With her face still raised, she watched the drying branches and sprigs of herbs wave down at her from the rafters. The dream was no more real than the shift of shadows from a flickering flame.
She stiffened in her bed.
Her gaze flicked to the bedside stand, to the dark oil lamp. She remembered snuffing out its flame. And the window shutters were wider than how she’d left them. She craned her neck and searched the nest of shadows above the rafters.
Something’s up there.
With this thought, her world upended. Suddenly she was seeing herself staring up, seated atop the bed. She let out a cry, watched herself cry out. Then the world righted itself, and she was back in her bed, gaping up at the rafters.
A row of dried addleberry branches shivered, drawing her gaze.
From the rafters, a pair of red eyes glowed back at her.
A scream built in her chest, but before it let loose, a keening reached her from above. It was soundless but felt all over. Her skin prickled in response. It reverberated off the stone wall, filling the breadth of the ward. It knifed past her ears and echoed inside her skull, setting fire to the surfaces of her brain.
She palmed her ears, but it made no difference.
The fires stoked into a blaze, bringing with it strange sensations. Her nose filled with a gingery musk, redolent with oil and sweat. Her tongue tasted a milky cream, rich and sweet. Shadowy images fluttered as her head lolled back, as if buffeted by the keening winds from above.
The world dimmed around her, while another grew sharper.
—her tiny fingers scrabble through fur.
—pursed lips find a dark nipple, where a single drop of milk hangs.
—she suckles and kicks chubby legs to push herself greedily forward.
—soft leather scoops her tighter, keeping her warm and safe.
Nyx shook her head, trying to dispel these thoughts, to deny what she began to suspect. But she could not escape it.
Other glimpses cascaded through her. Sometimes it was her looking outward; other times, it was as if she was viewed from afar.
—she crawls through rushes.
—she struggles to suckle her own toe.
—smoking brimstan stings her nose.
—a hot tongue cleans her all over.
—she is clutched and swept high, winds brushing her limbs.
As the images flashed faster and faster, her vision of them grew strangely cloudier.
—the milk she suckles still tastes rich and sweet. It fills her belly, makes her stronger, deepens her slumbers, but it also slowly darkens her world.
—the warm tongue wipes at her eyes, not as gently, more fervently with concern.
—the high-pitched squeaks and whistles that have always filled her world and skull, which etched her very being, now sound mournful, grieving. As if the entire world wept around her.
—then aloft again, carried through shadows.
—her tiny ears hear the lowing of a great beast below, along with the bony rattle of reeds as the creature moves through the swamp.
—she is gently lowered to a spot near the beast. Her new bed is damp and perfumed by blooms all around.
—by this time, she can barely see.
—a shadow looms over her. Huge eyes gaze down. A whiskered cheek presses to her own. A tongue tastes her one last time. Nostrils huff and sniff, drawing her into memory.
—then with a final buffeting of huge wings, she is abandoned.
—she bawls her grief, her loss, echoing the keening that still bathes her from above, but which grows fainter and fainter.
—she watches a shadow crest the moon and vanish.
Finally, the world returned fully to her. She was back on her cot. Tiny eyes still glowed from above, but the terror of them had dimmed to a dull glow. She wanted to deny what she had been shown—lost memories inflamed back to life by the keening—but she could not. She knew them to be true. Still, it was too much to take in, upending all she understood about herself.
Before she could even attempt such an impossible task, the piercing cries from the rafters sharpened. Once again, she was staring down at herself from above. She knew she was peering through the eyes of the creature hiding up there. Then another image overlapped this one, shimmering like a reflection on a still pond.
She was a naked babe again, snuggled to a nipple, nestled in the fur and wing of a massive shape that protected her. She stared across to the other nipple, where a dark shape, naked and downy, suckled. Its thin wings were held awkwardly to the side. Small claws dug for purchase in the furry pelt—while tiny red eyes stared back at her. This other had always been there beside her, sheltered and protected under the same wings.
The shimmering view finally faded. The room went quiet again.
She gulped several breaths, dizzy with knowledge. Her gaze narrowed on the rafters, to the pair of red eyes. She now knew what hid in the rafters.
As if acknowledging this, a dark shape—barely larger than a winter goose—cartwheeled into view. Its wings snapped wide, then with a single beat, it dove sideways out the narrow window. Her gaze followed after the young M?r bat as it turned on a wingtip and vanished away.
She held her breath, testing how she felt about this trespass.
Such creatures were the scourge of these harsh lands, predators like no other. But no fear iced through her. Instead, her earlier terror had hardened to a cold certainty.
She knew who had come to visit her this Eventoll.
She continued to stare at the window, picturing that other nipple, the small shape—only now velvety furred and grown larger.
My lost brother.
FOUR
THE PRINCE IN THE CUPBOARD
All the beauty of the worlde can be found in the lands of Hálendii. From east to west, it falls in colossal stepes, as if meant to be tredan upon by the gods themselves. From the steaming highlands of the Shrouds, down to the misti forests of Cloudreach, & at last to spread its bounty out into the fruit’d & fertile plains of Brau?lands. Yet, no wonder is greater than the city upon which these lands & most the worlde turns, the triumphant magnyficence of Azantiia.
—Annotated from the eighty-volume treatise, Lyrrasta’s Geographica Comprehendinge
11
WITH A GROAN, the son of the highking woke amidst lice and the foul of his own heave. Off in the distance, the dawn bell clanged down from the heights of Azantiia. Its ringing passed from one tower bell to another, six in all, positioned at each point of Highmount’s star-shaped ramparts.
He tried to stuff the thin pillow in his ears as the new day sounded. But the noise still rattled his skull and made his teeth ache. His stomach lurched, and bile threatened to rise. He swallowed it back into submission, but not before a loud burp escaped.
Finally, the last of the morning’s tolling echoed across the Bay of Promise, and the bells fell mercifully silent.
“Aye, that’s better,” Prince Kanthe sighed out to a room shuttered and dark.
He closed his eyes and tried to remember where he was. He smelled sweat, piss, and the soured ale of his own mess. Fat sizzled on a grill and smoked through floorboards under him. From that cookery came the clanking of pots, interrupted by bellows of an irate innkeep.
Ah, yes …
He foggily remembered a painted wooden sign depicting an armored knight with a sword raised to his lips. The Point’d Blade. Long ago, someone had crudely altered the sword into a jutting manhood. No one had ever bothered to change it back. Amused by such artistry, he could not leave the tavern unvisited. If he recalled, it had been the third such establishment that he had graced with his illustrious presence. Not that he had given his truest name. As usual, he had arrived in roughspun and a simple cloak, hiding his princely nature.