Текст книги "Cruel Beauty"
Автор книги: Rosamund Hodge
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
21
We needed a room where we could light candles—in case the darkness started actually killing me—and that meant not the library.
Which meant I had to see Father again. I dithered my way through checking the books in the library for a bit longer than I needed, because I was trying to gather up my courage. I didn’t want to scream hatred at him again, and I didn’t want him to look at me with loathing as Astraia did, and I didn’t want either of us to pretend anything was all right. Most of all I wanted him to kiss my feet, beg forgiveness, and reveal he had loved me all along, but I knew that was the most impossible thing in all possible worlds.
It turned out he was waiting for us right outside the door. My skin crawled again as I considered what he might have overheard, but I met his gaze with my shoulders squared and my chin up.
“Nyx, I—” he began.
“Father,” I broke in. I meant to say something short and dignified that would establish I was beyond caring about him, but instead the words clattered out on top of one another. “We have almost found a way to destroy the Gentle Lord. It will require some experimenting tonight, so I hope you will lend us a box of candles. Tomorrow I will be on my way and if all goes well I should have accomplished my task by evening. Of course, it is likely that I will not return, so I hope you understand that I am proud to die for my family and I regret the words I said hastily before.”
Then I managed to stop. Every word had been pronounced with cheerful precision, but in my ears every one had screamed, Please love me just once, and I wanted to writhe.
Father closed his mouth, his gaze flickering from me to Astraia and back again. “I meant to ask if you’d come down to dinner,” he said finally. “But of course you can have all the candles you wish.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling like an idiot.
“Will you come?” he asked.
My eyes prickled with tears, and I felt like a greater idiot still. “Of course,” I muttered between my teeth.
It was an excruciating meal. The dining room portrait of Mother stared at me over Father’s head. The roasted lamb and figs were like ashes in my mouth. The servants were terrified of me, tiptoeing in and out of the room with wide eyes. Aunt Telomache was not there. “She is feeling unwell,” said Father, with a sidelong glance at me. We did our best to make conversation, but we were all under silent agreement not to mention the Gentle Lord and my doom, and there was little else to be said. As the silences pooled and spread, I realized how many of our dinners had consisted of Aunt Telomache expounding upon some improving subject and Astraia babbling about her day.
For the second course they brought apples; I remembered the silly apple tower Ignifex had tried to build, doomed always to fall, and I couldn’t speak. Suddenly that unguarded moment seemed like a greater act of trust than giving me the ring, and one thought keened through my mind: He trusts me, and I am going to betray him.
Astraia laid her hand over mine. She gave me a wan, wide-eyed smile that was comfort or threat, I couldn’t tell.
Father reached into the fruit bowl and picked up an apple. “The symmetry of an apple is a curious thing,” he said. “Have I told you about the monograph that was published just last week?”
No, I was too busy kissing the man who killed your wife, I thought, but there were still some things I refused to say, so I raised my chin and said, “No. Do tell.”
For the rest of the meal, Father kept up the conversation. He did not apologize. Did not beg me to stay, did not say that he loved me, or even ask if I thought I could bear my fate. He talked of the latest Hermetic research and related anecdotes of his colleagues, all without ever alluding to the central mission of the Resurgandi. They might have been a harmless society of researchers with no secret goal beyond pure knowledge.
When we finished, the sun was gone, only a simple glow left on the horizon; my skin prickled every time I looked at a shadow, but for all I knew it was simple fear.
And then it was time to go upstairs to the attic where we would perform our experiment, about which we’d told Father nothing except that we needed candles. One of the maids had already been dispatched with a great box of beeswax tapers; as Astraia started up the stairs, a lantern glowing in her hands, I hesitated at the bottom. I didn’t want to leave but I also didn’t want to stay here with the awkward silences and unacknowledged, unbearable truths.
“Good night, Father,” I said, turning away.
“Nyx,” he said softly, and I turned back without thinking. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
My heart thudded. For an instant I felt like I was floating, because this was more than he had ever said to me—then the silence crushed me down again, because he had said nothing more and I knew with bone-deep certainty that he never would.
“It doesn’t matter.” The words dropped out of me like a stone. Then I forced myself to smile and speak more softly. “It doesn’t matter what any of us wish. The Gentle Lord must be stopped, and I’m the one who has to do it.”
