Hear
me, oh seeker into forbidden lore!
My
name is Verity Touraine, and in life I was known as the Duchess of Touraine.
I
sacrificed my life to the pursuit of knowledge, out of belief that truth is a
virtue, and wisdom an honorable aspiration.
History
will decide if I was a monster or a hero, but the truths I discover will
survive me. These texts contain all that I learned during my life.
Read
them and follow me in my journey through light and darkness.
--
Forward to the Diaries of Verity
The
Pale Ones
For a week, Nikolai waited. During the day, he read,
or let his mind wander, thinking of people and places far away. At night, he
listened to the wind howl as it blew over the battlements of the crumbling
tower, worming its way into his sanctuary through cracks and fissures in the
stone walls. Food and drink appeared in the night, offerings from the guardians
he never saw. Time passed.
On the ninth night, She
came. She wore the tattered remains of a man’s shirt, its shreds of ivory silk
making a mockery of human modesty. Her skin was the white of polished bone, and
Her pale hair fell in snarled tangles that
half-concealed Her face. Her nails glittered like rubies, and when She turned Her impossibly beautiful face towards him, he saw
that Her eyes were the color of emeralds, the same as his own. Around Her, the air turned the shade of ash.
I have found you, Her voice whispered in
his mind. Yes, yes, it is I, Katarina.
“And we have found you,” answered the first of the
four armored forms that stepped out of the shadows, quartering the chamber.
Moving as one, they tossed their cloaks aside and spoke four words. A black
wall, its depths sparkling with starlight, bubbled into being, engulfing the
tower. As one, they drew their weapons: a gauntlet of white metal, a black
sword with a heart of crimson, a shining silver star, and a great dark blade
damasked like sheaf of wire bound loosely together.
“And I know you,” a third voice, as gentle as a
chime, murmured. Two more shapes emerged from gloom, one a new white-haired
woman in a kimono of emerald green, one a pale-skinned man with golden eyes,
his hair black and his skin awash with twisting patterns. The woman spoke
again, to the one who could have been her sister. “You are the question that
three centuries of Issorat have died without
answering. You are the one who betrayed our family to our greatest enemy. You
are Issora Tatiana. Who knew,” she sighed mildly,
“that you would grow to favor your father?”
Tatiana’s face contorted with rage, and She lunged
at the Issorat woman, only to recoil in fury as the
Powers gathered around her balked Tatiana’s attack. Snarling, She whirled,
slashing at the nearest of the Veiled Guard with Her bare hands. Nikolai
discharged his gun, his bullet tearing through Her
heart and knocking Her to the dirty wooden floor. The tattooed man stepped
forward and spoke, “Die.”
She collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, Her heart’s blood spreading in a pool around Her. The Veiled
Guard watched Her corpse, each wondering if they could
dare to believe that they had won a victory so easily—
She rose from the floor, shrieking a battle cry as She threw herself at the Veiled Guard with the black sword.
Like an animal driven insane by agony, She tore at Her
assailants, Her claws ripping through armor as though it were paper. As Nikolai
hastened to reload his gun, something changed within him: he came to understand
that what he was doing was wrong. The Woman, beset by five attackers, was not
his enemy, but his salvation. He needed to do something to save her.
He put a second bullet through the heart of one of
the Veiled Guard.
The Woman howled with glee. Yes,
her voice crowed in Nikolai’s mind, yes,
I love you, Nikolai! You are all mine!
He realized he was. He felt at peace. He began
reloading his pistol as he watched the enemy hack Her body into pieces, as he
watched things like the writhing, hairy legs of spiders burst from beneath Her
skin and tear through Her flesh, as he watched Her wounds heal time and time
again, the twitching wires growing and thickening as the blades ceaselessly
carved through Her, exposing the crystalline shard of darkness that lay deep
within Her—
Cold steel pierced him as an armored form ran its
blade through his body. He collapsed to the ground, his blood mingling with Her own. The tattooed man kicked his pistol away from his
hand, took his sword, and touched him. Warmth suffused him, healing his wounds.
He was weaponless.
The Woman saw. Her voice echoed in his mind, You
have become useless to me.
She withdrew Her love,
turning him to ash.
Around Her, the weapons of
the Veiled Guard and their Nemesis fell upon Her, their blows more butchery
than battle. Time and time again She rose to lash out
with hatred at the other Issorat. Once, a Veiled
Guard reached out to touch the glittering shard within Her
as it lay bare, revealed when the black blade parted Her ribcage from Her
spine.
“She is the Pale,” the Veiled Guard spoke, “and
that is Her core. We must destroy it.”
She howled and fought beneath their assault as they
rained desperate blows upon the dark fragment. Around it, malign energies
crackled, like lightning both black and white. The Pale thrashed and shrieked,
unwilling to die while the other Issorat yet lived.
When at last the protective nimbus surrounding the
crystal crackled and vanished, it felt more like anticlimax than triumph. Claws of bright metal bit through flesh and bone, plunging deep
into the heart of the fragment to shatter it. A thousand pieces of smoky
glass scattered across the blood-drenched wooden floor. As they watched, each
piece smoked and shrank until it vanished entirely, leaving behind only the red
ruins of their foe, twitching faintly with the movement of the spider-leg wires
spreading through it.
“We won,” one Veiled Guard spoke, his armor filthy
with gore.
“If you call that a victory,” the tattooed man
scoffed. “Now I see the best the Veiled Guard has. It seems we have been
overestimating you all this time. We will meet again.” He stepped backwards to
the other white-haired woman, her kimono stained with
blood, and took her hand. Her eyes sad,
she turned from the heap of ash that had once been her grandson, and vanished.
The four Veiled Guard
raised their hands and spoke four words, and the starry barrier around them
vanished. One walked to Nikolai’s remains, and gathered his possessions while the
other three waited. When she finished her task, she whispered, “Your mother is
avenged.”
They walked north, leaving the tower to burn
unwatched behind them.
