22

Darling

It feels odd to depart the ramparts in the aftermath of Caspian’s tantrum, but I have my own tasks to take care of, and at the end of the day, his whims are no longer my problem. Maribel Calamus, scion of House Sphinx, was beholden to Caspian Goldhoard, High Prince Regent. Darling Seabreak, Phoenix Reborn, is not.

Besides, Caspian isn’t the only person unhappy with me.

Adelaide and Gianna leave early, shortly after breaking their fast, the sphinx staring at me a bit awestruck, and Adelaide looking like she wants to take me out to sea and throw me overboard.

“I suppose Miranda spoke to you,” I say, and Adelaide responds by angrily throwing her pack in the back of the carriage that will take her and Gianna back to the port where the Kraken flagship is docked.

“You took my two best Barbs, and now you’ve taken my sister. Anything else you want to steal away before I head out?” she says. The attitude isn’t like her. She’s usually playful, laughing and joking, mostly at others’ expense. I don’t know what to do with this version of Adelaide.

So I do the only thing I can think of. I pull her into a hug, even though she’s stiff and won’t hug me back. “I miss him, too,” I say, before releasing her. Her expression of shock is quickly smoothed back into a scowl, and I give her a small smile. “Fair winds and following seas.”

She doesn’t say anything, just climbs into the carriage.

Gianna lingers a bit, and then finally comes over to grab one of my hands with both of hers. “I never thanked you,” she says, voice soft.

“No thanks needed. I couldn’t exactly leave you as a sphinx forever.”

“Oh, not for that,” she says. “For restoring my house. My grandmother used to tell me stories of the First Sphinx and the great acts of our people. I never imagined I would get to see it for myself.” She lowers her voice, her gaze sliding to the doorway behind us, but we’re the only ones in the courtyard. “Nakumba has a future now, a real one not ground beneath a dragon bootheel.” She laughs. “So, thanks.”

“How does it end?” I ask Gianna. “The story of the First Sphinx. I know House Gryphon’s version; what about yours?” It makes me ache to realize that House Sphinx was never really mine. It was always an idea of a home, a family, a place where people cared for me. But for Gianna it was real, and even though I am a little jealous, I can’t begrudge Gianna her happiness.

“We’re going to miss the tide,” Adelaide snaps from inside the carriage, and Gianna looks at me in alarm.

“Next time,” I say. “I’ll see you both in two weeks at Phoenix Crest.”

Gianna nods and scrambles into the carriage, and then they are gone, the wheels clattering as they leave the packed earth of the courtyard and begin their trek down the mountain.

“She won’t be mad at you forever,” Miranda says, appearing from wherever she was hiding.

I snort. “And yet, I notice you didn’t bother seeing her off.”

Miranda shrugs, her expression coy. “Someone had to tend to Talon’s burned hand. You’ll be glad to know he’s right as rain.”

I smile at Miranda and tilt my head. “I suppose this means I should give you a fancy title. The Balm of the Phoenix.”

“I better get a fancy title. You should’ve heard the way Adelaide laid into me last night.”

“She’ll come around. And if she doesn’t, you can give her a drink to sweeten her disposition.” I pause. “Wait, can you do that?”

“I’m not sure,” Miranda laughs, “but it might actually be worth a try.”

For a moment it’s like the past few months didn’t happen and I feel light and free. Then Len and Penna approach, and the feeling dissipates.

“What are you wearing?” I ask, fighting to keep the dismay from my voice. Their normal Barb blacks have been replaced with purple tunics embroidered with bright orange flames, the trousers still black. But I cannot stop looking at the flames on the tunic and feeling that maybe they’re a bit much.

“They’re Flames now,” Vivian says, appearing with Elias. “You need to remember who you are, Darling. Especially when it comes time to deal with Bloodscale. Despite what Talon says, the man is bloodthirsty, and he was instrumental in planning the attack on House Sphinx. He won’t be an easy one to win over.”

