept through the lush corridors of the castle. She had read about Ys, the city on the back of the great turtle at the bottom of the sea, but she had never been there, and the bell ringers who lived there were rarely seen elsewhere.

  She found her sister-heir Thaevrit in a secluded open-air courtyard near the reception hall. Thaevrit stood beside the rippling pool. Her robes were of blue and gold silk studded with shining arda, and her hair was bound in many gleaming ribbons. Beautiful as always, but still no match for the creature into whose eyes she gazed. It was a vesta, its head lowered so that it and the princess nearly touched foreheads. The sudden sight of it stopped Zayana in mid-stride, causing her to stumble. Her clumsiness distracted Thaevrit and broke whatever bond she had been sharing with the vesta.

  Thaevrit turned with a smile to welcome Zayana. The vesta huffed and shook its mane, which rippled like spun gold in the evening light. That light caught its crystalline antlers and made sprays of rainbows over the courtyard. It was not merely the glittering antlers of the vesta that made it so awe-inspiring, nor its eyes like deep pools of liquid mercury, nor its metallic golden fur or its great size. Something more, an aura combining and enhancing all of this, reached through the senses to strike at the heart. It made Zayana’s breath catch whenever she beheld the creature. It was like seeing the first sunset of her life every time. Few vesta as there were in the world, there could be no mistaking this one.

  “Catch?” said Zayana.

  The elk-like creature fixed its gaze upon her, and her knees trembled. She wondered, in the back of her mind, how Fiora could live with a creature like this, much less ride it. The vesta, recognizing her, nodded in greeting.

  Thaevrit laughed as she skipped over to Zayana, her silken robes flowing. “He came to bid me well on my coalescence. Look!” Thaevrit and Kartha would be formalizing their relationship in a few weeks’ time. There in Thaevrit’s hand lay a small fragment of the vesta’s antler the size of a carrot, smooth and silver and translucent, glimmering with inner light. Zayana’s eyes widened when she saw it, and she turned her gaze back to Catch. The creature seemed to strike a noble pose for her benefit. The evening sun struck its golden fur, which was odd since this courtyard, flanked by walls, never saw sunlight past noon.

  Zayana had to say something. “It will look beautiful with the dress.”

  Thaevrit laughed, unable to contain her happiness. She loved all strange beasts and magical creatures, but she adored the vesta. Who didn’t? And it was such an honor. “The dress is vesta-hide, you know.”

  Zayana did not know. She had only glimpsed the dress, and its beauty had been breathtaking, its material a mystery. “Is that…okay?” Zayana asked, with a look at Catch.

  Thaevrit grinned at her. “It was given willingly. By We Have Called the Dawn, the vesta who carried King Turnstone into the battle of the Red Line during the Sevenfold Accord. She…you don’t remember this, do you?”

  Zayana, for whom history was not a subject of particular interest, shrugged in embarrassment.

  “Don’t worry.” Thaevrit put a hand on Zayana’s shoulder and squeezed it. She looked at the vesta. “There is news from Ys,” she said. “Do you know what it might be?”

  The vesta shook its neck; once more its mane danced in the sun. This meant no.

  A bell tolled nearby. The Majesty was ready to receive the visitor from Ys.

  “Let us go,” said Thaevrit, taking Zayana by the hand. Together they walked past the vesta. Zayana nodded to it in passing, but Thaevrit ran to it and gave it a brief hug. She barely came up to its neck. Then they proceeded into the comparative darkness and dullness of the corridors of the castle. They left the vesta to its own devices. A vesta, like a dragon, was not to be summoned nor dismissed; it came and went as it pleased.

  “I really must go and meet your friend,” said Thaevrit. “What kind of person is able to give a name to a vesta? It responds, you know. To ‘Catch.’ Catch!”

  “I know,” said Zayana.

  “What kind of name is ‘Catch’ for a vesta?”