Unfated, Part I
She looked younger than he had anticipated, but at
the same time more regal than he had been led to expect. A touch of gold made
her eyes lighter than his own, and the faintest shadow of a tan on her skin
told him that seasons had passed since she spent much time out in the sun. Her
face was a little too long, her chin a little too strong, and her lips small
and frowning, not the sensuous, full mouth of a Sone
beauty. He had heard she looked more like her father than her mother, and
seeing her, he had to agree.
Still, there was beauty to her. Her clothes were
magnificent, chosen to advantage. The tight black doublet and dark stockings
she wore were embellished with tiny golden highlights that drew the eye. They
flattered her figure, revealing her slim, fit body – but as he looked, he
thought he could see a trace of the change court gossip whispered about. Her
eyes met his own, evaluating him even as he inspected her, and he saw courage
and will within them. When she brushed an errant lock of her chin-length auburn
hair from her face, tucking it into her slim circlet, he caught a glimpse of a
woman who was disarming vulnerable behind her disapproving expression. He could
tell that this meeting was not one she desired, and he could tell just as
clearly that she felt she had no choice but to have it.
“Your Excellency Edwin Bellatrix, I presume?” she inquired, her brow wrinkling. He
imagined what she was seeing: a plain, unremarkable man with a scar on his
forehead, his eyes brown, his hair brown and long and
bound in a single braid, his skin browned by the sun. Only his red surcoat, ornamented by the stylized sweep of the white Bellatrix family emblem, lent him color; it concealed the
dun and black of his shirt, pants, and boots beneath it.
He knelt before her. “Aye, Your
Royal Highness. I am Edwin Bellatrix, Count of Northtail, and I am told that I will be marrying you.”
The Crown Princess Adriana Komaru
stifled a chuckle. “You come straight to the point.” She gestured to a plush
chair, its upholstery patterned with pine branches. “Rise, and make yourself
comfortable, Your Excellency—”
“Please call me Edwin,” he said earnestly. “I’m a
soldier, not a courtier. My county was given to me a month ago, and I’ve never
even been there.” He stood, moving to the chair. Its mist-toned silk felt
delicate and comfortable beneath his fingers. He looked around the chamber, taking in the restrained luxury of the Crown
Princess’s receiving room, before remembering where he was.
Adriana clasped her hands across her stomach. “As you wish, Edwin.” She paused, frowning. Speaking his
name had unsettled her. He noticed without surprise that she did not ask him to
call her Adriana. “You seem very interested in the room’s furnishings. I won’t
be offended if you wish to look around.”
With an apprehensive half-bow, Edwin rose from the
comfortable chair, and walked over to the ornate tansu
cabinet that sat in the corner. It displayed a collection of rolled scrolls, a
dozen tiny figures carved in the shape of men and women, and a single golden
chrysanthemum in a vase glazed white and rust.
Silently, Adriana glided to his side, startling him
when she spoke. “The figures are a gift from the artisans of
Discomfited, Edwin turned to meet her eyes. The top
of her head reached no higher than his shoulders, but he still found her
physical presence slightly intimidating. Fumbling for words, he said, “You
aren’t what I expected you to be, Your Royal Highness. I heard the stories of
your meetings with the Duke of Alban, when you were engaged to him, and had
prepared myself to be introduced to you before your full court, in the Hall of
Kings, and spend the entire meeting on my knees—”
“Would you have preferred that?” Adriana inquired.
“I could still arrange it.”
“No, no,” Edwin hastily declared. “I am simply
off-balance, as you no doubt intended. I just wonder why…” he trailed off as he
watched the corners of the Crown Princess’s mouth twist into little smiles.
“I will be honest with both you and with myself.
When the Duke of Alban sought my hand, years and years ago, I did not wish to
be married. Much has changed since those days. If I wish to protect my name, my
title, and my kingdom, I have no choice but to take a Prince Consort.” Her tiny
smile faded, replaced by a troubled look. She wrapped her hands around her
stomach again.
His face grew hot with embarrassment before he
spoke the first word. “The rumors are true, then. You’re with child.”
She turned away, hiding her face. She nodded, her voice thickening. “The days I can hide it are coming to an end. That you suspected, and that you are
still here…” Her words trailed off.
He took a deep breath, fighting the urge to ask who
the father was. This, at least, was a conversation he had prepared for. “Your Royal Highness, I don’t know a great deal about your
life, but I know that the day six years ago when my wife gave me my daughter
Melody was one of the proudest of my life. If I am to marry you, I set one
term: Melody needs a mother. If you will not be that for her, I cannot marry
you.” Gently, he added, “That said, I would be a hypocrite if I demanded that
of you and did not offer to be as much of a father as I could for the child you
carry.” His face felt puffy, and his eyes watery. Every single time he spoke
his heart, this happened to him. He cursed himself inwardly, embarrassed by the
tears he was fighting down.
Adriana, her own voice husky with suppressed
emotion, muttered, “I never would have expected such sentimentality from a Bellatrix. Doesn’t the Church disapprove of that sort of
thing?”
He retorted, “I don’t think you know as much about
the Bellatrix as you seem to think you do, Your Royal
Highness.”
Adriana sighed, and wiped at her face before
turning around. “Touché, Edwin.” He
voice soft, she inquired, “May I meet this daughter that you demand I be mother
to?”
Edwin bowed his head. “She waits outside.”
“Please bring her in.”
Edwin walked to the door. He wondered if this was
as wise of an idea as he had thought when he had prepared Melody this morning.
Starting to dread what he would find outside, he opened the door and had a
servant bring his daughter to him.
She had taken out one of her braids, tangling it
into an ugly snarl, and had crumbs on her face. Her belt was missing, and with
a duchess’s dignity she held the hem of her dress and surcoat
off the ground with one hand. She gave him an irritated look, vexed that he had
dragged her away from whatever distraction she had found. He quickly wiped her
mouth with his sleeve, and wrestled the surcoat out
of her hands, provoking a dismayed squeal. With a whispered “Best manners!” he
propelled her into the Crown Princess’s receiving room. “Your Royal Highness,
may I present my daughter, Melody Bellatrix.”