I glance at Len and Penna, expecting them to argue. But they look proud of their new uniforms, and so I force a smile.

“They look great,” I say, even though I hate all these silly trappings of power. But Vivian is right. If I want people to believe I’m in charge, then I have to act like I’m in charge.

Deep within me, the phoenix preens a little. It missed this.

“I was wondering if you’d join us for the midday meal,” Vivian says, giving me a small bow even though I keep asking her not to. I’ve never met a person so enamored of protocol. “Talon has set aside a small room for us to speak privately. I have some thoughts on how you can begin laying the foundation for your rule.”

I exchange a glance with Miranda, her amusement writ large on her face. She’s enjoying my discomfort, and I sigh.

“Why not,” I say. “I suppose this is my job now.”

“Great, if you’ll follow me?” Vivian says, and I frown.

“It’s a little early to eat,” I say, and Elias sighs heavily.

“It will take most of the morning to go through the information we’ve collected,” they say, and inwardly I groan.

“You enjoy your, uh, study session,” Miranda says, disappearing just as quickly as she arrived. My Flames stay where they are—of course they do. They’re my shadows now.

I force a smile and hold out a hand before me. “Fine. Let’s go.”

For the first hour Vivian and I talk ruling philosophies as we wait for the midday meal. She is highly interested in what I will do, and has even collated a list of sources—philosophers, generals, and people who apparently spend all their time thinking about government—that I should read to learn about governing people. I pretend to be interested, but it’s all so boring that by the time the servants arrive to lay out lunch I’m tempted to jump up and lend my assistance. But I can already hear the lecture on appearances and procedure I would get from Vivian, so I remain where I am.

Once the food—a meat pastry of some sort with greens dressed in a mixture of vinegar and oil—is set and everyone has filled their plates, I clap my hands like Leonetti sometimes did, getting everyone’s attention.

“Enough about politics—what do you know of blood magic? Aurora is our most pressing issue, and our best bet in finding Aurora is to undo whatever it was she did to Talon’s boon. I can’t fix it, not without risking killing him, at least. So, thoughts?”

The sudden silence in the room is deafening, and it actually feels like a chill descends.

“Not supposed to talk about blood magic,” Penna says, suddenly uncomfortable.

“My mother once told me that my father had paid a blood mage to curse his brother after a bad business deal, but I always thought it was a lie,” Len says in his gravelly voice, tearing apart a piece of bread at the memory. “But perhaps it was truth after all.”

“The Last Phoenix was killed by a blood mage, a Kraken, and a Dragon,” I say. When everyone begins to speak at once, I raise my hands. “I saw the memory last night when I destroyed the—I don’t know what it is. Chaos stopper?”

“It was an altar to the Temple of the Moon. A blood cult,” Elias says, leaning forward. “But what I want to know is how the phoenix knew all that. Can you explain it?” A strange light has entered their eyes, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s excitement.

“The memory? I’m not sure. It was like the phoenix remembered and showed me.”

Elias shakes their head vehemently. “No, the shrines. You can find them?”

“I think so. But why is that important?”

“When I was researching boons for Talon, I came across a story. It was presented as myth, so I read past it, but it talked about how in the days before Chaos touched the land, blood mages would make sacrifices on altars tied to Chaos. That in the moment of death, Chaos would flow and they could manipulate the force as they saw fit. Seeing the future wasn’t one of the things mentioned, but shape-changing, cursing others, a lot of really awful things,” Elias says. They seem to realize that maybe blood magic isn’t something to be thrilled about and they temper their excitement, but just barely. “When Talon found the blood mage’s journal a couple of weeks ago, I went back to my earlier notes and realized that the myth I’d read was most likely true.”

“So what are the shrines, as you call them?” I ask. It doesn’t feel like the right word, but I also don’t have another word for what they are. Something bad. Graves, I think, and that feels more correct, but still not true. They were places where Chaos went to die, but it was more than that; the death was slow and depraved, like a slow torture.

