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Ari drifted on the edge of something important, a voice in her ear. It didn't feel right to call this a dream when it was something so formless and she was awake enough to know the difference between it and real dreaming. Still, she didn't have a better word to call it.
We call you to duty once more.
The words curled around her like fog, like the breath of some impossible being. Which, she supposed, is exactly what it was.
Do you accept? Will you pledge yourself to Us?
Of course she would. She had. She did. She would again. For this place that felt more like home than home ever had, she would do almost anything. There, she was so many ill-fitting pieces. Here, she was only herself.
Ari stretched out her hand.
The door crashed against the wall as Celeste barreled into the room, already talking and throwing open curtains. The curtain rings screamed metal on metal. "He's here. You must get ready." Celeste tore open the next curtain and full sun slapped Ari in the face.
Ari shrank back from the light and ducked under the pillow. "Dear god, why do you hate me, Celeste? What are you doing?" she cried. If she lifted her head the pain would start again. Better to stay here. In the dark. Or what had been dark. No more stone guards. No more curses. Not until she could see straight again. Cheyna's scream had cracked her head wide open. She hadn't had any caffeine in days. Even moving her eyes hurt. "Close the curtains!"
Wardrobe doors opened and closed, undeterred. Celeste dropped something heavy across Ari's legs. "Your clothes. His Excellence—Lord Virgil—is here to speak with you and he looks terribly displeased." She sounded breathless.
Ari lifted the pillow off her head, but the sun was still there, taunting her. "He always looks like that. That's just his face. Close the curtains." She hugged the pillow to her face again.
Celeste whipped the blankets off of her and let out a tiny surprised squeak.
"I couldn't get into the nightdress," Ari told the pillow. "Pulled too much on my back." Maybe another day she would be embarrassed about being naked save for the gauze wrapping her upper back, but at the moment she was rapidly cooling and her head still felt three sizes too big. That was all she was capable of worrying about so early in the morning. She reached down to pull the blanket back over herself. Wherever it was. She couldn't find it. "You're not gonna leave me alone until I'm dressed, are you?"
The silence answered for her.
"Fine. Fine. I'm awake anyway. But for the love of everything good and holy please close the curtains. I can't see."
Celeste rushed to comply, leaving one of the heavy curtains parted just enough to let in a sliver of light. Not that Ari could see well with the migraine. Later she and Cheyna were going to have to have a talk about that. It wouldn't do any good, but it would make Ari feel better anyway.
She couldn't remember where she had left Cheyna. Ari looked around the room, dropped to hands and knees, only half dressed, to check beneath the bed. Not there. Threw back the covers on the other side of the large bed, half expecting it to have snuck in to sleep beside her during the night. There were only so many places the sword could get to without arms or legs.
Celeste cleared her throat.
Ari turned in the direction she pointed.
Cheyna hung over the mantle looking neat and prim in its blue sheath. Ari couldn't remember seeing any pegs to hold it before. She also had no recollection of hanging it there, not yesterday when she could barely get out of her shirt without wincing. There was no way she had lifted a whole sword over her head.
She snatched it back down. "Bad sword." Ari went back to getting dressed, keeping one hand on the sword to be sure it didn't sneak off again.
***
CELESTE HELPED ARI tuck her trousers into her new boots—another surprisingly difficult maneuver this morning—before directing her to the door to a small adjoining sitting room that Ari hadn't even known was there. She'd seen the door, but hadn't tried opening it for fear of walking in on some unsuspecting person in their own bedroom. Or worse. Virgil could have anything stashed in the spare rooms of the castle.
Light flooded the sitting room from a large bank of diamond paned windows along one wall, sparkling off the oiled finish on the furniture like brilliant daggers, reflecting off parquet flooring that someone had polished to a mirror shine. Ari cringed back.
Celeste caught her by the shoulder before she could back up too far. "Is that really necessary?" She shot a pointed look at the sword hanging from Ari's hip. "You're in no danger within the castle walls."
