Aliyah

The execution of the traitor-princess would be held at dawn.

Aliyah cracked open a window on the darkening sky and watched with a sick feeling in her stomach as a line of dark mist undulated on the horizon. A flotilla of skyships floated high over the sands, so distant they appeared as mere specks of sailcloth.

“Magicians,” she said, looking away. “Still out on the salt? They’re going to be working all night.”

Zahir stirred from the drowsy comforts of his armchair, a slender form clad in red. His eyes and his skin, both a tawny brown under normal daylight, were tinted almost as red as his robes by a nearby sun-lamp. He stretched, tipping his head back as he yawned. It reminded her of a storybook leopard’s yawn—deliberately languid and with a hint of pointed tooth.

“Yes. The nets and the scaffold and suchlike. They do tend to take a while.”

Her hand strayed to the spyglass on his desk, then hesitated. “I should try…”

“I think it’s a bit of a frivolous endeavour, but certainly, any practice is better than none. Don’t pop your eyeballs, it’ll hurt.”

“Really.”

He tapped the side of his nose and sighed. “It’s happened before. Little idiots detaching all of their inner musculature. And people wonder why I dislike apprentices.”

She ignored him and shoved at the window. The wood creaked in its grooves as she shunted it further open. Cool air surged into the room. She braced herself on the sill and squinted out of instinct, then forced herself to relax; her pupils were already dilating, away from the blood-red-brightness of the dying sun-lamps. The working of such fine adjustments always felt like moving through a thick slurry, grainy like sand and the colour of old bone.

Breathing in, she placed two fingers onto her cheekbone and reached into the crypts of her own cells, skimming across skin and muscle and bone and into her own eye socket—there. Hundreds of thousands of microscopic rods and cones budded into existence within the back hollows of her eyes. Muscles stretched; a little prompting on the minute level, adding temporary cells and proteins such that they could stretch a little more beyond their natural physiological inhibitions, and then those fibers would relax in response, just like skimming a pebble across a still lake, and now—

Her vision wavered and the distance shimmered in and out of blurriness like a mirage as she made her adjustments. Then it sharpened almost instantaneously as the little crystalline lenses in her eyes flattened in shape.

Past the expanse of flat, terracotta desert lay a sliver of salt pan. Beyond that was a haze of mist rising from the Killing Fields. She saw the Magicians—little lapis-blue silhouettes scurrying around. Her adjustments were not fine enough for her to discern much beyond the shape and colour of their robes, but she could now see clear figures where before she could not. They were working with an almost frightening synergy, pitching silvery lines into the air in droves of robe and mask and magic. The ghost of a gossamer lattice was taking shape, but as Zahir had said, it looked like it would be hours yet before it was complete.

She glanced again at the dark, caustic fog beyond. It wasn’t so bad after all. Winds could change, but that was what Magicians, Weathermancers, and the net were for.

The bone-sand-slurry nudged at the edges of her consciousness and Aliyah dropped it hastily as an unpleasantly familiar pressure made itself known at her temples. She blinked and her vision lapsed back to normal.

“Well done,” Zahir said, sounding almost entirely unamused. “You’ll certainly be safe if you ever need to read fine print under pain of death. Speaking of which, remember to review the chapter on clearing sepsis. I’m going to infect a few peasants for you to practice on.”

She shut the window with a jolt. “…say that again?”

“I’m only joking. What kind of monster do you take me for?” he chuckled. “No, I’ll use some castle rats.”

“Again with the rats?” She shuddered.

“Cheer up, it can’t be worse than the first time you tried to lance a boil.”

“Don’t be awful.” She glanced out of the closed window, scene now warped by the ripples of aged cylinder glass. She hesitated, then said, “…I don’t want to go tomorrow.”

“Why not? It’s not as if you have to reattach her head after they’re finished.”

“Ugh.” She shuddered again, deliberately this time. “You’ve been to one of these before?”

“Mm. Of…criminals and suchlike. For training.”

“Did you reattach any heads?”

“Absolutely not.” He made a sound of disgust. “You should know that’s not possible. I just dissected their bodies afterwards, along with the rest of the cohort.”

“I am so glad that I am not your real apprentice,” she said.

“You could give the dissection a go,” he offered. “They probably suffer less than what I put the rats through.”

She pushed the associated mental imagery to the back of her mind. “I’m not particularly fond of what you do to the rats either.”