It was not exactly forgiveness, but he had not exactly made an apology.
He nodded, his mouth tightening; then he laid a hand on my forehead and whispered, “Go with the blessings of Hermes, lord of going and return.”
It was a standard blessing, such as might be used by anyone in authority: a father, a teacher, a governor.
I forced myself to smile. “Ave atque vale,” I said, the traditional farewell of the Resurgandi before undertaking a dangerous Hermetic experiment.
Then I turned and ran up the stairs after Astraia. I didn’t think he was really sorry for what he’d done, but I couldn’t entirely blame him. I loved the Gentle Lord, and I wasn’t really sorry for that, either.
“Only if it looks like I’m dying,” I reminded Astraia.
“I know!” She looked back at me, lips tight. “Do you think I’m too silly to remember, or too weak to watch?”
I leaned forward on my hands, letting out a slow breath. “Neither,” I said. Staring at the floorboards, I could admit to myself that I was actually afraid she wouldn’t ever light the candles at all, that she would sit and watch me suffer with that hard little smile she had learnt in my absence. I supposed I couldn’t complain if she did: I’d done as much to Ignifex already, and I was planning to do far worse.
If I was too cowardly to bear the fate I handed out, then I really would be despicable.
We were directly under the roof, which slanted down to the floor at the far end of the room. There were no lamps up here, only Astraia’s lantern, and in its flickering light the misshapen room already looked like the start of a nightmare. Astraia settled herself by the door, lit one candle, and put out the lantern. The candle threw flickering shadows across her solemn, pale face, making it look like an alien statue. I had no doubt she would let me suffer as long as I needed to find an answer.
I sat up straight, closing my eyes. But waiting blind was unbearable, so I opened them again; and I couldn’t bear to watch Astraia’s face, so I stared at the shadowed corners. Sitting still at last, I realized I was tired; my eyes itched and my vision wavered. Again and again, I thought I saw the shadows begin to move and terror jolted through my body; then I realized it was only the dim light and my tired eyes playing tricks. My back ached; one of my legs went numb; it seemed another part of my body was always starting to tickle or itch, but I didn’t want to roll around scratching myself in front of Astraia.
Maybe I’d been a fool to think that wearing Ignifex’s ring would make the darkness burn me the way it did him, that the voice in the darkness would speak to me. Just because I could wield a few of his powers, did that mean I shared his nature? He had said, While you wear it, you shall stand in my place—but just because he trusted me, did that mean I shared his fate?
The back of my neck itched again—the really horrible kind of itch that sent tingles running up and down my spine. I gave up and reached back to scratch—
Darkness slid over my fingers.
I jerked my hand away, but in an instant the darkness slid over my body. It wasn’t anything like the shadows from beyond the door. They had been cold, icy nothingness, while this darkness burned like acid. They had bubbled out of me, turning my own body against me; this darkness was unquestionably alien, burning into my body from the outside.
The Children of Typhon had shredded away all meaning from the world. This darkness came to impose a meaning on me. It flowed over my body like the movement of a tongue, shaping red-hot words across my skin. But the pain was nothing beside the desperate need to respond, to speak those words back to the bodiless voice.
Except I couldn’t understand the words. I couldn’t even repeat them, because they crawled across my body and burrowed into my ears and wept out of my eyes without leaving the least trace in my memory.
I had never thought that I would hear the voice in the darkness and not be able to understand it.
It’s not working, I thought, and I tried to call for Astraia, to tell her to light the candles and save me. I tried to scream. But the air in my lungs wasn’t mine to command anymore; it was speaking those same unfathomable words.
I realized I had collapsed to the ground. Astraia stood over me, and for a moment I thought that she would save me. Then I saw that her eyes were blank holes, darkness dripping out of them like tears. Her mouth curved in a smile. I blinked, and she was gone. Maybe I’d imagined her.
The darkness clawed into my mouth and covered my eyes. I shuddered and choked, and the world was gone.
I saw a great marble hall, golden shafts of light falling between its red-painted pillars, and a dais covered in mosaics at the far end. It looked like the throne room of a great king, but on the dais was no throne, only a little ivory table, atop which sat a small wooden box—the same box that I had seen in the round room. Beside it stood a stern-faced woman in ancient robes, and before her a young boy sat on the floor with his back to me.
