Knite

Darkness kept me company, judging me in silence.

I used to fear the dark. Why? I can only assume a natural aversion to the unknown, a hereditary caution built into my very being by cowards who treasured survival. An insidious plague worming through generations, feeding and growing as it went. There was a time I believed the dark to be evil’s home, where the wicked found comfort and the righteous despair. I was naïve then. Young too, but that’s no excuse; I was a fool. Fool enough to believe pure evil existed. Fool enough to distinguish sentience over instinct. Even fool enough to suppose my innocence an asset. Fools are near blind and hard of hearing, shunning almost all that refutes their folly. Many notions can make a man a fool. Notions that birth ridiculous thoughts, drown logic, and shade reason. I have been a fool thrice over.

I used to fear the dark, but now I yearned for its approval. Elonai had long ago shown me to see and hear darkness for what it was: a friend that could teach me courage. Now my old and fickle friend was silent, the whispers of bravery lost to me. Maybe darkness had nothing left to teach me. Maybe illuminating what it hid had made me deaf to it. Maybe I was still a fool.

A week had gone by with me stuck in the skeleton cage, stewing in dark silence. Only skilled Zephyrs or Golems could’ve avoided the starvation. I was both, so when the door finally slid open, the light spilling in to blind me and scare away my dear friend, I was in better condition than they knew or suspected.

Danar stood by the door, a dark outline against the rush of light. “Can you walk?”

I faked a moan and reached out a begging hand.

“Then Ralaha was wrong,” he said. “You are no match for Crowol.” He leaned down, grabbed my outstretched hand by the wrist, and dragged me towards him. “She will be sorry for her mistake.”

Though the trip back up the staircase was much the same as the trip down, I found it entirely more agreeable. For one, my injuries had healed. For another, I’d had the time to add to the mask I’d started back in the capital. The mask and my other preparations would protect my identity against incursions of the soul and allow a sliver of my true strength to manifest without asserting its alleged divinity. Best of all, I was looking forward to escaping the dullness of my imprisonment.

Danar stepped out into the back garden, my slack body draped across his shoulder, the sun directly over us and setting the vibrant colors of the garden alight. He called over a nearby guard who was patrolling the estate. “Send for Ralaha," he commanded. "Tell her to attend the mistress. She’ll be in the Fracture.”

The guard flashed him a pinched expression but opted to follow his command.

We continued on our way, heading to the mansion's rear door—a thick block of stained glass etched with several layers of matrixes. With a gesture I could not see, upside down and behind him as I was, Danar turned the solid glass into some pliable material we stepped through with ease, the soft glass brushing over us like dry water.

We came into a circular foyer floored and walled with white marble, its purity broken by veins of grey. Across us, fifty paces away, was the front entrance, twice the size of the back and made of the same etched glass. Two sets of stairways curved along the room’s walls, one from beside each entrance, both disappearing into the tall ceiling. Danar carried me up the nearer of the two and into a small vestibule as bare as the foyer. We trudged down a hallway and into a windowless room bathed in the light of torches. A chair of bronze sat in the middle, thick bands of metal riveted to its armrests, front legs, and high on its back. Lira stood beside it, giddy with anticipation.

Her tunnels hit me like a murder of arrows. I ate them all. She expected me to. None lasted long enough to do me any harm; I destroyed them as soon as they entered my soul. Without a tether, and so long as I kept my soul from rippling, she couldn’t know whether they failed or succeeded. Not an easy thing, to hide sensus even as it's used.

“Quicken your pace, Danar,” Lira ordered. “My daughter arrives in but a few turns.”

Danar increased his pace, striding towards the bronze chair. “Yes, Mistress.”

She turned her gaze to me and smiled her beautifully hideous smile. If Roche was there, he’d have given his life to wiping it off, so close was it to one he remembered all too clearly, one that’d left him nightmares as souvenirs.

“Besides,” she said, “I’ve been looking forward to spending some time with my new toy. The sooner I get started, the more time I have to play.” Her face, the flickering light from the torches shifting the shadows and contours of her youthful features, spoke of her evil intentions.

The slave haphazardly plopped me into the chair. He pushed my ankles and wrists into the bands, tightening them until the edges cut into my skin. Next, he slapped my head back and secured the final band around my neck. Functioning as a slave collar, my sensus lurched to a stop. After inspecting his work, Danar took position beside the door.

Lira stepped closer. She almost lovingly stroked my hair, her touch light. She smelled like old blood and fresh flowers. So much like her mother, I thought.

“And how is my new toy today?” she asked.

And yet so different. However much she tried, she could never be as terrifying.

I left her question hanging. She slapped me. Hard. I offered her a pained grunt.

“Already this far into sensus deprivation after a paltry week in a skeleton cage?” she asked. “If this is all you have to offer, I am more than a little disappointed.”

