Her legs gave out, and she crumpled into a heap, shoulders shaking as she cried.
“Are you all right, Auralia?”
Wynn and Cortie, following just moments behind, stepped carefully out onto the stone. They sat beside her in solemn silence. Wynn patted her lightly on the back. She laughed a little. “I’m just scared.”
“Scared of heights?” asked Cortie. “We’re so high. We must be close to the moon!” She peered over the edge. “Look at the clouds, Wynn.” She picked up a pebble and launched it into the whiteness.
“I don’t know what the colors are doing,” Auralia said to herself more than to Wynn. “I don’t know what they’re for. I just make them. I just love them. But I know that what I’ve started…it isn’t finished. Something’s missing.”
“Just keep making the colors. No one else can,” said Wynn.
“But why?”
“The blind woman. She—”
“Please.” Auralia felt the claws of fear again. “Please. I don’t want to think about that. Not now. Not yet.” She tangled weeds around her hands and jerked their stubborn roots from cracks in the rock. “I have to go. I have to clean out the caves. I can’t stay at the lake anymore. There are people searching for me. Duty officers, coming to seize me for the Rites of the Privilege. I can’t go inside of Abascar, Wynn. I can’t bear those people.”
“You could come with us,” he said.
Cortie was shocked. “Nuh-uh. No way! There’s not enough food!”
“We’ll buy more food, if Auralia helps us,” Wynn replied in a measured tone Auralia recognized as his father’s. “Mum and Pa, they could use the help. They’re always sayin’ they need somebody to watch over Cortie and me.”
Pouting, Cortie turned and grabbed a handful of sharp-edged gravel. She cast it out, a spray of dots expanding and vanishing in the mist. “They wish they’d never had us,” she mumbled. “And we don’t have enough food.” She fumbled with some of the old woman’s curses and threw another stone.
The clouds frothed, moving in thick so Auralia could not even see the mountain behind her. Somewhere in the fog, Juney was shouting, her voice like the call of a sad, faraway bird.
“They’re calling us to go back,” Cortie whispered excitedly. “Shh.” Wynn put his arms around his sister and held her close, his young face far too weary for one his age, dark patches deep as bruises under his bloodshot eyes. Cortie smiled with the mischief of hiding.
“They’re who you belong to,” Auralia finally sighed.
Wynn scowled. “Why go back to them when they treat us like they do?”
“They need you. They’ll need you when they get old. When they realize they’re not so strong as they think.”
“Who do you belong to, ’Ralia?” asked Cortie.
She stared northward as if her gaze could penetrate the fog, reach to the mountains, and find an answer.
“I think you belong to Abascar,” Cortie declared.
“I don’t,” Auralia snapped. “I’m leaving. They’re just so…so blind.”
“You mean, like the old Bel Amican woman?” Cortie asked.
The question hung in the air for a moment, then was carried away on the rushing mist.
“Let’s go, Cortie. If Pa finds us out here, you know what he’ll do.” Wynn took Cortie’s hand and led her off the promontory and up the slope to the path, the fog washing them from Auralia’s vision.
Cortie laughed, “Look at me! I can’t see a thing! I must be from Abascar!”
Alone in an ocean of gleaming pearl, Auralia wanted to vanish within it.
Far away, the beastman roared in its cage.
At that moment, the clouds released their hold on the mountain, slipping away from the world like a falling sheet. When Auralia opened her eyes, the Expanse was revealed before her.
She dug her fingers into the weeds on the edge of the rock to keep herself from falling. The whole world of colors—verdant fields, needled trees, the winding blue Throanscall River, the vast lake, the darker Abascar woods, the distant gleam of the palace towers, the rising rugged stonelands of the east, the dark line of the Forbidding Wall to the north—burst into vivid life before her. It was so much, so much to take in.
A winding line of birds unfurled from the trees at the base of the promontory, and she watched their serpentine progression. At first, they seemed to pursue the flying carpet of retreating clouds. But then she saw a strange white bird with a gleaming red tail at the head of the line. They were chasing it, trying to drive it away. Like a shooting star, it dropped in a wild downward spiral, circled back toward the mountain below her, and vanished.