Primly, Melody marched forward and dropped into an
exaggerated curtsey. Adriana, looking doubtful, sketched a curtsey back. Edwin
opened his mouth to speak as Melody favored Adriana with her “suspicious
judgment” face. Before he could decide what to say, Melody broke the silence.
In her fluting voice, she declared, “I hear that Your Royal Highness is going
to be my new mother. I miss my old mother very dearly, and pray every day that
she is happy and with the Light. But I think that you are very pretty, and see
that you have a good collection of toys and nice things, so if you wish to try
to be my new mother, we will see how things work out.” She curtseyed again,
dramatic.
Edwin watched Adriana’s mouth shape a frown, but as
his precocious, unawed little daughter sing-songed her way through her improvised speech – not the one
he had practiced with her this morning – the Crown Princess’ lips curled slowly
into a grin. When Melody finished, Adriana laughed sincerely, and imitated the
girl’s curtsey. “Yes, Melody, I suppose we will.” Adriana stepped forward to
take Melody’s hand and tilt her head to face him, her bangs falling across her
honey-gold eyes. “Melody reminds me of someone I knew when I was her age.” A
thrill coursed through Edwin as he watched her move. He wondered how he could
have ever thought her anything but beautiful. “This is not the path I imagined
for myself, but if I must walk a path not of my choosing,” Adriana murmured,
her fingers reaching out unconsciously to worry at the knots in Melody’s hair,
“I can imagine many far worse than to act in place of your mother, Melody. I
have thought much upon children in the past months, more than I have admitted
to anyone before this moment. If I were to have a daughter, I would wish her to
be like you.”
Edwin let out the breath he had been holding. “I am
glad to hear that my daughter pleases you, Your Royal Highness.”
Adriana’s eyes held his own, joy and sadness
mingled in her smile. “If we are to be married, and a family, then at least
when we are alone you must call me Adriana.” In her eyes, he saw tears sleeping,
each for a dream swept away or a new possibility found.
My
Only Weakness
The serious voice whispers to the audient void,
“The Pale has lost her body. She is returned to the vault, and cannot depart it
without our help. I will gather a score of our kindred and take them to Sunset
to darken the stars. We will be done before the
“Stop,” the grave voice answers him. “Your place is
Prophet’s Hope, not Sunset. Your job is to protect our interests there. You
have already failed me once, letting the library slip from your charge’s grasp.
Do not disappoint me again. Do not leave your post.”
A voice with laughter in it calls out, “Silvano, there is nothing to fear. Celestino
can travel to Sunset and back in a heartbeat, as you well know. Even were he
detained there, I could move to Prophet’s Hope to defend it, arriving long
before the army the Bellatrix are gathering could
reach it. And as to the library, could you have prevented what happened? Do not
be so conservative—”
Dry with age, a woman’s voice speaks up, “Hush,
child. Do not argue with us. We have plans for you. Let the Pale rest. She has
been angry for so long. Some time to herself will do her a world of good.
Remain where you are, both of you. In time, we will speak to you of what you
must do next.”
Doubt in his voice, the serious man speaks, “I will
wait, then, but only because you command it.”
“Good, child,” the ancient voice croons. “Bide your
time. Your hour to act draws nigh.”
An hour passes. Elsewhere in the listening abyss,
the laughing voice breaks the silence. “They do not mean to set her free.”
The serious voice answers him. “My thoughts are the
same. I… My faith in those who hold themselves over us is failing. It is true:
Tatiana was never entirely one of us. But she made this all possible, with the
knowledge she stole from the Issorat. If that was not
enough to earn a place…”
The laughing voice, solemn now, finished his
question, “…then we must wonder, if we were to fall doing their bidding, would
they trouble themselves to free us, their principal servants?”
“That was my concern,” the serious voice agrees.
“The next question is, ‘What can we do about it?’”
“I do not know,” the other voice answers him. “But she
told us it would come to this.”
“Yes,” a new voice whispers, sensual as a kiss. “I
foresaw this day. I have been preparing for it for years, but I am not yet
ready. For now, bide. Do what they ask, but guard yourselves. If we are
destroyed in the years to come, the Pale’s fall will be remembered as the
beginning of our end. We cannot let the madness that was her weakness infect us
and lead to our own demise. We may yet find a way to survive.”
Two voices whisper their assent, and the void is
silent once more.
But echoes carry, and in the distance, another
listens.
And none save he hears his dark laughter.
Unfated, Part II
For fifty years, Valent
Dyer had worked in
When news spread of the Crown Princess’s impending
marriage, Valent’s heart raced with panic. He had
long planned to be the one to make the two splendid wedding kimono
she would wear, both the white shiromuku and the
resplendent uchikake worn over it. He had dreamed
about what she would wish for, imagining that it would be his masterpiece, the
greatest and most beautiful pair of robes he would ever make. But now, he faced
a problem: her wedding would be in three short months, scarcely enough time to
make an uchikake, let alone one as magnificent as he
envisioned!
Valent
did the only thing a man in his position could: he sold himself for the chance
to seize his dream. Every kimono in his shop was sent out, scores and scores of
them: gifts to every Komaru he thought might remember
his name, offerings to every courtesan house of good reputation and quality.
For two weeks, every game of Nine Enlightenments was played with Dyer kimono,
and every courtesan from the first tier to the third received a new robe, vivid
with paint and stitchery. By the end, the Dyer
workshop lay empty, to an untrained eye more resembling a new shop than one
that had woven, dyed, and painted more than three thousand kimono.
Word spread. In the courtesan houses, guests asked
their lovers about their new robes, and madams whispered to visitors of the
generosity and beauty of Dyer House’s work. In the townhouses of the nobility,
lords and ladies admired the offerings sent to them: scenes of clouds and
birds, flowers and forests embroidered and dyed onto robes of whispering silk. Valent’s name spread, until at last it reached the ear of
Aimee Komaru, the Royal Heir, and from there found
its way to Adriana Komaru herself.
