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The night was screaming.
An evil wind descended upon the earth, bringing destruction and misery wherever it blew. The dreamer wandered through ruined towns and burning forests, listening to the cries of women who had seen their children slain, to the shrieks of maidens ravaged in the ruins that had once been their homes.
She was diamond in this dream, and nothing could touch her. She could not help them, those shrieking, weak women who stretched out their hands to her in supplication. She could only avenge them.
A shadow rose before her, reaching out to gather her to its bosom of darkness, and she cried out. She was a child again, an infant no more than three years old, and she was afraid. Her mother was handing her over to a stranger, a man whose teeth glinted like diamonds in the starlight. She began to sob, but a hand pressed down over her mouth and her nose, stifling her cries, suffocating her. She struggled, but to no avail—
The princess Dannine awoke with a scream, throwing off her silken coverlet. The gibbous moon shone through her window, its silvery light pooling on the floor of her bedroom and reflecting coldly from the silver-plated suit of armour that stood in the corner.
She was shaking, she realized, and took her body firmly in hand, reminding herself that she need be afraid of no-one. She was Dannine Sylvaissen, warrior and sorceress and daughter of the most powerful man who had ever lived. No-one would harm her whilst she was under the protection of her father.
But sometimes her body was traitorous, and did not respond the way she wished it to. She shook with the effort to keep from crying, to hold in the sob that was stuck halfway up her throat. As slowly she gained mastery over her body, took her nerves in hand and turned them rock-steady once again, smoothed the anguish on her face into her usual expression of steely calm, Dannine stepped out of bed.
The castle was pitch dark and silent. She casually glanced towards her armour, caught sight of her reflection on the breastplate, and quickly looked away, not wanting to look upon the beauty that others found so fascinating. Dannine hated reflections of herself, and always had. She always felt as though someone else were watching her from the mirror, a skinny weak girl with brimming blue eyes and unkempt golden hair.
Dannine reached for her hairbrush, making herself presentable even though there was no-one in the darkened room to see her. She slipped on a thin dressing-gown before opening the door to her balcony and stepping outside. The night air was cool on her skin, and the stones of her balcony were covered in dust. There had been a strong wind the previous day, blowing the choking red sands of the plains all through the city, but the night was perfectly still now, carrying the promise of a balmy springtime.
Dannine did not lift her eyes to the wide violet horizon nor the golden plains that lay dreaming beyond, but instead contemplated the sleeping city below. Her father’s castle stood on a hill in the centre of the city, aloof from the bustling hordes who laboured daily in the crooked alleys and crowded slums of Armour City. Directly below her, the marble houses of the rich merchants and nobles could be seen, but beyond that, the city stretched on into ever filthier, more crowded boroughs. The castle itself was dwarfed by the high hills just outside the urban sprawl, where the miners daily brought the metals of industry to the surface—copper and iron for weapons and the armaments of war, arsenic and mercury for the artificers and apothecaries, and precious gold for those who had been born to better things.
She turned away from the hills, from the sunrise that was now slowly creeping over the dry plains and touching the walls of the castle that surrounded her, bringing out the sparkling micas in the sandstone bricks and warming the dreary hovels of Armour City’s slums with golden rays of hope. Dannine had not been raised to dream over the future, as other noblemen’s daughters were. Since she could remember, she had walked through the fire, progressing from children’s magic to war-magic to blood sorcery. She had known all her life that she was a sword to fight her father’s war, as all her siblings were, and that they dared not fail him. Arran Sylvaissen had adopted them for this task: to help him win the only war that mattered. The war that would make him greater than any magician who had ever lived.
The thought of her brothers and sister reminded Dannine that she had failed to check on them the previous night; she had been too exhausted. No matter, she told herself. Plenty of time to do it now.
Her feet took her into the corridor beyond her bedroom, then along the winding passageways through the silent castle until she found the windowless room where her father kept his laboratory. There was no lock on the ebony door, but Dannine simply raised her hand, and the door swung open without her needing to touch it. She was the only one, apart from Arran Sylvaissen, who could gain entry to this room. This was the trust her father had put in her.
There was no need to light a candle in the room; as soon as Dannine stepped inside, an eerie blue light began to emanate from the ceiling. She walked over to a low table where four glowing jars were lined up next to each other, picked up the jar which pulsated with magenta-red light, and gazed at its surface for a long while, apparently lost in thought. But any magician would have felt the energy in the air, felt the undeniable power that radiated from the jar, and they would have known that Dannine was performing no ordinary observation.