“You have heard that when Arcadia stood alone against the barbarians, when they had landed on our shores and begun to sack our cities, your forefather Claudius sought out the Kindly Ones,” said the woman. “They are the Lords of Tricks as well as Justice, and it is said that even the gods fear them, yet he was so desperate to protect his people that he bargained with them.”
“And they said if he brought them Pandora’s jar, they would grant him a wish. So he searched for seven days and demons killed all his companions but one and then he found it.” The boy recited the words in the monotone rhythm of bored competence. “He brought it back and the Kindly Ones saved Arcadia from the barbarians. Making him the only one that ever bargained with them and wasn’t cheated.”
“True,” said the woman. “But more true than you know. For that is not the whole of his bargain. When Claudius brought them the jar, the Kindly Ones promised him one victory against the barbarians. But they said that they would protect Arcadia from all invaders all the days of his life, and all the days that his successors reigned, if he would agree to a further bargain: Each king of Arcadia must look into the jar. If he has a pure heart, the kind that would risk anything for Arcadia, the Children of Typhon will serve him and protect the land from any invader. But if his heart is not pure—if he loves himself more than his people, if hatred and passion rule his soul—then they will drag him down into the jar to dwell with them in the dark forever, and Arcadia will be protected no more. And if he does not dare look within the jar, they will find him just the same, and take him no matter how pure his heart.
“Claudius agreed. He looked into the jar and his heart was pure. So Arcadia was saved from barbarians, and the island has remained unconquered to this day, for every heir of Claudius has proved worthy and cheated the Kindly Ones. And so you must prepare yourself, my prince, to face the test on your coronation day.”
I couldn’t see the boy’s face, but I saw his spine straighten and heard the sudden tightness in his voice. “The jar is lost. Everybody knows that.”
“Not lost.” The woman laid a hand on the little wooden box. “Hidden. It takes a new form in every age.”
“That’s—that’s just the casket of the crown jewels.”
“And what greater jewel can a king possess than a pure heart? Someday you will lift the lid of this box, look inside, and be judged.” She leaned down toward the boy. “Now do you understand why you must always strive to be a good prince?”
“I never asked to be one!”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “What difference should that make?”
The two of them faded like smoke. A grown man strode between the pillars. It was Shade, the last prince; his hair was black instead of white, but I would know those blue eyes anywhere.
“I don’t care!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Send them away!”
“They are your warband.” A woman followed him into view: white-haired now but the same one who had lectured him when he was a child. “Sworn to fight at your side all their lives, even unto death. By dismissing them, you shame them forever. And this is the third warband that you have sent away. You cannot go on this way. A prince must—”
He turned on her. “A prince must not hate, didn’t you teach me that? And I hate them. I always hate them, so they have to go.”
“But you—”
“Go.”
The woman sighed and left. Alone, the prince gave the box a fearful look and covered his face with shaking hands. Then he faded into the air.
I walked toward the table and the room melted around me, columns sliding into streams of pale light that pooled across the floor.
Now do you understand? The voice hummed through my head without touching my ears. It was almost a woman’s voice, though with a bell-like quality that was not quite human, and I knew instinctively that it was the Kindly Ones.
A heart full of hatred and fear for his fate, desperate to live—he was always anything but pure. So he came to us and swore he’d pay any price if we’d continue to protect Arcadia from invaders and stop him from ending up in the darkness alone. The voice was on the verge of gentle laughter, like a mother speaking to her witless but endearing child. And now he’s never alone, for all Arcadia is hidden with him in the darkness, where no invader will ever find it.
All the room had melted away now; I stood atop a glassy puddle of light, surrounded by absolute darkness, with the table and box before me.
As within, so without.
And I knew that the shifting, paradoxical splendor of the house was nothing compared to the paradox of the box. All Arcadia was locked inside the house and all the house was locked inside that box, along with the Children of Typhon—and the last prince, who had once been so terrified he would be trapped alone with them.
But what was within the box-inside-the-house, the one that Ignifex had said was forbidden?
“If I open the box,” I whispered, “will that release us?”
You’re not the one who can open it.
“Shade.”
Yes. But not yet.
“What is he waiting for? His birthday?”
Laughter rippled through the air, the same laughter I had heard in the garden with the sparrow.
