Requiem of Silence Page 10

  “No, She barely wanted to touch it. Though She said it wasn’t magical. Just words on paper.”

  “Words on paper can be magic enough,” he mused. “Maybe we should have a look.” Zeli’s eyes were in danger of bursting from her face and running away entirely. “I mean, aren’t you curious?” He could tell she was by the indignant look she wasn’t quite pulling off. “What’s the harm of taking a quick peek?”

  She wavered, then tightened her arms and shook her head. “No, it isn’t our business.”

  But Varten had seen the chink in her armor. “I suppose you’re right. The Goddess Awoken always has our best interests at heart. She never tricks or manipulates things in order to get Her way.”

  Zeli appeared surprised at the bitterness in his voice.

  “Not like She let my sister die or anything.” Varten hadn’t been there for Kyara’s execution, but he’d seen the newspapers and heard the radiophonic newsreaders. Jasminda had collapsed, poisoned, something the Goddess should have been able to prevent easily, but hadn’t, all to test Kyara’s power or some such.

  “I’m betting the situation this morning isn’t the only secret She’s keeping.”

  Zeli stopped walking entirely, her jaw dropping. After a long moment she spoke, voice wobbly. “Maybe She gave me this task to test me?”

  “She’s been known to do that before. She tested my father—that’s how he came to this country in the first place.” It was also why they’d ended up in prison, but he restrained himself from mentioning it.

  Zeli swallowed. They continued walking until they arrived at an intersection. Down the hall was a small door, nondescript but guarded by two Royal Guardsmen. The vault must be somewhere through there. But instead of approaching, she made a turn and dipped into the side hallway; this one looked to be for servants. She stopped in an alcove.

  “I don’t know. She told me to put this in the vault with the—” She cut herself off.

  “With the what?”

  “Something else powerful and dangerous that needs to be kept away from everyone.” She shook her head. “I should just do what She said.”

  Varten tapped his lips in thought. Zeli’s stance was relaxed, not as rigid as before. “You’re right. You’ll want plausible deniability in this type of situation.”

  “Plausible what?”

  “My brother and I believe that one should ask for forgiveness instead of permission.”

  Her confused expression lasted a moment longer until Varten plucked the book from her hands. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened into an O. Varten danced around her, fleeing down the hall, not knowing where he was going but hearing her feet race behind him.

  He tried a few doors, all locked, then finally one at the very end of the hall opened. He found himself in a sitting room, one that hadn’t been in use in quite some time. White sheets covered the furniture, making it seem that the place was full of lounging ghosts.

  The smell of dust hung thick in the air. There was no switch on the wall for electric lighting, but a bookshelf held two oil lamps. He pulled out the pack of matches he always kept in his pocket and lit the lanterns, while Zeli watched from near the door.

  “You can honestly say you had nothing to do with my actions,” he said. “That’s plausible deniability.”

  She shook her head as he uncovered some of the furniture, then sneezed as the dust caught up to him. He revealed two armchairs and a side table. The fabric smelled musty, but he tested one of the chairs, which was still springy.

  “You don’t even have to look. I’ll just take a quick peek and you can stay right over there. Afterward, we’ll make sure it gets into the vault.” He settled into the chair with one of the lamps on the table next to him and carefully unwrapped the book. It fell open to a place in the middle, well-worn pages covered in neat handwriting.

  It was a journal, written in dark, fading ink. The pages were thick and hearty, handmade, and very old. He flipped to the front, seeking a name or identifier of the journal’s author. Grinning, he read the inscription. “‘A gift from the heart to my beloved.’” It was only signed “O.” Hmm, the mystery increased.

  He looked up to find Zeli’s eyes on him. She’d inched closer. He bet if he read far enough she might make her way over here as curiosity gripped her.

  The first few pages contained sketches of simple machines and bodies. He scanned a few more pages until Zeli was seated beside him, craning her neck. He shouldn’t tease her too badly; how could they resist taking a peek? So far he’d seen nothing he imagined would make the Goddess uncomfortable.