This jar represented her sister Ceazyn, reflected her mood and whereabouts, and Dannine could feel her face flushing even as she gazed into the depths of the scarlet light. Ceazyn was abed, but not asleep. She had never been one to deny herself any kind of carnal pleasure, and the sexual embraces that still pained Dannine to think of had always excited and impassioned her older sister.
Ceazyn was far away in the jungles of the Eastern Continent, the heart of slavery and darkness, arranging for new bodies to swell her father’s armies. And clearly, she was not in the least bit shy about taking her pleasure amongst the natives whilst she went about it.
Dannine set her sister’s jar down with a scowl and contemplated the jars of her two brothers. Taunus, the eldest, glowed with rippling silver; he always had been a swordsman at heart, and slower than the others when it came to magic. Baukin’s jar was a strange combination of blue and yellow, yet never green; the two colours swirled together, touching without mixing. Both her brothers were in the north, preparing the kingdom of Svanfeld for their father’s imminent conquest. Whilst Baukin laid plans to attack the capital and dispose of the king, Taunus had been tasked with destroying the Sven monks, the most powerful religious authority on the continent. Both of them were fast asleep, though she caught the usual edge of anxiety from Baukin’s jar. Being away from the city did not suit him.
Dannine passed over her own jar, which glowed with blinding silver-and-gold radiance, and on impulse reached for a fifth jar which stood apart from the others, hidden in the shadows they cast with their brilliant lights.
This jar was black and empty, and there was a draining feeling about it, as if all magic had been sucked from the space it occupied. A magician might question why Arran kept this around. Another man might have destroyed it long ago.
Dannine rubbed the cobweb-shattered surface of the jar, tried unsuccessfully to read it. There was nothing, as there had been nothing for the past eight years.
This was her little brother Deryck’s jar, and he had disappeared. No, Dannine corrected herself. He did not disappear. He ran away. He had been only eleven, the youngest of Arran’s adopted children.
Why, Deryck? Dannine wondered, as she did every time she thought of him. She could have protected him—no doubt he had been afraid of Taunus, who had bullied them all mercilessly as children. Dannine had surpassed Taunus in power long ago, and Deryck might have surpassed her if he had remained. His disappearance had vexed her father more than anything Dannine could remember.
But who would have protected him from Arran? a traitorous voice whispered in the back of her mind. Perhaps things would truly be different for her, if Deryck were still here. Perhaps he would stand where Dannine stood now, at Father’s right hand, carrying all his hopes, carrying all his burdens.
She shook her head violently, almost dropping the jar. She should not be having these kinds of thoughts. She should carry her father’s hopes and burdens as an honour, and do all he asked of her without hesitation. How could she not? Her father was the only person who had ever cared about her—about all of them. All five of his children had been set aside by their birth families. Dannine’s mother had given her up in exchange for safe passage to the Forest of the Morning. Deryck’s parents had sold him to slave traders for a handful of silver pawns. Arran had saved all of them, and more. He had given them power and rank and riches, taught them the secrets of high sorcery, and they had never wanted for anything.
And how does Deryck repay him? He leaves us. Disregards all our father’s careful plans. Dannine’s eyes brimmed with anger. If I meet him again, he will not be my brother anymore.
She could feel, once more, the call that had woken her up, the pit of uneasiness in her stomach that washed over into her soul. These were no ordinary nightmares she was having, her father said. His success was close; the nightmares came from the presence of the goddess Qwu’Horya, as she drew ever closer to the mortal world.
Dannine turned to look at her father’s map of the Western Continent, pages of parchment enclosed in a glass box. She found Armour City, and followed the continent northwest to where it was bisected by the Svanlyn mountains, a vast range of high, nearly impassable peaks. Across those mountains lay the highlands of Svanfeld, where magic was unknown. But to the northeast, a thin strip of land beside the Sea of Calms enclosed the ancient home of the Morgei, the mage-folk. The Forest of the Morning. The people who opposed her father in every way, and who had fought against him since he was a youth. Dannine was not sure how old her father was, for the blood magic he dabbled in had given him eternal youth and vitality, a blessing from Qwu’Horya. But many years ago, Arran had attempted to share his revelations with the Morgei, and they had banished him from their land.