He and your husband are bound as opposites. So long as one has power, the other is helpless. But whatever one loses, the other gains. Summon the Children of Typhon and use them to rend your husband until his power is broken. Once the prince has gathered back all he has lost, he will be able to open the box. When the box is opened, all Arcadia will go free. The Sundering will end, and the Children of Typhon will be trapped inside the box, never to ravage your people again.
All I had to do was fulfill my vow to my sister. It was good news. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to believe it—but Ignifex had told me that the Kindly Ones loved to tell the truth once it was too late to save anyone. And now, with my oath to Astraia still bitter on my tongue, it was much too late.
“What happens to Shade?” I asked. “Will he be locked in the box too, the way he feared?”
Your husband will pay that price.
Like Pandora. There was always a sacrifice; I had known that all my life.
I didn’t know if it was grief or rage that made my voice shake as I asked, “Is that what I learnt in the flames?”
Mostly.
I remembered the garden and the sparrow. When it told me to look in the pool for a way to save us, it hadn’t seemed to mean I must betray the one I loved.
That bird cannot help you. It lives in his garden. It eats of his crumbs. Do you suppose it can save you?
I hadn’t even considered that possibility, but now I wondered—
It was kind to you, said the Kindly Ones. What do you think that means?
It was exactly the same intonation as a mother saying, Darling, if you touch the stove, you get burned.
And I knew the answer as simply as breathing. There was something wrong with the sparrow. There had to be. Because it had offered me hope, and when had there ever been any hope for me that didn’t twist into despair? My chance at love had broken Astraia’s heart. My visit home had become a vow to kill Ignifex.
And now I was more indignant over my own sorrow than over the suffering of Shade and Astraia and Damocles, the eight dead wives and Elspeth’s brother and all Arcadia for nine hundred years. With such a selfish heart, what right did I have to expect any hope?
What will you do now?
The voice spoke from all around me, in my ears and in my lungs and thrumming through my bones. And I knew what I had to do.
I struggled to speak, but my tongue felt dull and heavy; only a soft moan came out. The darkness wavered around me.
“Yes,” I ground out, and it felt like speaking from under a mountain. “I’ll . . . do it.”
. . . And I realized that I had awoken, and I was staring up into Astraia’s eyes as I lay with my head cradled in her lap.
“What will you do?” asked Astraia, and she sounded almost gentle.
My throat felt raw as I said, “What I must.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
22
The hallway looked just as I remembered it: the gaudy moldings, the murals of writhing figures. My footsteps echoed as I walked forward; I glanced back nervously, but Ignifex did not appear.
It was barely dawn. He was probably still in his room, surrounded by candles. I remembered the way he huddled into my arms, sheltering from the darkness.
You swore to Astraia. For the sake of Arcadia.
I forced myself forward. He was the enemy. I had to stop him.
The door too was the same: small, wooden, and filled with unimaginable horror. I laid my hand on the doorknob. Did it tremble beneath my touch?
What if the ring did not allow me to control the Children of Typhon after all?
You would deserve it. For what you’re planning. Ignifex had given me the ring in love and trust, and I was using it to destroy him.
You promised, I reminded myself, and before I could hesitate any longer, I pulled the door wide open.
Emptiness clawed at my eyes. I tried to speak, but my lips would not move. From far away in the deeps, I thought I heard the echoes of a song.
Children of Typhon, I thought, but my tongue wouldn’t move. I sucked in a breath, clenching my fists, and then was finally able to force the words out: “Children . . . of Typhon . . . bring me Shade.”
There was a noise like the skitter of a million little clawed feet, like the burbling of water; then the darkness parted and Shade tumbled forward. I barely caught him, staggered backward under his weight, then lowered him to the ground.
His clothes were torn and ragged; his fingertips bled as if he had been clawing at the lid of a coffin, and blood dripped also out of his ears and nose, stark crimson against his colorless skin. All across his face and hands were the same swirling pale scars that the darkness had left upon Ignifex.
But his breath whispered in and out. He was still alive; I could still save him and all Arcadia.
I laid my right hand—the one that wore the ring—upon his forehead and said, “Heal,” as commandingly as I could. But nothing happened; he lay still, his breath sliding in and out in the rhythm of perfect sleep.
“Heal,” I said again. “Wake!” But he didn’t move.
I leaned down to his ear and whispered, “I know who you are. Come back.”