Thus, when the day of her wedding to Edwin Bellatrix came, the Crown Princess walked, one tiny step at
a time, into the Hall of Kings beneath sixty pounds of Valent
Dyer’s kimono. Her uchikake was woven of copper cloth
barred with gold, richly patterned with white-blossomed plum branches and
scarlet birds spreading flame-toned wings. Beneath it, her shiromuku
peeked out, snow-white silk hand-embroidered with pale rabbits frolicking
amidst a lush forest of colorless bamboo. She wore her hair in thirty
glittering pins and combs surmounted by a crown of gold, and in her hands she
carried the Royal Sword in a sheath of white, and a fan the color of the sun.
Edwin Bellatrix, for his
part, wore a simple crimson kimono with the Bellatrix
mon on its back, and hakama of sable black. He bore his own sword, and beside
it, a red-hilted jitte, a reminder of his family’s
long history. He spoke his vows to the Crown Princess in an unwavering voice,
while five yards away his daughter Melody whispered, “Aren’t they both so
pretty?” When Mirabelle Komaru, garbed in a
restrained black gown threaded with gold, set the crown of his new office upon
his brow, only those nearest the two saw his face go pale, and his knees,
locked tight throughout the ceremony, begin to sway. But everyone watching saw
Adriana lift his hand, held within her own, and squeeze it tightly, the
resplendent banner of her sleeve magnifying the private gesture.
Crowned, Komaru’s Prince
Consort knelt before his bride, drawing her hand to his lips to kiss it. Before
the greatest lords of Komaru, the Crown Princess
leaned down, pressed her lips against his own, and unceremoniously tumbled into
his arms.
In the first row of the audience, in a voice so
quiet that only she could hear it, Prince Hideo Sone
whispered to his fiancée Equanimity
The Hall of Kings rang out with cheers that, among
the Bellatrix and the Komaru,
would not die out until the newlyweds inched, step by encumbered step, out to
the kingdom that waited for them.
Judgment,
Part I
Only a handful of seats lie empty in the Royal
Council Hall when Minamet Tarano
is called to task. Like hungry vultures, the council members watch him as he
strides across the marble floor to stand in the middle of the hall, his
father’s sword at his side. It has been a difficult year for the Royal Council,
who have been threatened by the Jitani and stripped
of their monopoly over land grants by the Crown Princess and her court.
Grievances nursed for years have risen to the surface, and few have any
illusions about what Tarano’s presence before the
Royal Council portends.
Shiro Minamet, nearly ninety years old, rises at Tarano’s approach. When the younger Minamet
stops before him, Shiro speaks,
his voice untouched by the years that lie so heavily upon his body. “Minamet Tarano, Baron of Thornspoint. You have sworn to obey the Code of Blood, have
you not?”
Tarano’s
voice is clear, “I have.”
Shiro
continues. “You are summoned before the Royal Council, who have
been granted the keeping of the Code of Blood. You are accused of having broken
the vows you have made. Will you answer this challenge to your honor?”
Tarano
answers again, “I will. Put me in a Circle of Truth and I will answer your
questions.”
Shiro
frowns, his white moustache concealing the lines of worry around his mouth.
“Lord Tarano, you are sworn to the Code of Blood. If
that holds meaning to you, you will speak the truth to us without need for such
a device. Yet it seems to be what you desire, so I will provide it to you.”
The duchess Patience Touraine
descends from galleries, holding a piece of chalk in her hand. Age lies less
heavily on her than on Shiro, but there is stiffness
in her movement, exhaustion in her mien. She draws a circle upon the floor
about Tarano, and marks it with a rune. “While he
remains in the circle,” she intones, “all that he speaks is truth.” Awkwardly,
she ascends the steps and returns to her seat, holding the backs of chairs to
stabilize her every stride.
“Speak,” Shiro demands.
“Tell us of the duel between Paloma Jitani and Nikolai Issorat, and of your part in it.”
Tarano
speaks at length. When he concludes, Shiro rises
again, and asks one question: “Did you interfere in a duel between two other
nobles?”
Tarano
considers for a moment, then answers. “Yes, with qualifications.”
Shiro
passes sentence. “By your own admission, you have violated the Code of Blood.
You will be stripped of your title, and stricken from the list of those who
have sworn to follow the Code. You will be remembered as an Oathbreaker,
one who forsook their own honor and laid a stain upon that of their fam—”
As Shiro speaks, Tarano draws his blade. He reverses his grip, drops to his
knees, grasps the hilt firmly in both hands, and makes a deep cut through his
belly, his face going pale with pain. A collective gasp fills the Royal Council
Hall as he slumps onto the floor, his blood staining the marble.
Shiro Minamet stops speaking. Holding the railing before him, he
staggers precariously down onto the marble floor, over to Tarano’s
twitching body. With as much care as he can manage, he lifts Tarano’s head from the ground and says, “It will be
remembered that you died well.”
With his other hand, Shiro
Minamet draws his grandfather’s sword and ends his
kinsman’s pain.
Hunter
Cold and exhausted, Aldemar
Yuasa walked through darkness back to his apartment in the Althean
Collegium. The granite paving stones beneath his feet
were slick with four days of rainwater, weather that even now blew chilly
droplets into his face and soaked his hair and blood-stained clothing. He
nearly regretted having answered the furtive knock on his door. Had he been
wise, he would have sent the frightened young woman away, despite her pleas for
help – discreet help, the kind that would not get back to the Headmaster or her
father. Half-dressed, rain-soaked women begging him to come to their rooms after
Her name was Sibyl, and she and three of her
friends had been using flame powder in her dormitory room. One of them had
taken too much and panicked, shattering the glass alembic they were using to
prepare it. Two had been injured by the broken fragments, and the pain had
reduced them to whimpering, catatonic wrecks. The one that overdosed, driven
deeper into irrationality by the wounded girls’ shrieking, had managed to fall
off the balcony outside the dorm room, breaking an arm and leg in the fall
before she too collapsed from the agony. Her wounds had taken a half hour of
work to treat, and were the most serious. He dosed all three of the injured
girls with a sedative, picked the most obvious glass fragments out of the hands
and feet of the other two, healed their superficial cuts, and left Sibyl with a
sedative of her own. Equal parts traumatized and grateful, the girl had begged
him not to tell anyone what had happened while tearfully thanking him for
coming. He practically had to wrestle her into bed, and then she had asked if
he would stay the night with her. Common sense had prevailed: he could imagine
what would happen were he found in a room with four young female students and
the strong scent of flame powder in the air. Regretfully, he had departed,
anticipating wrestling with her on some night to come, under better
circumstances.