  “It catches her when she jumps out of trees. So…”

  Thaevrit flung a hand in the air in exasperation, but she was smiling. “It said she’s lonely. It wants us to go see her in the forest.”

  “We should,” Zayana agreed. It had been too long. “And you can meet the keeper of the Thunder Temple while we’re over there.”

  “I’ve heard of him. The Ephathic Remnant tried to destroy that temple a few months back.”

  Zayana raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” But she never got to hear what became of those poor fools, for at that moment they reached the door of the audience chamber. Thaevrit glided in, Zayana on her heels.

  The audience chamber was not as grand as the throne room, yet because of its smaller size it tended to receive business of more true importance. The huge arda-carved chair of the Majesty faced a clearing on the gem-speckled marble floor, across which a semicircle of ornate chairs might seat nobles, supplicants, or a delegation. Metal-woven tapestries depicting scenes from Meszrian history decorated the walls, columns run through with veins of precious metals lined the walls, and the dome above displayed spiraling tessellated patterns of stunning intricacy all worked in living arda. The dome caught the evening sunlight, which filtered down into the chamber as a heavenly glow upon those below.

  There were four in the room when Thaevrit and Zayana entered. The Majesty himself first caught the eye, as was natural. His presence was a magnet, a gravitational well for thought and attention. He was large and imposing in figure even while stooped with age. His deep purple arda spines grew from his back, blooming into a pattern of broad plate-like shapes. Together, these formed the impression of a curved reptilian shell shielding his back. This was fitting, as he had bonded to a tortoise. He was slow, more from age than the tortoise-bonding, yet the power of his arda was unmatched. A handful of fist-sized arda crystals lazily turned in the air as they floated in a wide orbit around him, glinting with inner light. He wielded the might of many. The Majesty wore little beyond a ceremonial glove on his left hand, as usual, though his constellation was common knowledge, and he peered through thick circular spectacles at the messenger from Ys.

  The messenger was blue, naturally, and her arda made thousands of tiny sharp scales on her skin. Her hands and feet were broad and flat, her fingers webbed, and gills showed on her neck. A shark, Zayana guessed, though she knew not what kind. The messenger wore a few strips of colored hide from some fish, yellow and green scales glinting in the light. At her side lay a spear, the sharp end of which looked like the tooth of a sea monster.

  This messenger knelt in the open space before the Majesty’s throne, waiting patiently to speak. Kartha stood beside the Majesty, arms folded before his usual working clothes of tough leather. He was covered in scars, not because he was a green, but because of his task of working with the beasts. He and Thaevrit were such a perfect couple. Zayana offered a prayer of thanks to the dead gods, whenever she saw Kartha and the Majesty together, that the two of them seemed to get along.

  Finally there was Francois, a white, one of the Majesty’s scribe-guards. He was small compared to others in the room, yet it was because of his presence that no one, including Zayana, was concerned about the stranger having a spear in the presence of the Majesty. Francois stood at attention beside and just slightly ahead of the Majesty’s throne. He would be able to perfectly recount every detail of this meeting later. His eye for detail was especially uncanny, which Zayana thought might be due to his pale multifaceted eyes. Wasp.

  “My heirs have arrived,” said the Majesty as they entered. Though old, his voice remained strong. Words had always been his greatest tools and his fiercest weapons. He did not require the immense power of his arda to inspire his people, nor to strike uncertainty into his enemies. “You may now present your report, bell-ringer of Ys.”

  “I thank you, oh Majesty,” she replied, rising to her feet. Her sharp blue eyes scanned Zayana and Thaevrit before returning to the king. Thaevrit and Zayana took their places on either side of the Majesty, Thaevrit next to Kartha.

  “I am Rosma,” she said, “a Bell Ringer of the city of Ys. I came not by mine own accord, but at the behest of Speaker, Fathom-King, Keeper of the great Ma’Turin and his dreams, whom thou knowest.

  “The message I bring is grave, yet not urgent. Perchance thou hast heard that the turtle stirs in its cold slumber?”