They feared his power, Dannine knew. They feared the truth of what he was saying. The matriarchs of the Morgei would hold onto their power at any cost, even if it meant the whole world would be darker for it.
Dannine laid a hand on the glass, blotting out the Forest of the Morning. She had asked her father to let her oversee troop movements on the border, but he had refused, leaving the job to one of his nonmage generals instead. Dannine could not understand why. She had been there before, last summer, punching holes where the magical barrier that protected the land was thin, attacking farmsteads and taking slaves, sowing terror in the hearts of the mage-soldiers who came out to face them. If Arran wanted the Forest of the Morning burned, there was no better person for the job than her.
Soon they would be waging a war on two fronts. The conflict with the Morgei had been festering for the past nineteen years, but if Baukin and Taunus succeeded, they might soon have to deal with a retaliatory attack from Svanfeld. If Dannine had not known that her father was the Goddess’s chosen, that he alone could lead a new world into prosperity, she might have been afraid. There was more at stake in this war than a throne, or power over toiling peasants and shifty merchants.
She turned her head, her hair whipping across her face, as the Goddess called to her again.
There was a second door in this room, held with even stronger magic than the first. It had to be secure; it sheltered all her father’s plans and dreams behind it.
Dannine was able to open this door too, and she trembled with anticipation as she ran her hand down the smooth black wood. Her skin prickled all over; even a nonmage would be able to feel this kind of magic, the way it crackled like lightning in the air and made every hair on her body stand upright.
She opened the door, and at first saw nothing but blackness. The darkness inside this room was different from any other darkness. It sucked at her eyeballs, inviting her in, promising an eternity of nothingness. There was something seductive about its relentless lack of anything—no shade of purple or grey to the dark, no pretence of being anything more than the void it was.
Despite the enduring blackness, after a minute or two of gazing into this room, Dannine could see movement in the dark. She entered the room fearlessly. Even Arran sometimes hesitated the tiniest bit when approaching his goddess, but Dannine felt no fear when facing the darkness and the oppressive sense of great and ancient magic.
The darkness was a sheet, she thought, and beneath the sheet, a presence moved, ever testing the fabric, looking for weaknesses, trying to tear a hole in the world. She almost fancied she could see the shape of Qwu’Horya straining against the fabric of the darkness, a protuberant head questing, looking for a way into the world; two hands stretching out, grasping for the slightest purchase.
Beneath the sheet of darkness, the goddess reached out a bony hand, and Dannine could see the shape of her palm, could see the wispy fingers clawing towards her. Transfixed, she stepped forward, lifting her own hand—
“Dannine.”
Her father’s voice was unmistakable, and Dannine cast her eyes downwards as the Goddess drew back.
Arran Sylvaissen was framed in the blue light of his laboratory, his pose relaxed as he gazed calmly at his daughter in the dark room. He was already dressed for the day, in a white waistcoat trimmed with thread-of-silver over a crisp white blouse, white trousers and polished white leather boots with silver trim. His white-blond hair had been skilfully combed as usual, giving him a whimsical and boyish appearance, but his eyes were as cold as two chips of blue ice. Though he was not a particularly tall man, and now that Dannine was grown she could see eye-to-eye with him if she straightened up, he filled the room with his bearing and his magical power. He was the most magnificent person Dannine had ever known, and she naturally deferred to him.
“I am sorry,” she began. “The Goddess—she called to me in my dreams.”
“No need to apologize,” Arran said, beckoning for Dannine to come towards him. She obeyed, and he closed the door on the darkness, returning the laboratory to relative normalcy. Dannine stared at the floor.
“You still have the dreams?”
Dannine nodded.
“She gets closer and closer to us every day,” Arran observed. He walked over to the map of the continent, and studied it. “The fighting must have been particularly ruinous lately. The war fuels her; the more who die, the more power she gains.”
“Soon she will be free,” Dannine said tentatively.
Her father shook his head. “No, sweet girl. However strong she becomes, she cannot be freed unless a very special sacrifice is made.” He turned towards her. “I must find she who has only known despair, and I must eat her heart and offer her to the Goddess. Or so the tomes of the past say, in metaphorical language as usual.”
“They could be wrong. They have been wrong on many things.”
Arran shook his head. “I have tried so many other things, and still her divine power is not yet mine.”