And then the red-tailed bird was there, alighting on the edge of the promontory before her. It offered a hushed and inquiring chirp.
The bird’s feathers were blindingly bright, reflecting something more than the sunlight. Tufts of blue feathers ruffled its collar. Its eyes were full of fierce intelligence. It cocked its head to one side, a small, round, black beak open and uttering that quiet word of question yet again. Slender talons gripped the rock. But it was the bird’s tail feathers, which burst, curling dark and wild in a gratuitous flourish, that held her spellbound. Among those red feathers, a single shaft gleamed with a color deeper than red, a color she remembered but had never seen.
Auralia crawled slowly forward, breath fluttering, heart out of rhythm.
The bird waited, as if commanded to remain.
Auralia’s fingers touched its tail cautiously. The feathers were hot, charged with the urgency of flight.
The bird shuddered slightly as its one otherworldly feather surrendered to Auralia’s touch.
“Of course I remember you,” she said. “On the windowsill. My mother laughed. A long, long time ago.”
She looked back toward Abascar’s palace, that point of darkness in the woods, like the pin in the center of the spinning world. She held up the feather, and its color, vivid in contrast, seemed to bleed into the air, igniting the surrounding green, gold, red, and blue in a violent conflagration. For a moment, all colors coalesced into a living whole, as if she could reach out and take them by the edge, drawing them around her like a blanket.
“This is why I’m here, isn’t it?” she said. “This is what my colors are trying to become. The missing piece.” Choking back emotion, she held the feather out to the bird. “Please. Please take it back. If I take this, then I must…”
The bird closed its eyes, sang a mournful note.
The river of furious mountain birds, catching up to their target, turned day into night, sweeping downward black and cruel across the promontory, buffeting Auralia backward. There was a sound, a scream. It might have been Auralia as she pressed herself against the stone to keep from being driven off the edge. It might have been the bird caught and carried away. The sound of wings and cries roared like a waterfall. And then they were gone.
The tail feather lay burning but whole in her hand. The Expanse lay before her.
Abascar waited, blind.
12
STRICIA’S VIEW
S uspended in a turret high above the ornamental wall around King Cal-marcus’s palace, the young woman who had been promised Jaralaine’s crown leaned on the battlement and watched a gull soar down into the palace courtyard.
“They’ll all come into the courtyard soon.” Breathless from her climb up the steps of the tower, Stricia scanned the crowds for friends, for enemies, for people to impress. “They can’t wait, you know. The Housefolk. Isn’t it funny?”
Kar-balter, the watchman standing beside her, snorted but said nothing. Stricia could read his silence. The Housefolk, he must be thinking. You’re still one of the Housefolk. He would not dare utter such thoughts aloud. Stricia was not part of the royal family yet, but she would soon have the power to give him orders. He would stifle his discontent and strive to impress her. All the officers would.
“They wonder what goes on inside the palace,” she continued. “I’m glad my father is the captain. I get to see bot
h sides of the wall.”
“Do you find much of interest inside the palace wall?” the watchman asked.
She flinched, the question stinging like a fleck of dirt in her eye. This was a place of privilege, and she would climb higher soon. Anything close to a challenge, anything requiring her to question herself was just a disruption. She kept her back turned to her questioner.
But she knew the answer. As the wedding drew nearer, she found it more difficult to endure the company of Housefolk. Each day she stepped carefully, training herself to speak nothing but that which would flatter the king, to manifest perfect adherence to Abascar law. The sight of the palace wall from without gave her a strange sense of foreboding, as if she might misstep, might spoil the dream she had worked so hard to make real.
This wall of rugged stones and rippling crystal veins was the second barrier of the king’s defense against attack, securing royalty, counselors, military, the king’s stables and storehouses, and passage to the most protected chambers of the Underkeep. And the history scrolls confirmed that no assailant had ever reached the palace. But then no enemies had ever breached Abascar’s outermost wall of ash grey brick either. Homes, schools, markets and mills, craft halls, training yards, gardens, stables and forges, dungeons and taverns—even in the days of war with the aggressive Cent Regus, these had been kept safe. It was unlikely any threat would ever encroach upon the palace itself, unless one were to rise from within. While no one would go so far as to call it unnecessary, this secondary stone curtain had become, at times, an object of derision, regarded among officers assigned to the watchtowers as merely a barrier shielding the king from bitter gusts of gossip.