Forming sentences was too difficult so Ari nodded. And anyway how did she explain that she was worried what mischief the sword might get into if she left it unsupervised?
"Well, at least let me help you adjust the belt."
Ari scuttled away from her helpful clutches. "Later. Virgil is waiting." She braced herself before stepping through the door.
The sitting room was smallish (for the castle), walls stained a deep saffron and covered in long hanging tapestries in jewel tones. Two chairs sat beside the windows, a squat table between them and a tall, thin pottery vase to one side of that. A narrow bench-like couch took up most of the center of the space, the rolled arms upholstered in faded green fabric. The overall look was one of sparse but functional comfort. And light. Too much light.
Virgil had arranged himself beside the window too. Of course. He stood like a dark angel, backlit, face cast in shadow. If he was still angry, he would have to stand somewhere else if he wanted her to see it.
Ari held up a hand to shield her eyes. "I assume that's you, Virgil, but I can't see through the searing pain. Can you please stand somewhere less painful?"
He was slow to withdraw from the open window, closing it and fastening the latch before he did.
"You worried about spy birds?" She waved him towards the couch so she wouldn't have to squint to look at him.
Instead of sitting Virgil paced over to the other door in the room, probably leading out to the hall, and turning that lock too.
"You're freaking me out here. Say something."
"Who have you informed of your identity?"
"Was I supposed to tell someone?" Since he hadn't taken the spot when she offered, she dropped onto the vacant couch and attempted to get comfortable. They'd put some kind of poultice on her back yesterday but whatever soothing qualities it had were rapidly wearing off. She stung in places she couldn't reach to scratch. "What is this about? My head hurts. You're gonna have to spell it out for me."
It was almost impressive how well Virgil could loom at her while standing on the other side of the room. "Do you recall our conversation about the seriousness of these matters? I trust you do as it was only yesterday."
"Of course I do," she grunted back, irritated.
"Early this morning a pilgrimage arrived at the castle seeking an audience. You've only been here a matter of a few days. How is it that we have pilgrims looking for you?"
"What?" She stared at him. Blinked. "Me?"
"Yes. You. The legendary King's Champion, missing these many years when lo, she appeared again in our time of need," he intoned with all the fake drama of a kindergarten play.
"They know about Cylian?"
"No. They do not, but this is the story they tell all the same. I heard one of the party bellowing it from the back of their charming little wagon. Judging by the accent and the wagon they are from one of the neighboring towns, but it's only a matter of time before the news spreads further and with it questions about why you've returned and the mysterious cause of Cylian's absence."
"Well, whatever you're accusing me of, you can stop right now. I didn't do it. I haven't been out of the castle since I got here and everyone here is under your thumb—you owe my maid an apology, by the way. I thought she was going to spontaneously combust from fear just now—so I don't know who ratted me out." She considered. It would have been easier if her head didn't have its own drum line. "That jerk guard with the monster horse," she said at last. "He paraded me around the whole town before we made it to the castle. Like an asshole, I might add. Go yell at him."
Virgil's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "You're correct. I had forgotten." He made a thoughtful noise. "I will have to discuss the matter further with him."
"You're doing that thing again where your face looks really creepy."
"What was that you said earlier?" The corner of his mouth inched up. "That's 'just my face?'"
Ari flushed. "Heard that, did you?"
"Yes."
"I didn't know you were here. But it's still true."
He inclined his head in acknowledgment.
"So what am I supposed to do about the tourists? Wait. I'm not going to have to go talk to them, am I?" She sucked in a horrified breath. Please no. Then she ricocheted off the back of the couch as she accidentally leaned back. Shit, that hurt. If magic couldn't heal a glorified paper cut overnight what good was it?
The look Virgil shot her could have cut glass. "Please refrain from doing any such thing. You'll only make this worse."
She wasn't even offended. Any plan that didn't include being fantasy land savior to large crowds of people got her vote. "Works for me. But won't they get mad if you ignore them?"