  “I have,” replied the Majesty.

  “It is so. The legend wakes from its quietude. Now the Speaker believes it may be as little as a single year before Ma’Turin awakes and rises to the surface, and the bells of Ys toll at the dawning of the last day of the world, as it has been prophesied by both dragon and priest since ages past.”

  She paused, prompting the Majesty to reply, “Is this all?”

  “No. I shall continue. The Speaker has listened, as is her duty, to the dreams of Ma’Turin. The thoughts of the Great One in its slumber are to we mortals as is the moving of the stars, slow and inevitable. Yet a book has been written of such thoughts, as thou knowest, oh Majesty, and the last line of this book, which the Speaker set down only a week ago, is this: that the sky will break when Ys rises at the end of the world.

  “Finally, there is other news. Monsters of the deep are rising in greater numbers from the restless dreams of the Great One, especially in the area of the Switchwater Channel, which lies over the Elifaus Rift. The Speaker humbly suggests rerouting shipping and low-flying craft around the channel.”

  With this, she seemed to be finished. She bowed low to the Majesty and returned to one knee. A time of silence followed as those present considered her words.

  “What do you think, Thaevrit?” asked the Majesty at last.

  “It is no surprise,” she replied, “except perhaps that it is…so soon.”

  “Zayana?” said the Majesty.

  “We don’t know what any of the prophecies mean when they say ‘the end of the world.’ It may be a drastic change rather than a cessation, and it might not necessarily entail the end of our race.”

  “Ah…” said the Majesty. “And at that thought, what of you, Kartha?”

  “First,” replied the green whose coalescence with Thaevrit was but weeks away, “I must ask this messenger whether she would accept healing.”

  “Healing?”

  “It is a disease I have not encountered before. You are in considerable pain, are you not, Messenger Rosma?” Kartha asked.

  “It is incurable,” she replied, head down, eyes fixed on the floor. But now that Zayana looked closer, the blue messenger appeared to be trembling slightly. She would have guessed nervousness as the cause, but any green would know the truth.

  Kartha shrugged. “Then, Majesty, I’ll summarize my report. The dragons are more elusive and reticent than ever. Only one would speak to me, and she wouldn’t say where they were going or why, or how, yet it seems that the dragons are leaving Infernus.

  “The Shrike is unmoved; it doesn’t seem to know or understand that the world is ending. The foliots only laughed when I asked them about it. The Westing cloud senses the end, but seems at peace with it. I could not find either Lennu or the Desert Watcher.”

  Thaevrit continued seamlessly. “There are only a few vesta left in the world, one of which graced our castle with its presence only this evening. I don’t know whether they are dying or leaving like the dragons. The primordials are silent. The Kaza’ar have perished, every one, of unknown causes. As for the beasts in the sea, and in the void…”

  “No more informative than ever,” said Kartha. “Altogether, Majesty, no creature can be found that is both able and willing to enlighten us as to the end of the world.”

  The Majesty nodded; he had expected as much. “Thank you for your message,” he said to Rosma. “I have one more question for you before you depart.” He leaned forward. “A number of Bell Ringers from Ys volunteered to participate in the War. One of them, the youngest, I believe, continued to fight even after the armistice had been reached. This would not have been so very remarkable, had not the number of those she killed reached into the hundreds, and had it not eventually come to include warriors on either side of the conflict.”

  Zayana remembered hearing about this. A lone warrior had carved a path of destruction through the front even after the War had officially ended. A blue, she now recalled.

  “If that warrior returned to Ys,” the Majesty continued, “I suspect the Speaker, for I know her well, would have delivered this warrior to me for judgment. And further, I suspect she has done just that.” Zayana felt, more than saw, Francois prepare for sudden movement. The room became very tense.

  “Are you that warrior, Rosma?” asked the Majesty.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  She replied at once, without changing her posture or tone of voice in the slightest. “I am.”

  “Why did you keep fighting?”