Lightning cracked, illuminating the alcove that led
into the apartment the Headmaster of the Collegium
had provided while he remained there as a guest lecturer. Ducking into its
shelter, he removed his soggy coat and muddy boots before sliding the door open
and pushing inside. The apartment was small but well-appointed for scholastic
pursuits, with plate glass skylights and handsome oak furnishings. Through the
open door of his sleeping chamber, he saw the flickering orange light of a
guttering candle. He wondered if he had forgotten to snuff one out when he had
grabbed his physician’s kit and left. He returned his kit to its home beside
his desk, and returned to his bedroom.
She sat in his bed, her back to him. Her unbound
hair, a dark flame in the candlelight, spilled over the snowy flesh of her pale
shoulders, bared by the golden kimono loosely wrapped around her. Her neck
tilted, he could see her face in profile, a tiny smile on her full lips.
“Michiko,” he said with a startled gasp.
“Aldemar,” she answered,
mimicking his tone. “Did you imagine you would never see me again?” Cat-like,
she stretched out across his bed, the hem of her kimono falling lower across
her back.
“What are you doing here?” Aldemar
asked, a touch of alarm creeping into his voice.
“Do you want me to leave already?” Michiko
inquired, craning her neck to look over her other shoulder at him as she
reclined amidst his sheets. “After traveling all this way to
see you?”
“No, don’t go,” Aldemar
said vehemently, taking a step towards her. “I was just surprised to see you.
I’ve wanted to see you again,” he added, with another step nearer her.
“I’m glad,” she said, the sincerity in her voice
making his heart beat faster. “When we parted, I believe I left with some
unfinished business between us? Some questions you wanted answered?” Her lips
were captivating to watch. Involuntarily, he reached out, running his fingers
along the dark shadow of her left shoulder blade. Her skin was warm, and she
murmured encouragingly at his touch.
Aldemar
met her gold-flecked eyes, asking her a wordless question. Michiko answered him
with a sensuous laugh, “Whenever I travel, I spend months or years in
discomfort. When I come to a journey’s end, I celebrate by reminding myself of
the feeling of silk. Do you like how it feels against your skin?” she asked,
offering him the invitation he had wished for.
He could not help grinning. Acutely aware of his
rain-sodden clothing, he responded, “It’s been a while since I’ve slept wrapped
in silk. I may have forgotten what it feels like. Will you remind me?” He
caught the hem of her robe between two fingers, pulling it gingerly away from
her.
“Here,” she whispered, trembling beneath his touch, “let me help you out of your wet clothes.”
She reached out, catching the sleeve of his soggy
shirt between her fingers and twisting it towards her as she rolled over to
face him, her kimono pulling away from her body, into his hand. Her other hand
darted beneath his shirt, catching at it and binding it around the arm she
held, pinning it against her chest. Surprised, he looked at her eyes and
followed them down to her breasts, where a tiny serpentine arrow, its scales
blue as sapphires, reared back and sank its fanged head into his trapped wrist.
He felt a stinging pain in his wrist, and then
nothing. He raked at Michiko with his other arm, grabbing a handful of her hair
and yanking it. Michiko’s face contorted with pain, and she pushed him away
from her, off the bed. He fell hard against the wall, banging his head. The
sapphire serpent fell to the floor beside him, vanishing beneath the bed faster
than his eyes could follow.
A wave of dizziness engulfed him. His body ignored
his urgent demands that it stand up, or at least crawl to the bag of antidotes
beyond his bedroom door. He tried to speak as Michiko, gasping for breath,
pulled her kimono around herself. He forced out one word, “Why?”
“You once told me that you had a knack for finding
trouble. Whatever you found this time convinced my employers
that you had betrayed them.” He watched her pull a slim blade from the
gap between the wall and the head of his bed. She tucked it inside the black
sash she used to bind her kimono shut. His vision was blurring, and her voice
sounded distant. “In a way, I pity you, Aldemar. You
had earned, if not their trust, at least their hope. But you betrayed
everything that they gave you to their greatest enemy. I wish I could say you
were dying having served your family, but I fear the sum of your legacy is
another treachery by a Yuasa, another crime the Naga
will never forget. Perhaps,” she reached her arm across the bed, and the blue
serpent darted onto her wrist, wrapping itself around it before vanishing into
her sleeve, “it would be for the best if your people were simply destroyed.”
She pulled a hooded cloak around her shoulders, and turned one last time to
face him as he lay paralyzed on the floor. “Goodbye, Aldemar
Yuasa.”
He heard the outside door slide shut behind her,
leaving him only the flickering of a candle and the droning of the rain as
witnesses to his death.
Fear,
an Interlude
Adriana Komaru marries
Edwin Bellatrix in the high summer. A season later,
her brother Hideo Sone marries Equanimity
In the last days of autumn, Adriana Komaru and Edwin Bellatrix’s
marriage bears fruit. Under the care of the Royal Physician Sone
Kazumi, Adriana gives birth to a diminutive boy. She names him Sebastian Komaru, after the brother she lost when she was a child.
Half an hour later, Sebastian’s sister Mirabelle Komaru
is born. Both children are healthy and hale, Komaru’s
newest Prince and Princess.
Two months later, Dowager Princess Consort Kimiko Sone’s pregnancy comes to
an end when she gives birth to a boy of her own, whom she names Kanshisha Sone. Sone Kazumi declares the boy a pure-blooded Sone, but before his mother leaves her maternity bed,
rumors of Kanshisha’s strangeness spread throughout
the
Something in the peculiar juxtaposition of Kimiko Sone and her daughter
Adriana Komaru, combined with the vigorous preaching
of the two Churches, sparks a nervous undercurrent among Komaru’s
nobles. The Churches – both of them – rail against the dangers of lust and
procreation, and their message catches in the minds of the nobles, if not in
the way the Church intends. Nobles, disturbed by something they cannot quite
explain even to themselves, grapple with a new fear: what if sex outside of
marriage is somehow wrong?