Virgil had so many different disparaging looks she was going to have to start numbering them. "I've been doing this for over a decade. I'm sure I can think of some way to turn them aside. But until then please attempt to be discreet. The fewer people you come in contact with, the better. We don't need more rumors circulating."
"Got it." She was tempted to salute.
"That is only a portion of my reason for coming to you this morning," he went on when she made as if to get up. Ari drooped back onto the couch.
"Well okay then."
"The Iron King has offered up some interesting new information about Cylian's curse."
"Shit. I forgot about that. I was supposed to go to the dungeons yesterday, wasn't I?" Not that she had wanted to but she really had intended to go.
"Yes. I suppose we can excuse you since you were busy destroying my vault guards at the time."
"Damn right, I was." She knew he was baiting her but she didn't care. She was proud.
Virgil cleared his throat. "As I was saying, he claims to have no culpability but the curse is grey magic—"
"Can't you just ask him to undo it?"
"Do you wish to take over command?" Virgil snapped. "Please believe that I have already thought of that. Even if he could I am unable to inspire him to make the effort. In the meantime, we have hit on a method which may break the curse."
"So he won't break the curse for you, but he'll tell you how to do it yourself? That sounds like a scam."
He shot her a begrudging frown. "You're not incorrect. But until a better option presents itself we will go along with this 'scam' as you call it."
"Then why don't you look happy about it?" She paused. "I know that face. I'm going to hate whatever you say next, aren't I?"
"Chances are very high, yes."
She held up a hand to stop him so she could brace herself first. "Okay. I'm ready. Tell me."
"We'll need a few specific ingredients for the curse breaking."
"I assume you're not talking about true love's kiss here," Ari said without hope.
"You're welcome to attempt that if it will make you feel better but no. That's nothing but stories. Real magic doesn't work that way."
"Damn." Just once it might have been nice if things were simple. "So what do you need? It better not be bat's eyes or something. I'm not running around stealing tiny eyeballs for you."
Virgil stilled. "I've meant to ask this for some time now, but are these common ingredients where you're from? What would people do with them? A seeing spell?" He looked at her with open curiosity.
"It was a joke, Virgil. There isn't any magic there, at least none that I've ever seen outside of movies."
"That sounds frightfully dull."
She couldn't argue there. "If not bat's eyes, what do you need?"
"The what is less important than the matter of where we must acquire them. Disputed land bordering Ychait." His meaningful pause said that was supposed to mean something to her. It didn't.
"And that is... what exactly?"
Virgil sighed. "Ah yes. I forget sometimes. I suppose you wouldn't have had a reason to know the place. Though you know of it by association. The Iron King was of Ychait before he and his army came south."
"You're going to this place?" Ari couldn't feel her face though it had to be there somewhere if she was still talking.
"I cannot. Without Cylian to keep up appearances, I must remain here, but we're already assembling a contingent to make the journey north."
"I'm going."
"Ari—"
"I'm. Going. You can't stop me."
"Actually I can. It's fully within my power to have you arrested, tried, and convicted of any charge that I wish, but I had already resigned myself to this eventuality. You wouldn't be you if you didn't leap upon the first sign of danger. That's not the issue."
"Then what is?"
Virgil placed himself before her, arms folded over his chest. He looked ten feet tall suddenly. A wall of wizardly power draped in miles of faintly shimmering blue robes. "Before we discuss further, I'll need your oath to see this through to the end."
Ari's eyes narrowed. At his words, Cheyna sparked like static. Someone was clearly excited about it. She ran a hand over the scabbard to calm it. Virgil's gaze followed the movement. Ari often wondered how much of Cheynathril's peculiar form of communication actually reached him. He might not hear its voice but he definitely felt something. "All right."
When he rolled his eyes she felt the not unfamiliar urge to hit him in the head.
"You can't make me do that whole thing again. It was fine when I was sixteen and everything, but I'm not doing it again. No. I'll look like a tool. I don't care if it's tradition." She stood up to glare at him from a more even level. He was still close to a foot taller, but she didn't have a box to stand on.