  “It was the just thing to do.” Still she betrayed no unease, no emotion. “They are thine enemies. The War may have officially ceased due to the threat of the voidbound, yet I was still able to do my part.”

  “Ah…and why was it so important to you? What act did the soldiers of the Shogunate commit that demands such justice?”

  “They destroyed Elondra’s Gift. Their machines ruined the Rending Sea. They murdered the Freezing God.”

  “Ah…” said the Majesty. “Crimes indeed.”

  “Yes,” agreed Rosma.

  “Yet are these not the crimes of the Shogunate and its leadership? I doubt that many of the soldiers you slew were directly responsible.”

  She raised her eyes to look at him, and they were cold as ice, burning with such conviction that Zayana blinked in surprise. “Those are the words of the weak, your Majesty.”

  Zayana’s mouth dropped open. She heard a faint gasp from the direction of Thaevrit and Kartha.

  “Understanding is weakness?” asked the Majesty.

  “Mercy is weakness,” Said Rosma.

  “Ah…And what of my own warriors whom you slew?”

  “Fraternizing with the enemy, oh Majesty.”

  “And what of myself, who ordered the ceasefire? I pressured the Shogun into accepting it.”

  “Weakness is not guilt.”

  Zayana could hardly believe her ears. She concentrated on keeping her gaze steady, not looking at the Majesty.

  “Ah…” he said. “I appreciate your candor, Rosma of Ys. Princess Zayana.”

  Zayana, startled at hearing her name, at last turned to look at him. “Yes, your Majesty?”

  “I will leave it to you, Zayana. You are nearly the same age as young Rosma here. Among the last to fall, I imagine.”

  “Leave…?”

  “The judgment of Rosma of Ys. You may question her further if you desire. Say the word, and she will be executed for treason, Bell Ringer or no.”

  Zayana wanted to say something in response, but…what? I am not prepared for this, she thought. Not prepared at all. And now Rosma, the messenger of Ys, was looking at her, eyes cold and unafraid. Everyone was looking at her, except the Majesty. Zayana could tell he was still watching Rosma, though she didn’t dare turn to check.

  She swallowed. Did she have to decide now? What was there to decide? This Rosma had slain soldiers of Meszria, by her own admission, and showed no hint of remorse. But she was a Bell Ringer. And the War was over, though she wouldn’t admit it.

  This person should die. Maybe it was unfair to call her a murderer, but the charge of ‘traitor’ was obvious. She had killed soldiers of Meszria. But…Zayana didn’t know. The memory of Catch, the vesta, came to her like a warm beam of light in the cold night of her mind.

  “No,” she said, and she spoke calmly although she hardly understood what she was saying or where the words came from. “There are few enough daimon left. We are all the stars in the sky.”

  The room suddenly seemed dimmer. It was dimmer, for the sun was setting.

  “Ah…a swift judgment,” said the Majesty. “And one we shall abide by. Return to Ys, Rosma Bell-Ringer. And wage no longer a dead war. The sins of the Shogun have been paid for, as have my own.”

  Rosma stooped to pick up her spear, causing Francois to tense beside Zayana. But she only bowed to the Majesty and departed, her wide bare feet slapping softly on the marble.

  Everyone save the Majesty seemed to release a breath they had been holding as a scribe-guard posted outside closed the door of the chamber. The shell-like spines of the Majesty glittered with light as a thousand sparks of violet radiance crawled over them. Zayana sensed his power like a tingling pressure gripping her body, and she understood anew that his power was a deep river compared to the trickling brook of her own energy. The Majesty could sense the presence of every daimon for miles. He could deprive dozens of the power of their arda. He could commandeer their powers for himself. Zayana did not know what he was doing now, but whatever it was required only a fraction of his might.

  When he had finished, he sat back into his chair with a sigh. “I would speak to the two heirs of the Meszrian throne in private. Yet I know that you, Kartha, will soon be one with the first heir. And if I cannot entrust my scribe-guards, what then?” Kartha and Francois nodded in acceptance of this honor of trust.