  Taking care with the old parchment, he flipped toward the back—he always read the end of a book first to know what he was in for. He stopped on a page filled with writing, but with one word larger than the others, outlined over and over again.

  BLOOD.

  Zeli gasped.

  “Can you read this?” he asked.

  “I can read. It says ‘blood.’” She sounded affronted.

  “But it’s written in Elsiran.”

  She frowned. “No, it’s in Lagrimari.”

  He squinted at the words, clearly written in the language that his mother had painstakingly taught them all to read. They’d learned to speak Lagrimari from Papa, though he hadn’t known his letters in order to pass on reading and writing to his children.

  “But the written languages aren’t the same,” he said, heart beating faster.

  “They’re not,” Zeli said. “But the characters are. This is sort of like an old-fashioned version of Lagrimari. It’s not particularly easy to read but—”

  “It’s understandable.” Varten felt the same way. It was like wading through the classic literature Mama had made them read. Jasminda had loved the stuff, Roshon hadn’t particularly cared one way or the other, but Varten hated it. He’d struggled through the lessons, always resenting having to learn something so archaic.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “It shouldn’t be possible.” Zeli’s gaze was tense. She scooted her chair closer for a better look at the book. Now they were knee to knee and she draped herself over the arm of his chair to read.

  “Here,” he said, giving it to her.

  She shrank back. “Plausible deniability.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head. “You learn fast.”

  “That, I do.”

  On the opposite page from the ominous, underlined word was an outlined sketch of a man’s body, a circle in the middle of his chest with arrows pointing in and out. Varten traced the text below it with a finger and read.

  “‘The question of whether there is, in the body, an internal organ such that separates the Silent from the Songbearers has been definitively answered. There is not. The Song then must be deduced to have manifested in some other sphere, perhaps from the combination of bodily humors or some other esoteric blend of forces.’”

  He met Zeli’s perplexed gaze with one of his own.

  “‘Regardless of whether its source is physical or energetic, the removal of a Song from a Songbearer requires a fleshly severing of the aethereal from its bodily form. Its restoration cannot be undertaken by simply reversing this process, though true mastery of the replacement methodology may provide a future procedure to that end.’”

  The last words dissolved into breath. “Does this mean what I think it does?”

  She didn’t respond, but the truth was in her wide-eyed expression.

  He was almost too scared to put it into words. “Is there a way to restore lost Songs?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Power rests in action

  acts in resting

  brings the shallow world to heel with its perception

  runs nipping at your heels for its protection.

  —THE HARMONY OF BEING

  You are given warmer clothes that hang loose on your emaciated frame. A thick coat of gray, matted, stinking fur. Wool leggings. Boots a size too large for your feet. Accepting them makes you feel vaguely ill.


  Not even in your youth were you ever brought so low as to tolerate hand-me-downs. But to rise again, sometimes we must first fall. So you accede to the garments because they keep out the biting cold.

  Instead of the prison cell, you are brought to what was once a lavish guest room. Now it is in tatters like all else in this place. But it has a fireplace crackling with heat, and you stand before it, warming yourself for hours.

  Echoes of wailing winds moan their ragged songs. You rub your hands together to keep feeling in them, and don moth-eaten mittens so your fingers do not cramp and fall off from frostbite. At least that’s the warning one of the guardians gives.

  The waiting game continues. Regardless of your captor’s words, you don’t cease your attempts to draw blood and conjure. Just a drop is all you need to be free. Every creature with blood flowing warm through their veins can harness its power with the proper education. But you have been cut off from even that.

  Now, but not forever.

  When Nikora finally returns, days later, you are ready. You rise to face her, belly full and mind sharp. If she sees the resolve darkening your eyes she does not let on.

  “Come with me,” is all she says. The guards step aside, letting you out of the room that is just another kind of prison.