With the fervor of a starving jackal, the Church
seizes the fear and inflames it. They raid a courtesan’s house on the outskirts
of the Noble District, casting the courtesans and their guests out onto the
street to be shamed by their nakedness. A young Sone
couple are beaten to the edge of death when they are discovered trysting along
the banks of the Aoi. The Royal Champion is attacked
as he rests in a tavern in the Merchant Quarter, and his vigorous defense of
his paramour of the moment leaves three men dead.
“It is a symptom of a sickness,” Arabelle Sone whispers to her
husband as they call upon the wounded Sone girl. “A
shadow of fear is growing, and this is but how it expresses itself. We have
seen this before. We have lived through it before.”
Tohru Komaru frowns, memories of his childhood returning. “I
remember.” The Interregnum is etched upon him, something he can never forget.
When next he sleeps, he dreams of the day he learned that his parents were
dead.
The Crown Princess declares Delphine
Courtenay, bodyguard to three generations of Komaru
sovereigns, to be the Viscountess of Osaka. By Royal
Decree, she is married to Ruby Touraine. The wedding
happens a month after the announcement of their engagement, and as Adriana
briskly performs the ceremony, neither bride nor groom
seems quite aware of how they found themselves standing before her.
In the heart of winter, Equanimity
As spring breaks, the orange and black banner of
the Wandering Star – of the Jitani – rises over the
Duchy of Skye.
Judgment,
Part II
Pins in her hair, Adriana Komaru
stands before the mirror in her dressing room, considering herself. The mirror
reflects another mirror that hangs on its chain around her neck, a familiar
weight against her breasts. As she inspects her image, she sourly reflects that
the months since the birth of her children have left her little time for
herself. She sees that she has gained weight, and even if not all of it found
unflattering places to call home, she still dislikes having spent the past year
feeling that her body has been changing beneath her in ways beyond her control.
“I look more like a Sone
than a Komaru,” she grumbles to herself as she wraps
herself in a dressing gown and calls for her maid to finish dressing her.
Helene enters and begins rearranging the pins.
Adriana fidgets while she waits. With her mother traveling to Dedication, and
her husband in the South gathering the army the Bellatrix
are raising against their own capital, there is no one
for her to talk to while her toilette is prepared. Restlessly, she asks Helene,
“Do Mirabelle and Sebastian need nursed? I could do that while you finish with
my hair.”
“I have not heard, Your
Royal Highness,” Helene answers, with calm derived from two years of expertise
dealing with Adriana’s impatience. “I am certain that if Their Highnesses are
hungry, their needs will be attended to.”
Adriana frowns. “I understand why it’s necessary
that they have a wet nurse, Helene, but when I am not otherwise occupied, I
want them to be brought to me, so that I may take care of them myself. I am
their mother,” she says, putting her foot down angrily.
Helene sighs, straightening the pin the Crown
Princess jostles with her stomping, and continuing her work to nestle the fine
golden tiara into her charge’s hair. “I will speak to Your Royal Highness’s
other servants, and we will—”
A door slams open in the lounge outside, and booted
feet thump their way towards the door to the Crown Princess’s dressing room.
That door is flung open, and Hideo Sone flies in,
radiant wings flaring behind him. “They’ve come to the city again. This time
there are three of them,” he tells her, his voice urgent.
Adriana blanches, “The children.” Without thought,
she springs from the dressing chair and dashes to her bedroom, seizing the
Royal Sword from its resting place. It is still within its wedding scabbard,
its original sheath misplaced in the confusion leading up to her marriage. She
grabs the belt next to it, and nearly collides with Hideo, waiting in the door.
Helene stands beside the two Royal Guardsmen
flanking the entrance to her chambers. “We will raise the alarm, Your Royal
Highness,” she declares. “Go to your children.”
Adriana flashes her maid a grateful, worried smile
as she and Hideo race past her, to the nursery. As she runs, the Crown Princess
laments, “Will this happen every year?”
Hideo, shining like a rainbow, has no answer for
her.
Allegra Komaru walks into the Royal Council Hall through the great
doors, and looks around. Only a third of the seats are occupied; the
moderator’s chairs at the front of the hall are empty.
From the gallery, Fleur Komaru
calls down to her, “By the Light, Allegra, is that
you, here in the Royal Council Hall? Has it been so long since you’ve visited
us that you’ve forgotten which days the Royal Council meets?” Fleur considers
for a moment, and adds, “Or are you here to join our little gathering as we
discuss what to do about our overeager young Crown Princess?”
Allegra Komaru turns to face Fleur and the pack of Royal Council
members, smiling broadly as she walks towards them. “No, I’m here for all of
you.” She raises her hand and rakes it across her face, the skin tearing away
to reveal a bloody boy’s face beneath it. He leers hideously at Fleur.
Fleur has time to scream before he leaps into the
gallery, bloody claws reaching out for her throat.
In the nursery, Adriana and Hideo wait. She is
tense. Part of it is fear, she knows: memories of the monster in the shape of a
boy stalking them both, remembrance of the years Hideo spent crippled by the
taint in the sky, its wrongness gnawing away at his life. But sitting with him
in the nursery, tiny Sebastian and Mirabelle sleeping in their cribs, she knows
that part of the tension is just being here with him, her brother with his eyes
of molten gold. He never stops looking at her.
“Are they coming?” she asks, breaking the silence.
Hideo shakes his head. “They are moving in the
city, dividing up. I cannot tell anything more than that.”
“Oh,” Adriana sighs. “Then I suppose we have no
choice but to wait.” Delicately, she lifts Sebastian out of his crib, rousing
him from his slumber. He begins to cry, waking his sister, who sits up and
watches him, her fair eyes unblinking. Self-consciously, she turns her back to
Hideo and lets her son begin to nurse.