Zahir clicked his tongue and lifted the upturned book in his lap. “They’re an infestation and this is my job. I don’t hurt them for fun. That would be weird.” He opened the book, turned a page, and furrowed his brow. “Why so reluctant? Haven’t you seen them do it to animals?”

“Yes, but…” She frowned and walked over to where she’d left her satchel, propped up against the door. “It‘s the fact that it’s not an animal this time.”

“Humans are animals,” he pointed out, not looking up from his book.

“You know what I mean. I meant…a person.”

“Think of the princess as an unusually large rabbit, then,” he said, and turned another page. “An unusually large, treasonous rabbit with a crown on its head and quite a fair bit more blood inside.”

“That’s not funny.” She could feel her expression melting into a scowl. “I don’t want to watch someone get killed.”

“Neither do I.” He shrugged. “Getting a good night’s rest might fortify you. The other option is, you deprive yourself of sleep a few days in advance such that you can hardly fathom what’s going on beyond the shadow-people hallucinations. I wouldn’t recommend the second one though. One of the bluebirds might gut you if you lose it and disrupt the ceremony.”

“You’re hilarious,” she said flatly. Any other time, she might have laughed. As it was, her stomach just churned uneasily.

He gave a half-laugh himself, filling in for her. “Indeed. It’s a curse.”

“Yes, I imagine so. Goodnight,” she said, and left.

Halfway down to the lower dining halls, she glanced out of a window and saw skyships dotted along the mountainous horizon. She leaned her head against the cool glass as she stifled a yawn. Rana was working another night shift. She wouldn’t have anyone to talk to after dinner. At least one of them got to miss the execution.

Zahir had been right; it was probably best to catch as much sleep as possible. No doubt she would have to stumble blearily through pre-dawn bells along with the rest of the illegitimate royalty, all of them herded onto zephyr-boats to watch the salt stain red with the princess’s blood.

===

In front of them, the Magicians were scraping lines into the salt flats. Several strode past her, close enough to reach out and touch—not that any sane person would dare. Their robes, shockingly blue, were so thick with embroidery that up close, the fabric was textured like waves. She suppressed a shiver and watched as their bird-like masks glinted in the watery light.

The air crackled with loose strands of magic. This was no little sand rabbit for a river or a harvest. It was a royal execution, plain and simple. Around her, whispers ran amok under the rustle of heavy cloaks.

“I didn’t believe you when you said it was the harpist,” a girl muttered to Aliyah’s left. The chill air seemed to be worsening the crackle in her voice. “She was full-blooded. A favourite, too. Why throw that away? It’s crazy. What’s the point?”

“It was money, or the gemstone mines, or something,” replied the young man by her side. “I don’t care. Who needs to be up at this time of day?”

“Watch it with that kind of talk, Nadim. It’ll be us next.”

“Psh. Not you. They always need people for the kites.”

“Maybe.” The girl coughed; Aliyah could hear phlegm in the sound. The air was not still.

Zahir’s lessons murmured from over her shoulder, of the blistering of the skin and the burning of the lungs. Vesicles popping. This far out West, even on a good day—a day scheduled for sand-boating or sacrificing alike—there was the tinge of something harsh and alkaline on the edge of the breeze. The beautiful silver spell net, as much as it could shelter them from a storm, could not fully purge the air of lingering poisons no matter how tightly or precisely it had been woven. For someone like the raspy-voiced, kiterunner girl, it was not an auspicious sign at all.

Dozens of Magicians stood in impassive lines upon a raised platform crafted from hard-packed salt and slabs of stone. One of them, wearing a mask fashioned after the image of a falcon, was polishing a block.

Near the Magicians stood the highborn group, draped in shimmering execution-white. She scanned the crowd until she found Zahir, his face impassive. At such a distance, she couldn’t sense exactly how unevenly the highborns were breathing, or if any of them were trembling under their robes, but the stillness and silence of the crowd was sign enough. These people likely knew the princess Alhena, had spoken and joked and dined with her.

There was a sudden stir among the Magicians, a hurrying into formation.

The shadow of a royal skyship bore down upon them. It was a silent and graceful thing, gargantuan but with the most delicately ribbed of armatures. Today, the sails were coloured a blinding white.

The ship touched down on the salt with barely a sound and the hatch unfurled like a beckoning claw.