“The shrines were places where blood mages could do large spells,” Elias says, pulling me back to myself. “Control the weather, call earthquakes, level cities. There was a passage about Gunjaro sending a fleet of ships to the Teeth Islands. The blood mages flattened the fleet and leveled the nearest cities in Gunjaro, and that was the last time someone tried to invade Pyrlanum.”

“The first empyreals were summoned by powerful blood mages,” Vivian says, and I freeze, because what she’s saying feels right. But only partly.

“Is that something you or the gryphon knows?” Elias asks, analytical even in their excitement.

“No, I know it. I read it in Gregory Calamus’s history of the houses. His belief, based on sources no longer available to us, was that the first empyreals were tied to the most powerful blood mage lines in the country. They struck a deal with Chaos and asked for permanent access to Chaos in the form of the boons. The price they paid was a bit of their humanity, so that the children of Chaos could exist in this world.”

“So the empyreals anchor Chaos to this world,” Elias says with a nod. “I read a treatise that said that the boons were tied to the empyreals and that the phoenix was the heart, keeping houses from fighting and preventing violence. The phoenix was strongest, and selected from the population at large, not just the blood mages.”

“If that is the truth, that means the three who killed the phoenix were just blood mages going back on their word,” I say. No wonder I felt so much rage from the phoenix and Chaos whenever I was in those places. It was less about the empyreals and more about what those bloodlines did to the children of Chaos. “Okay, so technically you should be able to use blood magic, Vivian. Does that mean you have answers as to how we stop Aurora? Or at least free Talon?”

“I don’t know. We do have some forbidden archives in the library that contain blood magic rituals. I can have one of our more senior scholars research anything about the empyreals in there.”

“I have the journal that Talon found,” Elias offers, “but there isn’t anything but a lot of puffery and self-important rhetoric. There definitely aren’t any instructions. Talon thought that those might be at Phoenix Crest in Aurora’s workroom there.”

“Well, until we can gain access to Phoenix Crest, the House Gryphon archives are probably our best place to start. Talon said Aurora wanted Darvey for some reason. If she’s been pulling from these taboo practices, she might be up to something big, like her ancestors before her,” I say, pushing my plate away. The phoenix is beginning to vibrate under my skin, delighted I finally understand that the work we’re doing is important. It’s distracting. “But destroying these shrines is even more important than I thought. I don’t suppose there’s a map of them somewhere?” At everyone’s head shake I sigh. “Okay then, new plan. Vivian, please send an inquiry to your house about any possible defensive spell against blood magic, and I’m going to let the phoenix show me what other shrines are in Dragon territory that can be destroyed and level them before we leave tomorrow.”

“Won’t that cause boons to begin to waken across the land?” Elias asks, and I nod.

“Yes. It’s going to be bedlam. Before I head for other territories to do the same, it might be worth sending an alert somehow to the various governors and mayors so that they know why things are happening. I know that Talon spoke about sending a missive declaring the return of the phoenix; let’s use that same network to share the return of Chaos. I have to destroy all the shrines I can. The last thing we need is for Aurora to find one of these and cast something awful.”

I’m not happy about the shrines, but I am pretty excited to have something to do that isn’t trying to corral a bunch of empyreals. I’ve never shied away from leadership, but I barely know who I am right now. There will be plenty of time for philosophy and government after Aurora is secured away from everyone.

“Do you really think a single blood mage can stand against empyreals?” Vivian asks, doubt riding her words.

I snort. “They’ve already managed to kill one phoenix. I’d like to avoid being next.”

We finish quickly after that, everyone anxious to get to work. Penna follows me out to the courtyard, and I quickly strip. I’ve already ruined so many clothes, I’m loath to lose the few remaining ones I have.

And then I let go, taking to the air on fiery wings, determined that Aurora will not take another life.

I will burn her to the ground, first.