He cocked his head and stared back. Waiting her out. They had played this game before. She usually won. But this time it was for Cylian. Her first (kind of) love. Had she loved him? It was hard to say anymore with years between them, but even if she didn't love him—hadn't loved him—he was still her friend. One of a very small number in this world or any other. That meant more to her than a decades old crush.
Virgil smiled faintly. He already knew.
She snarled at Virgil as she reached for Cheynathril again. "I can't believe you're making me do this. I hate you." The sword practically leapt into her hand—the eager little shit—and she went down on one knee, sword held up on open palms. "I hate you both," she muttered.
"If you keep talking we'll have to start over," Virgil said in a light tone.
She shot him another glare before she bowed her head, raising the sword in a move that caused a painful stretch across her back. She bit her lip to keep from making a sound. Cheyna felt light enough to float off her fingertips. "I give you my oath, freely and unconstrained by doubt."
He made a little noise in his throat when she stopped and Ari's teeth clenched so tight her jaw creaked. She could barely force the last few words out. "I pledge myself to you and your cause. Neither peace nor rest will I know until my duty is fulfilled. The task will be done. I swear it."
She couldn't see Virgil with her head bowed, but she knew what he would do next. They had all made a similar pledge before Cylian all those years ago, kneeling in a circle around him in the fallen leaves while they bound themselves together with a singular purpose. It wasn't just words. Their oath had been touched by the magic of this world. They'd looked like a real fairy tale. Virgil with his head of flaming waves and staff. Naiah, solemn faced and dressed all in earthen brown, the better to meld with the forest. And Ari, visitor from another world and new possessor of the sword to beat all others, the silver blade sent by the gods. Cylian standing over them looking like the lost king he was born to be. She'd woven him a crown of vines for the occasion and it sat crookedly atop his head, catching in his wild dark hair until it looked like it was a part of him. When she'd looked up at him then she'd known they were meant for something great. The belief had wrapped around her heart and squeezed until it ached.
She could feel a weak echo of that moment now as Virgil laid two fingers upon the blade in her hands and something ran out of him. Magic. Or a wish. Or maybe it was just her desperate longing for something to finally make sense. For something to finally, finally show her what it was she was meant to do. She'd waited so long for anything to feel as right as being here had. As right as it felt now.
"I accept your pledge and I honor it." Virgil's voice was hushed as if he could feel it too.
At his words, Cheynathril blazed bright. She didn't need to open her eyes to see it. Light flared against her eyelids, filling the space around them. The blade fluttered against her fingers like the beat of a small heart. Her second pulse. Something wove around them, glittering and brilliant. Everywhere it touched, her skin tingled.
Virgil's hand moved once more over the blade before it dropped to his side. "You may rise."
The words broke whatever spell she had lapsed into, pulled under by Cheynathril and nostalgia. The flutter of magic in the air dissipated. The clarity of a moment ago was yanked back like a tablecloth off a magician's table. Suddenly her back hurt again. Her knee ached where it pressed into the floor.
Ari lowered the sword. It still hummed with renewed warmth, pleased with itself. Virgil held out a hand to help her up.
"I will stab you." Now that the glow was fading faster and faster she felt silly again. This wasn't real. None of it. Letting it get to her would only make it hurt worse in the end when she had to leave.
Virgil retracted the offered hand, joining both behind his back while Ari got off the floor.
"There. I jumped through your hoop. I swore. You happy?"
"Ecstatic," Virgil said dryly.
"Now tell me the club secret."
"It would be best if you sat back down first." Virgil gestured at the chair she had vacated.
"I'm standing now, it's fine. Just tell me."
He conceded the point with a small nod. "One of the conditions put forth for the voyage was very specific. The Iron King knows the necessary spell to free Cylian, but he will only share the final details if he is allowed to accompany the expedition."
Each word hit her like a very precisely aimed kick. "Hell no. No."
"You gave your word."