I blinked. Slowly. Like I was too far gone to understand.

She turned to Danar. “Bring me Ralaha!”

“Already sent for, Mistress.”

“Good. She best hope the man is feining his weakness.”

There was a knock on the door as if by divine decree.

“Enter,” Lira called.

Rahala came in, fear and worry contending with her efforts to keep her expression clear. “You called, Mistress?” she asked with a bow.

“If you’ve acted a man and hastily assumed this slave's worth, I will punish you as I would punish a man,” Lira threatened. “Is that not fair? A man's punishment for a mistake only a man should make?”

Rahala went to her knees. She bowed as deeply as she could, her forehead pressing against the marble floor. Though her body vibrated with fear, none of it infected her voice when she spoke. “If you say it is so, Mistress, then it must be so.”

“Ah,” Lira said, pleased. “Now that is more like a woman: smart, correct, and flattering all at once. Do not worry my dear Rahala, I will not disgrace you so. Death would be better than such a profound degradation. Still, an act of oafish stupidity does warrant punishment. But first…”

Lira turned back to me. She straddled my lap without shame. One hand unlocked the slave band around my neck. The other when down to press on my crotch. Her meager surgeon skills bade blood into the area. I forbid my body from listening. It wouldn’t do to be aroused by my own niece—forced or otherwise.

There was a hint of surprise before glee took over her features. “Maybe you were right, Rahala. He appears competent enough to resist my call to his flesh.”

“Get off me, you lewd crone,” I croaked. Done with my observations, I had a plan in mind. Playing a passive, defeated prisoner was no longer part of it. “If I wanted to be in between your legs, I’d have asked.”

Her laughter was delirious. She cackled with it, the harsh sounds echoing off the walls. “Wonderful! I’m glad the skeleton didn’t break your resistance. So often do my new toys break before I get to play with them.”

“You might consider why they break.”

She stroked my cheek, her face closing in on mine until I felt the heat of her breath on my ear. “I am first of House Lorail’s Fioras, ruler of Haloryarey, and, behind my mother alone, the world's premier Tunneller. I know why they break.”

“Then, being as old and wise as you are, you might consider that they break not because of your prowess, but because you strip away their defenses before you dare face them. Besides, you are only first among your house’s Fioras in age.”

She pulled back and there it was, in the twitch of her eyebrow, in the slight straightening of her smile, and in the hot words that followed. Anger. “The skeleton room is a test, nothing more,” she said, her pitch struggling to remain even. “Once I touch any beings soul, my mother being the sole exception, I own them.”

“Oh, yes, your mother,” I said, my tone a jibe in and of itself. “I notice you’re still riding my lap. With the way she’s been holed up in the royal spire, shooting out a queue of newborns for half a century, and the fact that you still suckle from her breast, I need not guess where your licentious appetites come from.”

She stabbed her finger into me before Rahala and Danar knew to gasp at the insult. The finger struck just below the ribs on my right side, digging into the meat of my liver. Lira’s eyes were fixed on mine, lips pressed into a hard line, her gaiety gone. It fled even further when she realized I did not react to her abuse.

I showed her my teeth. “Fine, let's have some fun and see who breaks first.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“A man.”

“You think yourself clever?”

“I think myself winning.”

She slid her finger out and clamped her hand around my mouth, her thumb and forefinger digging into my cheeks. With her other hand, she reached into my mouth and pulled out my tongue. The hand around my mouth shifted, moving down to wrap around my jaw for a better grip. Using the improved anchorage, she pulled harder. And harder. And harder. It was slow work, my tongue stretching out in imperceptible movements, her eyes searching mine for the first signs of fear or defeat or submission.

It was the bottom of my tongue that gave way first. I knew it made little to no sound, yet I could hear as much as feel it tear. She kept going.

Blood pooled below my tongue and spilled over, dripping down and off my chin.

She kept going.

Another tear began from the top as blood slid down and drenched my tunic.

She kept going.

When at last she came away with it, the flesh parting with a sound like that of a wet kiss, satisfaction coiled her lips.

“And now,” she said, “are you still winning?” When I smiled my bloody smile, we both knew I was.

Lira swung off my lap, twisted to stand at my back, and smacked her palm onto my nape with a crisp slap. “Fine. Let me show you why men break before me, why they break just from hearing my name.”

My plan worked. I knew Lira. Or I knew her enough. She was not much older than I. Like Sishal, she thirsted for dominance—a consequence of being discarded by Lorail, of being raised amid cousins and siblings who were strong enough to subdue her and too careful to be subdued by her. I suspected it was the very reason she’d holed up in this little dominion she’d carved for herself. And from the way she yearned for competition, hoping to reaffirm her arrogance, I knew her tolerance for being defied had corroded. Without any worthy opposition, her caution had decayed. And now, after a few choice gibes, she was incensed enough, arrogant enough, and reckless enough to fall to me.