The minutes slip by, divided by the weight of
Hideo’s gaze and the urgency of Sebastian’s hunger. Yet as her son feeds,
anxiety drains away from Adriana. She asks her question without examining it
too closely, “Do you remember the last time we waited like this?”
Hideo answers her simply, “Yes.”
“Are you happy, Hideo?”
“Are you, Adriana?” he responds.
Sebastian pauses, and she burps him before letting him
feed again. “I worry for the future. I wonder what sort of life our children
will have. But am I happy?” She considers. “I think I am.”
“Then I am happy,” Hideo answers her.
“I’m glad,” she whispers quietly. Sebastian
finishes, and giggles as she tickles his stomach and returns him to his crib.
She lifts Mirabelle out of her pillows, cradling her in her arms. The infant’s
eyes watch her, all-knowing.
Hideo lurches to his feet. Agonized, he says,
“They’re killing people in the city.”
“Can you stop them?” Adriana asks.
“I can try, but it would mean leaving you here
alone.”
“I’m not alone,” Adriana says, turning to face him.
“Go. Do what you can. I will be here, doing the same.”
Hideo frowns. He steps closer to Adriana, gazing
upon her. She wonders what he sees. She knew once – has it changed?
“Go,” Mirabelle whispers,
mimicking her mother’s voice.
Wings of spectral light spread about him. He opens
the window, steps through, and is gone.
The Black Wind spreads wings of dark ribbon as he
circles over the city. He can feel the Devourer hunting,
sense his exultation in the terror before the kill. The Black Wind makes a
decision. Kestrel-like, he hovers in the air and gathers his energies. They
surge through the ground below, pulled like blood through the world’s arteries.
The power gathers, and he gives it rein to surge forth, burning up into the
sky.
Beneath him, the Royal Council Hall explodes in an
inferno of shrieking balefire. It rages and froths, ending the terror and
replacing it with its own hunger. It reaches out its filaments, greedy to
spread, consume, and destroy. The blast of its heat pushes him higher into the
sky. He soars, his meat body fighting for a breath of air in the asphyxiating
wash of the conflagration.
The Black Wind watches his work for a moment, and
makes a second decision. In a circle around the inferno, a wall of black rags
rises, swirling like a shredded flag blown by a hurricane. The balefire spreads
angrily towards it and recoils, caged by the circle. He holds it there by main
force, drawing on the same power he used to start the fire.
Rainbow light spreads out from a speck beneath him.
It takes the shape of great wings, and rises swiftly into the sky, an avenging
angel with a sword of fire. The Black Wind corkscrews to avoid its charge, and rears back to summon his own blade.
“You will not survive our battle,” Hideo Sone, Consort to the End, states.
“You may be right,” replies Raphael Jitani, the Black Wind. “But if you fight me, the city will
burn. Look below you.”
Hideo lunges at Raphael, and Raphael beats away
again, a tangle of darkness falling away around him like scattering feathers.
Hideo looks down. “You are holding your own fires back. There is another of you
within the conflagration.”
Raphael nods. “Yes. And you’ve met him before,
whereas this is our first encounter, Prince. If you wish to fight, fight him
and still the balefire. I,” he raises his hand, his sword falling to
nothingness, “will not stop you.”
Hideo cuts at the air before him, angry. “Very well. When next we meet, I will destroy you.” He
spreads his glowing wings, raises their tips high, and plunges like a swooping
falcon into the inferno.
Raphael watches for ten heartbeats. The balefire
dies around the Consort, melting away like mist before the sun. “Well,” he mutters,
“I’ll just have to put that off for a real long time.” He beats his wings and
rises higher, borne on shadow into the West.
Hideo sees the boy as he dives. He is naked, in the
heart of the fire, and just as Hideo remembers him from when Adriana and he
fled before him in the bowels of the Palace. The boy is clutching a body that
is burning away within his grasp, his face a rictus
of anger. Hideo spreads his light before him, making it talons to tear at his
foe. They catch him as he flings the blackened arm of his victim away,
shredding his flesh. But he does not disintegrate, as the lesser puppets had,
and Hideo circles and rises, higher into the air, dispersing balefire as he
goes.
Beneath him, flawed power surges through the boy’s
body. The boy looks up, and grins, his wounds already knitting. “I remember
you, kid,” he calls up to Hideo. “When last we met, all you could do is run.
What makes you think you have any more of a chance against me now?”
“You can’t fly,” Hideo responds, shaping an arrow
of color and launching it at the monster’s heart.
For an eternity, Hideo rains light down on the boy,
who dodges and tumbles, snarling insults up at the Consort. When shafts pierce
him, he staggers, but each time his injuries close before Hideo can unleash an
annihilating bolt. Behind him, Hideo feels the third abomination approaching.
The monster laughs, “You’re running out of time,
kid. So much for flight! What will you do next—”
Hideo shapes the talons again, and dives. He catches
the monster squarely before him, flattening him with prismatic light. Hideo
drives one hand through the boy’s sternum, shattering the bone like glass and
wrapping his fingers around the dark shard within. Hideo’s other hand locks
around the boy’s throat. He squeezes, pouring all of his energy out through his
hands.
The boy’s eyes bulge, and the shard flares
desperately, fighting against Hideo’s assault. Hideo shapes a dagger inside the
boy’s chest, forcing it through the flailing resistance mounted by the shard.
“Tell me your name,” Hideo demands, fighting for each word.
The boy’s throat collapses under Hideo’s hand. He
gurgles, choking out a single word: “Asrae.”
“Die, Asrae,” Hideo
drives the dagger into the crystal to shatter it.
The power around him dies, the dagger vanishing,
its thrust undelivered.
“I don’t think that worked,” Asrae
says. His hands seize Hideo’s right arm, and twist, snapping bones as though
they were dry twigs. Pain crashes down upon Hideo, and he howls as Asrae tears his arm off. The boy kicks Hideo in the groin,
sending him staggering backwards to where the intense brown-haired man stands
at the center of a circle of five men and women in orange and black, each
shining like a falling star.