But for Stricia, this vantage point was still a thrill. She might not live within the palace walls yet, but her father’s status as captain of the guard earned her family the same palace access granted to the guards. Since her father had never restricted her from the palace wall, she seized the opportunity whenever she could. At first, the watchmen protested. She ignored them, keeping her distance. She busied herself with surveying the avenues below, hoping to catch Housefolk in acts of compromise or conspiracy.
This passion for surveillance troubled her mother. Say-ressa was a quiet woman, more attentive to symptoms of illness than evidence of misbehavior, and she inspired gratitude from those in her care. She had, for a time, sought to teach Stricia the fulfillment that came from offering comfort and help, but the girl was repulsed by the sight of injury or deformity. The inconvenience of suffering unnerved her.
Her father meanwhile inspired pageantry and allegiance. Wherever he went, Ark-robin’s reputation preceded him, and he was received and honored for his power, experience, and the way he could compel obedience to the laws. To win Ark-robin’s favor was to win freedom and respect from the king. And to win the king’s respect…that would enable her to distance herself from the worries and trouble of ordinary Housefolk.
Once the king had chosen Stricia to marry Cal-raven, she saw the doors open to places that had enlivened her dreams for years. Here on the wall the watchmen had abruptly stifled their complaints and applied themselves to pleasing her.
This morning, enervated by the preparation for the day’s prestigious event, Stricia wore one of her father’s long raincloaks, more to remain inconspicuous than to shelter herself from the intermittent showers moving over Abascar. On most days she wanted to be seen, though she acted nonchalant and uninterested wandering along the wall. But today she was expected to be at her family’s side while they prepared for the Rites of the Privilege. She did not want to endure such a fuss. She wanted to watch the Housefolk stream through the gate into the courtyard. She wanted to think about how many people would witness her grand entrance. She wanted to play out in her mind just how the pageant would proceed for the next big occasion—her wedding day.
As the gates opened between this watchtower and the next, Housefolk poured in beneath the entry arch and moved up the main avenue and spread across the broad green lawns toward the royal platform, which jutted like the prow of a boat into the courtyard. At the base of the stairs that descended from the stage, a circle paved with flagstones and ringed with torches marked the crux—the crucible where men and women would raise their pleas and learn their futures.
The Ring of Decision. She would never stand there.
While she fantasized, the two watchmen mumbled about their latest instructions. It was odd that there were two. It could only mean some possibility of trouble. Perhaps there was a conspiracy afoot, as rumors had implied.
“That dismal grey parade’s going to trample the lawns,” grumbled Kar-balter into the breeze. “And for what? Just to see a bunch of crooks plead for their lives and get sent back into the wild.”
“You know why they’re here.” The metallic croak came from deep within the oversized helm of Em-emyt, his partner-in-watch. “They’ll obey the summons so they can earn another honor stitch.” He knocked on his armored chest. “They’ll spend all day checking out how many stitches their neighbors have earned. And they’ll boast to those who have fewer.”
Stricia scowled at the portly old guard, who was slumped on a stone bench as though he had died during a previous shift.
“The only Abascar event that’ll ever warm my blood is the day the king declares Abascar’s Spring and gives us back the rights Queen Jaralaine took away.” Em-emyt lifted the visor of his helmet to gouge a browning pear with the few teeth he had left.
“I’ve heard rumors about another rather momentous occasion,” said Kar-balter, bowing to Stricia. “The Housefolk are chattering about some kind of wedding. Have you heard these rumors, my lady?”
Stricia did not like Kar-balter’s vast forehead, his wiry bursts of greying hair, or his crooked teeth. She ignored his joke and turned back to survey the masses.
“We’ll protect the wedding, don’t you worry, future queen,” said Kar-balter. “If the king has doubled the guard for this, you can bet he’ll triple it for that grand occasion.”