She came into my soul without a defense, straight for my core where a soul is both most powerful and most vulnerable. I let her. A trap was waiting and she had given me back access to the very sensus that’d help me spring it.

I was never a good Painter. Out of the ten soul arts practices in Evergreen, it had always been my weakest—not in talent, but certainly in skill. It didn’t stop Lira from being gulled by my lackluster painting.

The fake core of a soul—a lustrous, mostly blue core far different from my black one—hid the prison her sensus rushed towards. It was a variant of the most powerful soul prison known to Tunnelers. A competent Painter would’ve seen through the painting hiding it. Lira was more than competent, but, as I’ve said, time and insult had blinded her with arrogance and rage.

Her sensus pierced my mask. The painting dissolved. A black hole of boundless hunger embraced her, suckling on her sensus and its attached consciousness with vacant ferocity. By the time she thought to pull back, the prison had captured half her probing force. Now, the more she tried to escape, the more the prison ripped into her sensus. Each time she retreated, the pain had her falling deeper into the trap, then, when the pain subsided, her fear pulled her back. And so it went, back and forth between fear and pain, her sensus falling deeper and deeper into the vicious prison.

I let the prison matrix do its work. My plan was only half done. I held a part of her hostage. What came next would be more difficult. I needed to leverage the part I’d taken to capture what remained. Not an easy bargain to negotiate.

The sensus I’d stolen led me out. Mine could not travel her streams without it. Short of having my hand on her nape, this was the only way to reach her soul.

My sensus plowed and toiled up her arm’s stream, fighting against her will. When all was said and done, she would need time and resources to heal the limb. It felt an age before I got to where I needed to go. When I did, the larger part of her consciousness was waiting for me in the vast space of her soul, hovering in place, a bright convergence of sensus, its tail stuck in the stream that led down her arm.

‘Which of my ignoble sisters are you?’ she asked. The question had changed. The attunements I’d made to the prison had given me away. They were too original to be the work of a Named and too profound to be the work of a different house. So she thought me an Auger, a fellow daughter of Lorail masquerading in disguise.

‘Surrender,’ I thought at her.

‘This is my soul and I am ready for whatever tricks you think to use. Not even you, wayward sister of mine, has what it takes to threaten me here.’

‘Part of you is trapped in a prison. Worse, that part of you is working to be a bigger part. Death or submission? Choose carefully…Echo.’

Her previously compact sensus trembled. She had always hated that moniker. ‘Lura? Is that you? Have you come here to reiterate the precedence of your paintings? If so, you have gone too far. Release me and desist with this humorless hoax.’

‘Choose, or I will choose for you.’

She attacked.

However unpracticed, her skill was sublime. It took all of me to contend with her. One combination nearly did me harm. She’d weaved three complex strikes in quick succession, all weaved with divine intent, the first distracting me with an array of mental curses, the second shattering my primary defense, and the last, a particularly remarkable matrix, almost detaching my consciousness from my sensus—a difficult feat even in the most favorable of conditions. I managed to weather the storm without breaching the limits I’d set for myself. When she said she was second only to Lorail, she thought me dead.

My attacks exhausted her sensus. With the trap stripping away more and more, I soon had no reason to attack; time was fighting on my side, lending me more of its strength as it was spent.

‘Last chance,’ I said. ‘You do not have the skill or power to resurrect.’

‘Why have you not killed me?’ she asked. ‘I know you can. You haven’t even used your divinity yet.’

‘Is it not obvious?’

She remained quiet, stewing in her predicament. After a time, she asked, ‘Must you go so far?’ Silence answered her, to which she replied, ‘Fine.’ More effective than mere spoken words, her sensus conveyed her admission of defeat far more plainly.

Defeated, Lira brought forth her core—an orb the color of sapphire. This core represented the very foundation of her soul, her most primal self, the seed she grew from. With it, she existed; without it, she did not.

‘Have pity and spare me from a permanent carving,’ she begged.

‘You deserve neither pity nor consideration.’

She was smart enough not to disagree.

I made sure of my work; a triple seal. I anchored the first to her deep-seated need for affirmation—an unashamed mass intertwined with her self-loathing and the twisted love she had for her mother. That bought me unconscious loyalty. The second was to her body itself, a seal few knew and fewer practiced, requiring me to scribe matrixes to her principal gate. That bought me her strength. The third was the most difficult. It was a matrix carved into the core of her being. Each stroke of my sensus scorched a mark, risking her destruction, her sanity, her existence. When I etched the last line, she was mine, mind, body, and soul.

Two turns. That’s how long it took. It was a grueling experience. It should've been; she was one of the oldest Fioras and a brilliant Tunneller. Such an individual required the most stringent methods. Anything less was asking for trouble.