“Help me kill him, Celestino,”
Asrae says, walking towards Hideo. He laughs as he
watches Hideo, trapped between the two, stumble and clutch at the ruins of his
arm.
Celestino
frowns, and reaches out to touch the nearest of his servants, a dark-haired
woman lost in rapture. Her light gathers around Celestino’s
hand, and a green-feathered arrow rips through his throat.
Celestino
staggers, pulling the crystal-tipped arrow from his throat and spitting blood.
In quick succession, five more arrows sprout from the men and women surrounding
him, sending each to the ground. There is a flicker of movement at the edge of
the inferno, a flicker of movement at the heart of a flashing whirlwind of
green, blue, and black. It resolves itself into the form of a giant of a woman
with the body of a serpent, a glittering bow in her hands. The Naga emissary launches herself at the wounded Prince,
spiraling about him to protectively enfold him within her shining coils.
“I’ve never killed a Naga
before,” Asrae declares. “This should be fun.” He
advances on Whispersong, Hideo’s blood dripping from
his hands.
Celestino
kneels among his fallen servants, strangled noises forcing their way out of his
ruined throat. He touches the nearest woman, her eyes empty, before spinning to
his feet, his face contorted with hatred, to face Asrae.
Blackness shaped like knives cuts at the air around Asrae,
around Celestino, around the men and women at his
feet. When the air clears, Hideo and Whispersong
stand alone in the burning ruins of the Royal Council Hall.
Whispersong
slips away from Hideo, keeping her body low to the ground as she turns to face
him. She watches as light gathers around the ruins of his arm, making it whole
again. She tips her head to him, and blurs, her human shape collapsing before
him.
The roll of the fallen in the Jitani
attack upon the Royal Council Hall reads like a record of the best and
brightest of Komaru. The Komaru
are hit hardest, losing Allegra, Fleur, Iolanthe, Kalare, Midoko, Romana, and Yukio Komaru, among many others. Shiro Minamet, one of the eldest of his family, and Suisei Minamet, one of the
youngest, are numbered among the dead. Patric Sone and Patience Touraine,
political enemies for decades, lay their feuds to rest in death. The corpses of
Christoph Bellatrix and Laurent
Yuasa are never found among the complete ruin of the Royal Council Hall. But if
there is a miracle, it is that the fire does not spread, and
Declaration
In the 238th year of Paraceln’s
Age, news of war spreads through Komaru, borne by
couriers wearied by the grim missives they bear. War is nothing new. In the
North, the Naga are moving. In the East, tales spread
of the Lion of the Desert, a Pharaoh of fury unmatched since the days of Sokar’s War. In the West, the Jitani
armies advance through Skye, gathering on the border of the Crown Princess’s
lands, a week’s forced march from the Royal Capital. In the South, the Bellatrix need no external foe: their blades turn against
each other, their internal disputes of philosophy to be settled by pikes.
News of the burning of the Royal Council Hall
spreads quickly through Komaru, but does not catch
the delegation sent to Dedication until they already shelter within the three
prominences of its outer walls. There, they are greeted by another messenger,
in ancient armor and a cowled cloak of black. He
reads his message, which within days is repeated in the halls of Sunset and
Memory, and carried even to the ruins of Hope, where lions now hunt in the
night. It reads:
Initiates
at Castle Dedication:
In
the 205th year of Paraceln’s Age, a great gift
was returned to Komaru’s people. The sorceress Verity
High
Magic is a gift of great power, but it is a gift that can be used for good or
for ill. Since that fateful day thirty three years ago, a great evil has been
loosed upon the world, an evil with the power to destroy Komaru’s
legacy altogether. The Veiled Guard have borne many
duties on our shoulders over the centuries, and in this matter our duty is
clear: we must do battle with the shadows of Powers that control the Jitani. Already, one has fallen. Before we may lay down our
blades, the others must join Her in defeat.
We
are not without allies in this, but our allies are not those that, in better
times, we would choose. We have contested with our Nemesis for as long as we
have existed, our desires warring with theirs as we collectively struggle to
dictate the meaning of the Ends of Ages. They have offered to aid us in our
battle against the Jitani, and our only choice is to
accept their assistance or fail. For the sake of our kind, we must not fail.
But they have named a price, and it is the death of three castles controlled by
those whom they believe unfit to practice the arts of our ancestors. Those
castles are Sunset, Memory, and Dedication, and the people they judge unfit are
you.
Since
that fateful day of Verity
We
do not wish to see this happen, but we can no longer protect you. You must
protect yourselves. We will do what we can to give you hope, but you must find
the strength and conviction to act upon the information we grant you. Without
it, your day will come to an end.
Prove
yourselves to us.
By
240, have a follower of the fifth circle, of Kebeira
the Thousand Father, of Syulese the Promise of
Accidents, of Nidhel the Howl Drawing Closer, or of Hitomi the Sky Dark With Ravens.
Prove
yourself to us, and together we will embrace our heritage as brothers and
sisters, throwing back those who would deprive us of our birthright.
As
we await the blossoms of the plum tree as winter releases its hold upon the
world, so too do we await the moment when you show us
your courage and join us in shaping our world’s future.
Signed,
Kodacha Tama, High Commander of the Veiled Guard
Three years remain.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/--/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
Special Bonus Section!
Thank you for reading this far. As a reward for
your perseverance, please participate in From
Light to Darkness’s first Official “No One Could Have Survived That”
contest. You may vote for one of the five following nominees by mailing your choice to
fianna@bitsy.sub-atomic.com and
That said, here are the
candidates:
a) Romana Komaru,
straight-laced and formidable heroine of Alessandro Komaru’s
restoration to the throne, age 64.
b) Suisei Minamet,
plucky and hard-working scribe to the Royal Council, age 29.
c) Patric Sone,
handsome and ingenuous husband of the Royal Heir Aimee Komaru,
age 44.
d) Patience
e) Laurent
Yuasa, dapper bachelor and chief dissident voice within the Yuasa family, age
38.
Happy voting!