“Then you must find her, this maiden who has only known despair.” She smiled crookedly. “Though I think you will not find it hard to extract whatever parts of her are necessary for the spell to work.”
“That is the easy part,” Arran agreed. “The hard part is to find this person.” His expression changed quickly, a serene look replacing the frown that had been there just a moment before. Dannine expectantly awaited the change in his mood that would come.
“My servant in Qwu’Mallorn,” Arran said, “has revealed that we will soon have the opportunity to capture a high-ranking soldier from one of the noble families. His identity and description have been given.” He placed a hand on Dannine’s shoulder, drawing her closer. “I want you to capture him and bring him to the castle, ensuring that he survives the ordeal. Go alone, and take one of the quetzals. Speed is of the utmost importance.”
Dannine’s heart leapt; an opportunity to engage herself in her father’s fight was all she lived for, and she could not resist the lure of hunting a quarry that would no doubt challenge her powers. Even more, she loved to fly the quetzals, the feathered lizards that her father had brought from the distant Pirate Islands. “Consider it as good as done, Father,” she replied eagerly.
“I can always rely on you, Dannine,” her father said, caressing her glossy hair. “As I watched you grow up, I realized something. Do you know what it was?”
His mood had changed again, and Dannine had not anticipated it correctly. She shook her head numbly, biting her lower lip.
“Neither of your brothers are truly worthy of succeeding me,” Arran said softly. “I once hoped that either of them would be able to rule this city, with you by his side.” He trailed off, and Dannine said nothing, her heart suddenly beating very loudly. Though he had not uttered it, her brother Deryck’s name resounded in her head as if someone had whispered it from the past, from the shadows surrounding her. Arran had always meant for Deryck to stand at his right hand. Had he not run away, Deryck would have been here with her right now.
“But I see the only solution now,” Arran finally said. “You are my chosen heir, Dannine, and I will delegate all my power to you. I will make you my queen.”
Dannine couldn’t move, and her throat felt suddenly dry. “I would be queen?” she whispered. “But—”
“You will marry me, and rule by my side as the queen of my new world,” her father said, taking her shoulders in his hands and bearing down upon her with all the force of his cold blue gaze.
Dannine felt as though her stomach had attained the weight of lead and fallen through the floor. “But you cannot have children,” she whispered. “Neither can I,” she added, even more softly. “The sacrifice required by the magic—”
“We would not need children,” Arran interrupted. “We would be immortal. You would be my shining queen, my right hand.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “We will be married at midsummer,” he said, “when the people hold the festival for the king of Armour City.”
Dannine could not tell why she wanted to burst into tears; she knew from experience that such a display would only harden her father’s heart, not move it to pity. “But we would be,”—she hesitated—“husband and wife? In truth?”
“Of course.”
Dannine said nothing. She could not disobey her father, and she never had. Part of the process of blood sorcery involved sexual ritual, and she had nearly failed. She had been twelve at the time, and her father had refused to postpone the ritual until she was any older. She had found some boy to perform the sex act with, but when it had come down to the ritual, she could not find the strength to go through with it. She remembered vividly the jeers of Taunus and the others, and the curiosity of Deryck, who had only been eight.
She had gone to her bedroom in tears, wondering if her father would cast her out for failing the ritual. But a few hours later, Arran had come to her, holding out his hand.
“I will not let you fail,” he had said. “I was wrong to expect you to behave like your sister, Dannine. You have greater power, and you should not have to mingle with someone unworthy of you.” She remembered how she had gone limp in her father’s arms. “You will complete the ritual with me, Dannine. Tonight.”
Those rituals were Dannine’s only experience with sex, and she had always thought that she would never have to endure those things in her day-to-day life. She was shivering, and drew her dressing-gown closer around her body.
“You are quiet, Dannine,” her father observed, his face still pressed close to hers. “Are you still my obedient daughter?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.” Dannine lifted her eyes to his, trying to put all her love and devotion for him into her face. Maybe he would realize how hard this was for her. Maybe he would take pity, and change his mind.
“Then you will be my queen,” Arran said, smiling upon her. “But for now, there is work to be done. Get dressed, and join me in the courtyard.”
He briefly caressed her hand before striding away. Slowly, Dannine moved away from the presence of the Goddess and followed him. Behind her, Qwu’Horya clawed at the fabric of reality, screaming to rip into the material world and rage and despoil it until there was nothing left, but no-one could hear her.