  “Our Kingdom is failing,” he said, in the same even tone of voice he had used throughout the meeting with Rosma. “If the Speaker for Ma’Turin has read the turtle’s dreams with accuracy, we may have no more than a year. And there is no need for me to acquaint you with the difficulties we have faced since the War has come to an end. The Darkness spreads. We have lost contact with many of our outlying provinces. The Exodus has been troublesome, and the Ephathic Remnant in orbit acts with ever more aggression.

  “And all of this is of little consequence in comparison to the cessation of our race. It may be that you, Thaevrit, or you, Zayana, will one day rule a kingdom consisting of only yourselves. Ah…” He shook his head sadly. “And there is little to be done.”

  Zayana thought of Anthea, who insisted that they had to hold fast to hope. She thought of Derxis, who declared with confidence that all would be well, though he laughed whenever he said it. She thought with a small smile of Emmius, who simply didn’t care. Out of all her friends, Zayana envied Emmius. It was ridiculous—a princess jealous of a destitute crush-addled vagabond—but Emmius enjoyed the world, and he loved being alive in it. He always seemed happy.

  “A color priest came to me when I was in Revek,” the Majesty continued. “She told me in a prophecy that some daimon may survive the end of the world. She asked me to create a mind stone from her arda.” He picked up an object that had been resting on the arm of the arda-carved chair. At first glance, Zayana had taken it for a regular chunk of orange arda. It was an angular segment of jagged orange crystal, the size of her forearm, but now she noticed that its presence registered exactly like a daimon. This, which the Majesty now held in a gentle hand, was the crystallization of all the powers of a color priest, available for anyone to use. Very rare, very powerful, potentially very dangerous.

  “I am giving you the mind stone, Thaevrit,” said the Majesty, offering it to her. She took it as though expecting it to be searing hot. She had probably never touched one before. Zayana had never even seen one. “Use it wisely. I am undertaking efforts to discover what she meant in her cryptic prophecy.”

  The Majesty dismissed them after this. He had much business to attend to.

  “Two great gifts in a single day?” asked Zayana when she joined Thaevrit outside. They both turned without thinking back to the courtyard the vesta had been in, both of them hoping he might still be there.

  Thaevrit smiled, but her smile was a bit grim. “I’m not sure if a mind stone is a good gift.”

  Zayana didn’t know either. But it reminded her that she needed a gift for Thaevrit, for her and Kartha’s coalescence, and it would have to be an excellent gift indeed. How in the abyss could she compete with a mind stone and a shard from a vesta antler? Maybe Anthea could help. She’d have asked Akkama, but…Akkama had changed in the past year.

  They emerged into the courtyard, and both sighed in regret when they saw that Catch had departed. They took a seat on the edge of the pool. Zayana gazed up into the darkening sky, spattered with a handful of stars. Flibby found them, his opalescent mantle shimmering as he squirted down from the cool skies to settle happily on Thaevrit’s shoulder.

  “Try using it,” Zayana suggested.

  “The mind stone?” Thaevrit sounded cautious. She held up a small cracker, which Flibby seized with a tentacle and made vanish with a soft crunching.

  “Better to be used to it when the time comes you truly need it,” Zayana replied.

  “Well…”

  Zayana closed her eyes and watched carefully in her mind as Thaevrit’s aura flared next to her, and the mind stone burned with light. Then Zayana turned her gaze out, looking as far as she could through the castle grounds and even beyond into the twilit fields. Somewhere out there, someone was waiting for her. Someone she’d planned to run off and meet with for weeks. Someone she could not perceive in her mind no matter how she concentrated.

  “Zayana!” Thaevrit sounded severe, almost angry.

  “Yes? What?”

  “You’re meeting him again? We talked about this, Zayana.”