Danar was beginning to get suspicious near the end. He had tried to call his master from her task, reminding her of her daughter's imminent arrival. The meddlesome oaf nearly toppled my plans. Lira’s lack of response had put him on edge. Rahala’s blind faith and distaste for men had allayed his concerns for a time. I almost forgave her then. Unfortunate for her, clemency had never been a tool in my arsenal. I was glad to finish when I had. Both because the task was grueling, and because he was once again approaching.

Lira’s eyes flew open just as Danar made to reach for her shoulder. To his credit—and criticism—he did not flinch away.

“Master?” he asked.

Lira turned to him, something of her mother’s cold gaze in her eyes. “Danar, did you mean to touch me?”

Danar fast retracted his hand, clutching it to his chest as if he was at risk of losing it. He very well might’ve been. “Mistress Illora is here, Master.”

“That is not what I asked.”

Danar’s hand lurched to the longsword buckled to his belt. His face contorted with effort of resistance.

“Danar?” Lira asked. “You know struggling will only add to your punishment.”

Danar’s movements smoothed as he unsheathed the sword and plunged the tip into his foot. He grunted away the pain. “Forgive me, Master.”

‘Enough with these games,’ I said to Lira through our newly formed bond. ‘Send them away. Instruct them to call upon the city’s preeminent faction to attend you. Make sure your daughter and this Rahala are present.’

“Leave,” Lira ordered. “Both of you. Danar, tell my daughter to come to the great hall at dusk. Rahala, make sure you and all the Tarneel nobles are present.”

The servant and slave left in a hurry, Rahala scampering, Danar limping.

When the door closed, Lira released me from the chair, unbuckling the bands around my wrists and ankles. She struggled with the task, the arm I’d commandeered almost entirely useless.

I stood, stretched my neck, rolled my shoulders, and rubbed at my wrists. Lira retrieved my tongue from the corner of the room and brushed it against her fine magenta gown. She handed it to me.

“May I ask who you are?” she asked.

I rolled my tongue around my mouth, pushing it against my teeth and rubbing it against the roof. Surgeon healing always came with an uncomfortable itch.

“You were always a little slow, Lira,” I said, my numb tongue slurring the words. “Your sister would’ve figured it out by now.”

Lira snorted. “She would’ve lost anyhow.”

“Yes, but she would've run first. Or tried to.”

Lira shrugged. “A distinction without a difference.”

“Who knows, she might've gotten far enough to expose me. You, however, without even realizing who I was, allowed me to go from prisoner to proprietor of your soul in one fell swoop. I suggest you not underestimate the depths of your ineptitude.”

She huffed but let the matter drop. “Am I to understand that, despite the absolute control you have over me, you will not give me your name?”

“Are you willing to concede to the cost?”

“Cost?”

“Suicide.”

“That might be a little too steep for me.”

“Steeper for me than you; I do own your soul. Nevertheless, your death would be unavoidable if such a circumstance ever came to be, whether you gave in to the interrogator or not.”

“Then there is no cost.”

“There is.”

She shrugged. “If there is, it is a trifle. Tell me.”

I showed her instead. Sensus writhed from my hand like black smoke, volatile tendrils leaking into the air and fading into nothingness.

She stepped back, eyes wide. “It cannot be! Mother said you’d died. Permanently. By The Queen’s own hand. They named you the third to ever truly perish.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “Are you working your way towards a point or a question?”

“Neither?…Both? I don’t know…I’m just…working through what this could all mean.”

“Then stop. Dusk approaches and we have little time to prepare. I’d rather not waste any of it listening to your sluggish musings.”

I closed my eyes. Their auras were close. Helena and Roche’s. Sanas must’ve stayed behind to look after Merkon and the horses. Frustration bared my teeth. I understood Helena and Roche. They wanted blood for one reason or another. Sanas, too, I also understood. It was this very understanding that frustrated me.

“Uncle?” Lira whispered.

I opened my eyes. “There are a couple of unruly followers of mine lurking about your estate. They would appreciate being fed, bathed, and roomed. Find them before they cause too much trouble.” I pointed at the base of her neck where my sigil glowed into being—a circle of black with specks of white. “I suspect that would smooth your introductions.”

“They’re here? In my palace? Impossible."

“Not for them. Helena can mask her presence well enough to fool even you. Roche…well, is Roche. On that note, make sure to approach Helena first lest Roche forgoes any discourse in favor of ripping out your throat.”

“The Roche? Lura’s Roche?”

“The very same. Once you have them situated, I’ll need you to send a few letters to The Academy for me.” I looked down at myself. “And some new attire to replace these sour clothes wouldn’t go amiss. Best I am presentable when I meet my grandniece and the preeminent godlings of Haloryarey. Have them ready before my return.”

“Where are you going?”

“To prepare a few reminders.”