"And I'll keep it, but I'm not traveling with him. What were you thinking? There must be a way to do it remotely. A spell. A... something. Anything. Why would you even agree to this?"
His face clouded with something she couldn't name. She couldn't even get in the neighborhood of a name for that expression. "Do we have so many more promising alternatives that we can throw this one away? He knows the magic. I do not—not well enough to work this spell unaided at any rate. There will be a cell wall and a full complement of armed guards between you and him at all times. He won't be allowed to roam free. And the fact remains that Cylian must be cured. Soon. We are very quickly running out of time."
Even the sunlight streaming in the windows dimmed. There was nothing but ice in her chest and on her tongue. "Virgil, what else haven't you told me?"
"The situation has changed. I went to check Cylian this morning before I came to you. I thought to test the curse one more time before making a decision..."
Ari was halfway to the door before she looked back and said, "Show me."
***
ARI DIDN'T KNOW WHAT big magic usually felt like, but she was sure it wasn't anything like this. If it was, no one would ever do magic again. The air felt raw. Scraping her down to the red, red flesh beneath.
They had hidden Cylian in a tomb beneath the castle. There was no prettier way to say it. It was a tomb, from the stone floor to the carved stone walls, great and echoing and eerie in its complete stillness. Light filtered in from a series of small square porthole-like windows near the vaulted ceiling, mottled in somber stained glass hues of red and blue, speckling the floor like forgotten things.
Virgil called up a wisp to light their way. It floated at his side like an overlarge firefly, casting enormous shadows up the walls and along the floor. The walls had been inset with small gold tiles in intricate designs to reflect the light and it made them look like they were full of winking eyes. The weight of the castle over their heads was crushing.
Ari hated this place. She hated that Cylian was here instead of standing out in the sun like he was born to be. She hated that even the air seemed like a weapon.
"He's just ahead," Virgil said. Even hushed his voice was too big for this place.
Ari walked ahead, moving quickly. Now that she saw where they were keeping Cylian she was glad Virgil hadn't brought her here before. She hadn't been ready then. She wasn't ready now.
The light of the wisp barely crept to the dais where Cylian lay, hands folded on his chest like every stone statue memorial she'd ever seen. He looked so still. It was difficult to tell if he was even breathing, but he must be if he was living. Though living might be a bit of a stretch at the moment.
She was up the steps in an instant.
"Don't touch him!" It was the tone of Virgil's voice more than the words themselves that made her snatch back her hands before she could lay them over Cylian's.
Once the wisp caught up to her, illuminating Cylian in gentle yellow light, she understood.
Cylian had aged—she'd expected that after fifteen years. It would've been stranger to return and find him still seventeen, but she hadn't expected the deep carved lines in his forehead, the slashes beside his mouth, the scar that ran down his cheek like a dried tear. His was no longer a smiling face. But none of that was why Virgil had warned her away. It took a moment to see even standing so close. It was a wonder Virgil had seen it at all. One of Cylian's hands had a strange greyish cast. It was so faint she wasn't sure she was seeing it at first, but the longer she looked the clearer it became. The wrongness. The veins on the back looked drawn on with charcoal but too numerous, too tangled, knotted together like vines as they crept up to his wrist.
"It looks like some kind of blood poisoning. Was it like this before?" Ari whispered. It was a whispering place.
"No. I'm sure of it. And even if it had been—" he shook his head "—I can feel the change. You mustn't touch him. There's something not right about this."
"That implies that there's anything right about it." Her hands hovered in the air beside Cylian's sleeping form. Unable to touch. Maybe if she held his hand he would know she was there. But she couldn't. Anger curled in her stomach. She was going to personally stab whoever had done this to him. "You can fix this with what the Iron King told you?"
"I believe so."
"Be sure." Cheyna stoked her anger until it glowed like coals. It had always loved a fight. That's what it was made for.
"That is the only assurance I can offer you. I'm sorry."
"All right. I'll go on your voyage with the Iron King. I'll bring back whatever you need. Just tell me when we leave."