  Only a small part of the building is even moderately livable. The castle was cut into the mountain, so the rough-hewn rock walls have stayed secure. But the man-made parts of the structure have submitted to age and decay. Large sections of roof are missing, in addition to many walls. You cross a courtyard where crumbling spires loom overhead, threatening to fall at any moment. The heavy furs buffer the chill in the air, but you miss the warmth of your desert land.

  Finally, after negotiating a set of decaying stairs completely open to the elements on all sides and held up by hope more than any visible architectural buttress, you pass through a shallow cave to reach a top level with no walls at all.

  There is no exit from what is essentially a platform hovering in midair except the cavelike hallway you stand in, barred with an ancient iron gate.

  A fine layer of snow carpets the stone ground where at least a dozen men sit chained together. They all wear tattered army uniforms, the green of Lagrimar. But they have been given no furs, no boots. Still, they all have their limbs intact. Frost has not bitten their skin away.

  You peer more closely to find they are members of the Wailers. You recoil. Their necks are bare.

  “You have uncollared them!” Your voice is far more powerful than you intend. Rage explodes inside, bringing a modicum of heat to your skin. “Are you mad?”

  Nikora raises a hand. “They are no danger to me. Or you,” she adds. “We have ways of subduing them.” The Wailers sit side by side, rocking slightly, vacant expressions on their faces.

  “What did you do?”

  These men belong to you, only you may do with them what you wish, and it would be wasteful to allow them to freeze to death here. But not affixing the blood magic collars that prevent them from accessing their Songs is lunacy.

  “Collared, they could not heal themselves of the effects of the cold and the hunger,” Nikora explains patiently. “These Singers must not be allowed to die, yet we have few resources to waste.”

  “But without their collars what keeps them here?”

  The Wailers had always been a nuisance. The Singers, whose Songs were spared to be used for battle, had to be controlled via complicated blood spells that could be invoked only by their regiment’s commandant, the Cantor, or the king.

  “They are meek as mice,” Nikora says. “Whatever you did to them leaves them barely able to do more than follow orders. And before your thoughts race too far ahead, these men cannot be used to harm me or any of my people. Gentlemen, lift your sleeves.”

  As one, the men lift their right sleeves. A small wound of crisscrossing lines has been cut into each of their forearms.

  “It won’t counteract your blood spell, but it keeps us all safe. In case you had any ideas of manipulating them against me.”

  You feign ignorance, but disappointment claws at you. “And what do you want me to do?”

  Nikora raises a brow. “I want you to give their power to me. Take their Songs and put them into a caldera so that I may use them.”

  You jerk back at the audacity of her statement. “And why should I do that?”

  Her smile is a brittle, delicate thing. “Because if you don’t do it voluntarily, I will force you. You are not the only one who understands compulsion blood magic.”

  You force a chuckle. “Do you think I cannot withstand the pain of a blood spell? Do you think I have not spent hundreds of years inuring myself to that particular weakness—the one thing any of my people could have used against me?”

  Her eyes darken. “And you think that pain is all we can conjure?”

  Her tone is merciless. The Physicks have spent centuries studying magic and innovating it. You are still using the primitive spells you were taught generations ago. It is very possible—nay, probable—that they have come up with something that you have no defense against.

  “I cannot make a single caldera from all of their Songs, not unless I absorb them first.”

  “Fine then, a dozen calderas.” She waves her hand impatiently.

  “Why have a dozen weak ones when you can combine them into a single, more powerful Song?”

  “Wielded by you?” She raises a brow.

  “I have the unique experience to do so.”

  Nikora scoffs. “You can control these men’s Songs with your voice, correct? Their blood spells are already attuned to you. So you control them, and my spell controls you. It’s all the same to me.”

  You stiffen. “So, you plan to carve a blood spell into me so that you can control the blood spell I carved into them?” You chuckle, derisively. “That’s many levels of separation from the original spell. The results might be … unpredictable.”

