Page 104 of While the Dark Remains
“It isn’t real,” Saga and I have told him, over and over. “It means nothing.”
Butdoesit mean nothing now, with Brandr’s name affixed to it in a flourish of silver ink?
Kallias makes his Collection perform to celebrate the signing.
I force myself to sit in the semicircle of chairs, nails digging into my legs through the velvet skirt of my green gown. Ballast slouches in his chair, eye studiously trained on his hands, clenched tight together in his lap. Aelia makes no apologies and leaves entirely. Vil jiggles his knee beside me.
The scenes of my worst nightmares play out before my eyes, and when,when, will all this be over?
The Prism Master seems largely unimpressed with any of the children, the only exception being Finnur. Tonight Finnur weaves a sky of stars into being, then plucks the stars down and presents them to the audience as glittering jewels, solid and real in the palm of his hand. He hands one to Brandr, who inclines his head to the boy and turns the jewel over and over in his fingers. Finnur gives one to me, too, and it takes everything in me to keep myself from snatching his arm and pulling him out of this horrible room.
Rute, my acrobatic ghost, performs last. I have to shut my eyes and tell myself a story in order to bear it. When I open them again, Kallias is tugging Ballast from his seat and nudging him to the front of the room.
“Do a trick for us, boy!” Kallias crows.
Ballast is hard and blank before him, and says very low: “I am not one of your pets, Father.”
Kallias laughs at him. “Of course you are. Amaze us! That’s an order.”
Ballast’s throat works, and suddenly, awfully, I find his one blue eye fixed on mine.
I feel the magic before I hear it or see it. It hums and breathes and lives. And then the room is filled with moths, whispering and white. They swarm around me, shaping themselves into a living gown, drawing me from my seat and spinning me around on the marble floor. For a moment I’m caught up in the wonder of it all, borne along on their fast-flickering wings.
Then a crack of jarring, awful magic blisters the air, and the moths fall dead at my feet.
Horror twists through me and I turn back. Brandr stands, clothed in fury and power, magic sparking off every part of him. He is the one, I realize, who killed the moths.
“I am not interested in parlor tricks,” Brandr says, coldly, to Kallias. “Collar your pets, little king. Inform me the moment you breach the weapon. I have no need of your continued presence until then.” He strides from the hall, the other Iljaria at his heels.
Kallias wheels on Ballast but doesn’t strike him, not in front of the whole court. “Clean up this mess,” he snarls.
Then he’s gone, too.
Everyone else starts quietly filing out as well, and Vil grabs my wrist to tug me with him. But I shake him off. So he leaves without me.
Ballast kneels in the ruin of the moths, his head bowed. I kneel with him.
“How soon, do you think?” he says quietly. Until the weapon is uncovered, he means. Until all this is over. He knows that I know.
“Soon,” I say.
I cradle one of the moths in my hand, marveling at the tiny silver beauty of it. I blink and it turns to dust.
“You should go.” He doesn’t look at me. “I can’t afford for my father to be any angrier with me than he already is.”
I let the dust slip between my fingers. I go.
The advance scout is waiting for me in the hidden cellar tunnel. She’s young, no older than Leifur, and her black hair is braided tight against her scalp. She introduces herself as Aisa.
“How far is the army behind you?” I ask her, fighting to keep my voice low.
“At least a week,” she says apologetically. “They’re moving as quickly as they can.”
I nod, trying to get hold of myself. “I’ll report to Vil and sneak food down to you later.”
“No need, I’m well prepared.” Aisa thumps her pack. “I’ll await His Highness’s instructions.”
I thank her and slip back upstairs.