“He’s doubled the guard,” said Em-emyt, “because he’s hearing rumors of the grudgers.” With a sudden flick of his wrist, the officer sent the pear’s core hard and fast into the belly of a black-feathered bird that had settled on the edge of the tower wall. Feathers spun in the air long after the bird was gone. “Hmm,” he muttered. “That wasn’t a gull. That was a mountain vulture. What’s a mountain vulture doing here?”
Stricia watched a batch of young women pushing their way through the crowd, leaning into each other to gossip. She curled her hand into a fist. “There’s Dynei,” she said, not really caring if the watchmen listened. “Dynei’s a stuck-up little brat. Calls herself a loyalist, but I’ve seen what she keeps under her blankets. She’ll be losing some honor stitches soon if I have anything to say about it. And I will. Look at her. Charming the boys. Strutting and flirting. What has she done to deserve their attention? I’ll put a stop to that behavior.”
Kar-balter tweaked the medallion on the edge of his breastplate. “Humph. It was a good day when I traded in my honor stitches for a suit of armor. And now I’ve got a medal.”
“I got four!” Em-emyt choked, spluttering juice, clinking his medals against his breastplate. “Blue level training. Yellow level training. Valor in battle. And archery. Heh…now that’s the sort of honors that really make people stand up and notice.”
“He says he has a medal for valor in battle,” Kar-balter muttered to Stricia. “What battles have you ever seen, Em-emyt?”
“I earned that valor medal for killing two Cent Regus reptiles.”
Kar-balter smirked. “I heard Prince Cal-raven held the beastmen off so poor Em-emyt could escape, running like a goose with his tail feathers on fire. Cal-raven recommended that medal just to silence those who laughed at Em-emyt.”
A face emerged from the shadow of Em-emyt’s oversized helmet, old and lumpish, like a tortoise waking. “I didn’t run! I withdrew, you crusty old vawn nugget. I was injured!” The aging soldier’s out
rage almost brought him to his feet.
“If he starts stripping things off to show his battle scars,” Stricia laughed, “I may just have to scream.”
“I swear,” Em-emyt continued, “it was the worst of beastmen that had at us that night. But what do you know about combat, you half-drowned drunk?”
“Look at that!” Kar-balter leaned out so far over the edge of the parapet, his partner could have ended their debate with an easy shove. “Look, Em-emyt!”
The stocky guard groaned. Using his sword as a crutch, he managed to stand and share the view. Curious, Stricia edged up beside them.
Looking south down the main market avenue, she could see across rows of tiled rooftops to Abascar’s outer wall. The road was thronged with Housefolk. The noisy mass narrowed to push through the gates, where attendants quickly stitched a bright blue ribbon on each grey cloak for their voluntary attendance. Proud and pleased, they proceeded into the extravagant space where green grass grew, where striped flags flapped, to view the large stage with its swooping backdrop of red curtains and purple tapestries. They were elbows and shoulders against one another, crowding around the Ring of Decision like travelers warming to a fire.
Kar-balter turned his attention to one of the guarded Underkeep stairwells. “See him? See the ale boy?”
A child wearing an errand-runner’s cap had emerged, holding a reflective silver tray aloft. He disappeared in the current of Housefolk, then reappeared near the platform. He spoke to no one and moved independently, swiftly, with purpose.
Stricia smiled. “I know him. Clumsy little orphan.”
“He’s got enough goblets on that ale tray to serve more than the usual number of magistrates. There must be guests with us today. King Cal-marcus is feeling generous.” Kar-balter glanced at Stricia quizzically. “Shouldn’t you be down there? To be seated with your family?”
“I suppose I should,” she said, as if it were of little consequence. “Today is a kind of rehearsal for me, you see. Soon I’ll be—”
Trumpets blared from a small platform to the right of the main stage. Drums thundered from a matching stand on the other side. On a smaller stage at the top of the crimson fall of curtains, a group of white-robed singers began a bold inaugural verse. The crowd roared approval. The music of the Rites of the Privilege had begun and would continue throughout the proceedings. This fanfare, a bombastic and ancient motif, would course for several rounds before settling into festive strains of strings.