  Her smug look melts away.

  “And since you’re familiar with blood magic,” you continue, “I don’t need to remind you what that sort of dilution of intention can do. Controlling this many with the blood is a delicate proposition. To do it once removed, and with an unwilling intermediary…” You spread your hands and shrug. “It took me nearly eighty years and hundreds of men to perfect the method of control. Not all of my generals could do it. But please, be my guest. You will definitely need more than these few. Working out the kinks in your method will kill ninety percent of them before you even begin to master control.”

  You watch her carefully, taking in the micromovements of her expression. She doesn’t give much away, but you are used to watching people for dissent or agreement and see when she begins to understand your words. She’s probably been experimenting with your people while you’ve been imprisoned. Perhaps she began with more men and these are all who are left.

  “So what do you suggest?” she says through gritted teeth.

  The cold of your cheeks aids in holding back a smile. “An alliance. I need not be your prisoner if I can be your ally.”

  She narrows her eyes. “Do you think me stupid? I could never trust you. You were far too powerful for too long to be able to ‘ally’ with anyone.”

  “But here I am at your mercy. For food, clothing, all the amenities of life, I require you and your people. Not a position I am used to being in, certainly. So I can liberate their Songs for you. Then whatever it is you wanted them to do, I will do—with the benefit of centuries of mastery.”

  She tilts her head in thought. “If I allow you the use of blood magic and their Songs, you would be back to conquering, and I would not get what I want. No, you must do your part without magic of any kind. Command them to do what we want using the blood spell already in place. Then we will see if you are a worthy ally.”

  You grimace internally, disappointed to be limited in such a fashion, but finding her a worthy adversary. There are still ways to turn this to your advantage.

  Nikora
nods almost imperceptibly at the guard standing just behind you. He grasps you around the waist in a painful hold and Nikora produces a bone-white knife from inside her coat. One of her steely hands grips your wrist and you freeze—her touch burns and you realize you may have underestimated her.

  She carves a mark into your forearm and the blazing fire of the knife’s tip makes you wonder if it was dipped in poison. There are ways to use poison in blood magic, but you never bothered to master them. The low, guttural words she speaks are in the language of the blood. A spell of obedience and restriction from causing harm. Not sealed with pain, but with a string of words you do not know. Alarm courses through you.

  “There, now we are allies,” Nikora says, releasing you. “You control the Wailers and do what I instruct you, or you will suffer.” Her tone is perfectly pleasant but her eyes are hard. “Pain is only the beginning of misery. And since you are hardheaded, I suspect that you will quickly discover that. Afterward, we will see.”

  You grit your teeth as she spins away. Yes, we will see. For nothing, no blood spell, no enemy, no foreign type of magic will stop you from reclaiming what is rightfully yours.

  * * *

  Back in the parlor, a moderately effectual fire roars. You are seated on the chair that creaks under your sleight weight. Nikora lounges on her bench, clad in red as ever, sipping a steaming cup of tea.

  Your cup sits on the table next to you, too hot to drink. “What do you want me to command the Wailers to do?” You have always believed curiosity to be a weakness, but right now, knowledge is strength.

  “What do you know of the Physicks, Eero?” She seems to know the use of that name irritates you, though you strive not to react.

  “None of the emissaries you sent ever deigned to seek an audience with me,” you reply tartly. “I found Ydaris when she was little more than a child, and offered her a chance at more than you all ever did. I know you create medallions that can mimic Songs, that your amalgam magic combines Earthsong, Nethersong, and blood magic.”

  Nikora grins enigmatically and sips her scalding tea. “We are an order both ancient and holy. When our patron, Saint Dahlia, walked the earth, she met many from all over the globe. She was a proponent of health and her followers were the first physicians. But after her passing on, the Physicks were lost. We did not understand why when we worked to banish illness and promote life and health, death had to constantly intervene. And so it was proposed that we stop it.” She pauses, expectant.