Nothing.
Then I remembered how my kiss had made him able to speak; I remembered also half a dozen tales, and how Ignifex had said that the Kindly Ones loved to leave clues.
“Please wake up,” I said, and then very gently, I kissed him on the lips.
He sighed. His eyes did not open, but the scars on his face had visibly faded. My heart beating faster, I kissed his forehead, his ears, and finally his lips again; and the skin on his face looked fresh and healed.
I picked up his hands. One by one, I kissed his bloody fingers, trying to ignore the smell and taste of blood, and his fingers healed under my lips.
Ignifex did this, I thought as I kissed each fingertip. Ignifex knew how he would suffer and did it to him anyway. He deserves this betrayal. If I could concentrate on just that thought, I might be strong enough.
I kissed his palms and laid down his hands. He looked healed now, but he still had not wakened; so I leaned down and kissed his lips again.
This time he woke with a quick, shuddering intake of breath. He stared up at me, eyes wide and dazed. As I had stared up at him when he betrayed me in the Heart of Fire.
He had been trying to save Arcadia. I was betraying Ignifex for the same reason now.
For a moment his mouth worked soundlessly; then he said, still not quite looking at me, “Are you here . . . to punish me?”
His voice was rough and hoarse, as if from screaming, and my stomach curled. All this time, while I had been delighting in my husband, he had been tortured by the Children of Typhon.
“No.” I grabbed his hand. “No. You’re safe.”
He shuddered and focused on me. “Nyx,” he gasped, and then repeated, “Are you here to punish me?”
“I’m here,” I said unsteadily, “to save you and kill my husband.”
He sat up slowly, wincing, and leaned against the wall. “Thank you.”
I didn’t even try to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “I had to.”
He met my gaze. “You know.”
“Yes,” I said. “You’re the last prince of Arcadia. My prince. I’m going to save you, and you’re going to save us all.”
“No,” he breathed. “You’re going to save us. I knew you would do it.” And he pulled me into a kiss.
Despite the memory of what he had done, the kiss still rippled through my body. But more than his betrayal lay between us now. I pushed him back, my right hand flat against his chest.
“I’m helping you,” I said, my voice low and clear. I couldn’t meet his eyes, so I stared at the ring glinting on my finger. “I chose you and Arcadia, so I will betray Ignifex. I will destroy him so that you can take back everything he stole. But I love him, not you, and I’m his wife, not yours.”
He let out a gentle breath and took my hand. “Then collect the Children of Typhon, and let’s go find your husband.” He stood, drawing me up with him.
I pulled free. “I never told you about needing them.”
He looked back at me silently.
“You knew what to do all along,” I said, my voice clenching with hopeless fury. Everyone had always known what I needed to do. I had just deluded myself that I could have a happy ending. “Why couldn’t you tell me before I fell in love?”
“I can’t start anything.”
“Aside from throwing me into the fire?”
“Almost anything.” His eyes narrowed and his voice lowered in the tone of contempt I remembered. “I know and can’t act. He acts but knows nothing.”
I blinked. Memory flickered at the edge of my mind: something about a fire, no, a face lit by lamplight—an angry voice—
Then it was gone, and maybe it had been nothing, just a half-remembered dream. And there was no dream that could change what I had to do. As the Kindly Ones had said, while Ignifex had power, Shade was helpless. And Shade was the only one who could save Arcadia.
Grimacing, I stepped to the threshold again. The Children of Typhon waited just a breath away, quivering with anticipation but not attempting to trespass.
Because they knew. They knew I had the ring, and they knew I was preparing them a victim who would last forever.
I reached into the darkness with my right hand. Shadow burned and swirled around my fingers, across my palm. I clenched my teeth, bearing it. After a few moments, my hand still burned and my heart still thudded, but I was no longer quite so dizzy with pain.
“Come to me,” I whispered, and the Children of Typhon pooled in my hands, twisting and shrinking into a tiny seed of darkness, like the pearl at the heart of Pandora’s jar. I closed my fist.
There was still darkness beyond the door, but it was no longer terrible: it was an absence of light and no more.
I turned back to Shade. “Follow me,” I said. My voice seemed very cold and far away.
“That is all I can do,” he said, and again there was that trace of a smile.