  Zayana felt as though she had been splashed with cold water. “How…Did you just read my mind?!” For a moment she couldn’t tell whether she was angry at the unexpected invasion of privacy, embarrassed about being caught, or impressed that Thaevrit had used the mind stone successfully.

  “I did,” said Thaevrit. “Sorry.” She didn’t look sorry. She looked disappointed and worried. “He’s dangerous, Zayana.”

  Zayana’s laugh burst from her lips before she could stop it, surprising Thaevrit. “Nonsense,” she said. “Out of all of my friends, he is the least dangerous.” She thought again of Emmius and added, “Almost.”

  “He’s a black,” said Thaevrit. She held up a hand to forestall Zayana’s objection and continued, “A living black, I know, you’ve made that very clear. But even so. The vesta doesn’t trust him. I don’t trust him. He lives in the dead husk of an Iterator, for the gods’ sake!”

  “You haven’t even met him! And how do you know he lives in an Iterator?”

  Thaevrit at last assumed a look of embarrassment. “I…saw…quite a lot, just then. When I looked into your mind. I really didn’t mean to pry, Zayana!” Like that, in a flash, she went from disapproving monarch-in-training to apologetic friend.

  Zayana felt unease mingled with a warm violet blush crawling up her neck. How much exactly had Thaevrit seen?

  “Then…then you should know,” said Zayana, choosing her words as carefully as though she were stepping through a nest of viper rats. “That he means no harm.”

  Thaevrit seemed to realize she still held the shining orange crystal. She stuffed it into her small pack, where it barely fit. “I know he doesn’t mean harm, Zayana. I do. But the Voidlight is all around him, and don’t tell me you can’t see it. He is haunted by Darkness. That’s what the vesta mistrusts, and I. Do I really need to tell you what fate awaits him, and those near him? It doesn’t take a color priest.”

  Thaevrit sighed, her sternness swiftly worn through. She leaned back as far as she could without falling into the pool and looked up at the stars. “You’re lucky it was me who saw that and not the Majesty.”

  Zayana could scarcely countenance the thought. Jeronimy’s life had been dangling on a thin thread indeed for as long as the Majesty had held the mind stone. Jeronimy didn’t need to know that. She changed the subject. “He’s building something,” she said.

  “I know. I didn’t see what.”

  Zayana shook her head. She didn’t know either. “But he says he needs my help.”

  Thaevrit put a hand on the satchel holding the mind stone. “Zayana, I almost want to give this to you, so you can take a look in my mind and see my fears for you.”

  Zayana chimed her crystals faintly, their violet light flaring for a moment on the walls, the water, the trees. A snippet of her Song wandered through the night. “No need for that, Thaevrit.” Zayana had already decided that she had no interest at all in such a thing as the mind stone. As far as she was concerned, the power of the color priests should stay with the color priests.

  Thaevrit stood. “I’ll distract the Westing cloud,” she said, “and move the marid to the western pools.”

  Zayana grinned at her. Just like old times, sort-of, except that Akkama wasn’t here. Akkama hadn’t been here in a long time.

  “One more thing,” said Thaevrit. “I…thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “That messenger. Rosma. I didn’t understand why you just let her go—or why the Majesty did, for that matter. I’m glad you did, but when I saw the reason why…” She touched the satchel with the mind stone. “It made me glad. So thank you for that.” Then she turned and left, no doubt to find Kartha after she eased Zayana’s escape from the castle.

  Zayana stared after her. Zayana still had no idea why she had made that decision about the messenger, Rosma. What had Thaevrit seen below the level of Zayana’s awareness? It unnerved her that Thaevrit knew Zayana’s motivations for this action better than Zayana herself. That mind stone was a frightful thing indeed. “Color priest bullshit,” Jeronimy would no doubt call it.

  She wondered about it for the rest of the evening, even when she met Jeronimy in the dark highland fields, took his prototype skycraft back to his dead Iterator, and saw for the first time the skeleton of the giant machine that he would come to call the Kaleidoscope.