The king emerged first, flanked by more Magicians. He looked unremarkable, for all the whispers of his power—a tall man, with grey at his temples and beard. He carried a string of bells. The queen followed shortly thereafter, bearing her lyre. They were both surrounded by a full retinue of guards. Six full-blooded children glided after them with their own circle of guards, each carrying their instrument of choice—two wore the blue of Magicianhood, but were unmasked. Then a Magician emerged, bearing a naked sword on his upturned palms. And finally, the traitor-princess Alhena was brought forth in chains.

She wore white as well—was drowning in it. Layers and layers of fabric puddled around her, dragging across the salt as she stumbled forwards. The abundance of white cloth only served to highlight the darkness of her shackles and chains. They glistened with oily black ward-signs: the vicious and expensive kind that corroded at anyone trying to escape them, the type Aliyah had only read about in history books. The princess’s fingertips were blackened with necrosis, the injuries not quite hidden by her draping sleeves. Aliyah had not been the only one to notice; rippling murmurs of horror erupted around her. One of the Magicians thumped her staff into the salt, calling for silence.

The princess took slow, faltering steps, prodded by guards all the while. Aliyah stared at her hunched posture, at her trembling face framed by dark hair that looked as if it had been forcibly washed and brushed and pinned into place to expose her slender neck. Her eyes were red-rimmed. The princess did not embody a proud, scheming royal marching towards her death with dignity and disdain. She looked like a lost girl, barely older than Aliyah herself. The princess fumbled, grasping at her skirts with those awful rotting fingers as she lifted the hem to step onto the salt-and-stone platform. A Magician caught her by the elbow, turned her round and forced her to her knees. She did not struggle as they guided her head onto the block.

“We gather for the execution of the Seventhborn Princess Alhena Shadowsong,” the head Magician intoned, raising the blade until it flashed in the dawn light. His voice was booming and melodious, hissing slightly at the edges from how it had been amplified by a spell. “For the crimes of treason, espionage, sedition, and attempted murder. The notes of condemnation shall now be cast.”

One by one, the royals raised their instruments and cast dull notes into the air—little slices of shadow. Some of their expressions—the king’s, the queen’s and one of the siblings—were twisted as if in sorrow; the rest appeared blank, peaceful. The twisting shadow-shapes surged towards the head Magician and sank into the metal of the proffered blade until it glowed white with runes.

“Seventhborn Princess Alhena Shadowsong. We expect neither forgiveness nor remorse. State your last words and choose them wisely.” The Magician grasped the blade by its gleaming handle and raised it.

Another Magician leaned down and took the princess by the chin. His hand glowed with spell-light before he let go and retreated. The princess raised her head from the block, just slightly. She shaped her mouth around a word, but a trickle of blood emerged instead of sound. She coughed. Her expression crumbled as she tried again.

“It is too late,” she choked out. Her words rang out across the salt, imbued with that odd, crackling quality that came with amplification spells. “They are coming.”

“Your words have been acknowledged.”

The blade thrummed as it bore down. There was the crunch of yielding bone—cervical vertebrae, thought Aliyah distantly—a spray of blood—arterial—and the princess’s body spasmed. Then, a wet, crackling sound. The blade had not gone fully through. The crackling may well have been the princess struggling to breathe through the ruins of her larynx, though she lay so limp that she could very well have died already. Aliyah hoped, quite fervently, that she had died already.

The Magician raised the sword once more. It struck her then that it was a remarkably slender blade for the task. She wondered how she could have thought that the princess’s head would come off in one, clean stroke like in the storybooks. It had not been like this with the springtime rabbits, which did not speak or scream or look as if they had been weeping. They had merely gone limp as their necks were twisted with a strong grip and a sure motion; bloodless, merciful.

The disgraced princess was given no such dignity.

The Magician swung once more and this time, the princess’s head detached from her body and rolled, coming to a rest face-down in the salt.

“We proclaim that the Seventhborn Princess Alhena Shadowsong has been brought to justice.”

A patch of red was spreading upon the salt-ground where the head lay. Blood pulsed forth in spurts from the fresh stump of the princess’s neck. It flowed in dark rivulets down the front of the block and into concentric whorls over the salt, guided by the stenciled patterns that the Magicians had prepared.

Aliyah’s stomach churned. It looked almost uncomfortably ritualistic, beckoning forth old tales and whispered stories by moonlight; of blood magics and people being broken open with magic circles, of sacrificial lowborns just like her…

The air smelled of hot iron. The royal blood steamed faintly in the morning chill.

“We are honoured by your witness,” said the Magician, and bowed. “May you serve the crown well.”