With him following silently, I strode back down the hallway. When I came to the door at the other end, I paused and thought of Ignifex. When I imagined his face, my hand throbbed with pain; it felt like the Children of Typhon were trying to claw their way out and devour him.
“Soon,” I muttered at them, laying my free hand on the door handle. Now the thought of my mission only made me feel empty and determined. The cold burn in my hand seemed to have taken away my grief.
Take me to Ignifex, I thought at the door, and pushed it open.
I stepped into my bedroom.
It did not surprise me that he had stayed there in my absence. The racks of burning candles were also as expected. What stopped me on the threshold with shock was the state of the room. Drifts of paper covered the floor: page after half-burned page ripped from the books in library. The silver wallpaper was covered in scribbled charcoal notes. At the foot of my bed crouched Ignifex, shuffling anxiously through the papers.
“What are you doing?” I breathed, and I didn’t have to pretend the bewilderment in my voice.
His head snapped up. “Nyx,” he said, blinking hard. His pupils were hugely dilated. “While you were gone, I started . . . What the Kindly Ones said through you. They said, ‘The name of the light is in the darkness.’ I swore to your mother’s grave that I would try. So I stayed up all night. Almost in darkness. And I almost, I almost remember the voice.” His voice was a wandering, lost thing. “There’s a way to save us. If I can just remember.”
I felt like a cobweb strung across the doorway, trembling in the draft and about to tear if I moved. If I had just waited one more day, tried one ounce harder in all the days before, maybe he would have dared the darkness and already remembered. Maybe he would have found a way to save us all. But now I was oath bound to destroy him.
Maybe he would have just remembered that there was no way to save Arcadia but his destruction. Whatever the truth, it didn’t matter anymore.
He stood, swaying slightly, and then he finally noticed Shade standing behind me.
“What—” he started, but his voice had torn me free. I was across the room in two strides and then I stopped his mouth with a kiss. I locked my arms around him; I felt his shoulder blades and the slight ridge of his spine, and the solid reality of what I was about to destroy nearly undid me.
But if I didn’t destroy him, the last prince would never be whole again. Nobody would save Arcadia. And I had sworn an oath to my sister.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and he went still beneath my hands as if he knew. Then I said loudly, “Break his power,” as I opened my hand.
The Children of Typhon rushed out between my fingers. I clung to him—to hold him down or share his fate, I wasn’t sure—but the shadows slid between our bodies, icy cold, as they wrapped around him. Then they began to drag him away. My grip broke; I scrabbled for purchase and managed for one moment to grasp his wrist—and his hand clutched my wrist in return, his eyes wide with fear—then they ripped him away and slammed him against the wall. My legs gave way, and I collapsed to the floor. It was several heartbeats before I could gather enough strength to look up.
The shadows held Ignifex against the wall; they writhed and clawed at him with a thousand tiny fingers. His whole left side was gone, the ragged edge not bleeding but shredded into mist.
Impossibly, he was still alive. And he smiled the wild, vicious smile that had made me fall in love.
“One half of power for one half of your knowledge,” he said to Shade. “Not such a bad bargain. At least now I understand why you coveted my wives.” He held out his remaining hand. “Take my hand. End this. And all my wives will be yours.”
As Shade stepped forward, left hand reaching, his right side melted into the air. He was smiling exactly the same smile.
“Wait,” I said, trying to stand, because this wasn’t right. I was still dazed, but I could tell that something was wrong. Shade was supposed to regain what had been stolen from him. He wasn’t supposed to lose one half of his body. He wasn’t supposed to gain my husband’s smile.
Their hands touched, fingertip to fingertip, and every candle in the room flared up. Then their fingers locked down to clasp their hands together. Light exploded through the room.
And I remembered the last vision that Shade had shown me in the Heart of Fire, the vision that had broken my heart until I forgot it again.
Once more I saw the hallway of the ancient palace, but this time it was night. One lamp burned on the wall, and in that flickering light I saw the last prince fall to his knees before the box.
“O Kindly Ones,” he gritted out. “O Gentle Folk of Air and Blood. O Lords of Tricks and Justice. Come to my aid.”
The silence stretched on and on, broken only by his ragged breathing, but he waited. Until a breeze swirled through the hallway, ruffling his hair and whispering against the stones, and on the breeze floated a thousand pinpricks of light, and the light was laughing.
