Citadel of the Sky (Thrones of the Firstborn Book 1) (31 page)

F
irst
, Kiar realized that she was still alive. That probably meant the worst was yet to come.

Then she realized that the Logos was still inattentive, merrily taking its natural course. That was frightening.

Finally, she realized that her head was in somebody’s lap. That was
dreadful.

She sat up as she opened her eyes. Twist said, “Feeling better?”

Kiar scowled and tried to clear her head. A part of her mind had always been connected to the phantasmagory, she realized. And she only realized it because now that conduit led only to a hard wall trapping her inside her own skull. The phantasmagory was
gone
.

Tiana had her head in Lisette’s lap, and she was crying through closed eyes. Kiar remembered the King. She remembered the Other. Ohedreton. Her fury. She looked up.

Lamps lit the atrium, and groups of people were assessing the damage done by the earthquake. The Citadel still seemed to be standing. Jinriki was lying beside Tiana.

Twist said, “What happened?”

“The King is dead. The Blighter killed him. We were all pulled into the phantasmagory, and then the Blighter destroyed it. Somehow.” She shook her head. “It’s not over. It was angry. I said things.” She clenched her fists, remembering what she’d shouted. She must have been mad, losing her temper like that.

Twist laughed, and she glared at him. “Poor girl,” he said fondly. “What can he do, send a dragon?” She stared at him. Was he joking? It was a really bad joke.

Something crashed into the top of the atrium, raining dust and rubble down. “Laugh at that,” she snapped and ran over to Tiana and Lisette. “Tiana, make your sword fix the Logos. Something’s here.” Something roared outside.

Tiana’s eyes popped open. She stared up at Kiar, her face streaked with tear stains. “How do I get out there?” She pushed herself up and looked at Lisette as she picked up the sword. “The aggression before was the sword’s. This time, it’s mine. I’m going to fight the damn monster now.”

Twist gestured at the wall. “There’s a staircase up to the roof of the west wing there.” Tiana gave him the same flat stare and then ran over to the stairs. Lisette followed her silently. Twist considered the two figures and then observed, “They’re going to freeze in those wet dresses.” He strolled after them.

There was another crash on the roof and Kiar shouted, “Fix the Logos, fiend!”

Tiana paused at the top of the stairs and shouted back, “He says he can’t. He says it’s temporary. He says shout loud enough!” Then she was gone. Twist sent a sardonic smile in Kiar’s direction and wandered out after her.

Debris clattered around Kiar and she snapped an eidolon shield over her head, looking around for the Magister. The groups of monks surveying the damage had scattered to the cloisters along the sides of the atrium. Now some were venturing back out to tend to those who were injured in the first fall of rubble. Others were fleeing. Human misery surrounded her. Somebody cried out, “Niyhan has abandoned us!” She scowled, and put up as many shields over other people as she could. Then she found the Magister, under the shelter of a cloister.

She stumbled over to him, her vision wavering. “’Shout loud enough,’ she said.”

The Magister put a hand on her arm. “We heard. We’re doing what we can.”

Master Camerind was there. He said, “We are as well.” He smiled and managed to look both worried and smug at the same time.

Kiar paused. “Do you know what’s going on?”

The Magister smiled faintly. “Your cousin was given a very precious gift to fight the Blighter with, and I imagine he’s not very happy about that.”

Kiar shook her head. “No, he’s not. His name is Ohedreton. You have a book in the library. He came once before. Shin banished him.” She paused. “Do you think Niyhan has abandoned you?”

“My dear, the Firstborn left us to fend for ourselves hundreds of years ago. They left us tools and help, they left us words and the still voice in our hearts. And they left us guardians.” He smiled strangely. “You should know that, Lady Kiar. They left us in your care.”

Kiar stared at him. Then one of the Magister’s assistants yelped, “There was a response, Magister! It’s waking up.” The whispering babble of Logos invocations became louder as everybody nearby started talking to it.

“Well done, my children.” The Magister gave Kiar a knowing look and waved his crook at her. “This is not your place. Go on, Your Ladyship. Defend us from monsters. We’ll bring the Logos back.”

She turned and ran, her eyes stinging. Dust, she told herself. Stone. They were the scholars and masters. She was just a failed apprentice, a bastard of the Blood. She climbed the stairs to the roof, reaching instinctively for the emotional blanket of the phantasmagory. But it was gone. She was alone, cut off, just like always.

She paused at the top of the stairs, at the door to the roof, looking down at the people below. She felt so isolated, perched above the stone, below the sky. But she could feel part of herself down there. Four strangers scurried from victim to victim with an eidolon shield over their heads, sheltering them from falling rubble. They wouldn’t break. They couldn’t break. She was notorious for that. It was the one thing she did well. Hysteria bubbled up again and she laughed, wiping the dust from her eyes. Then she turned and ran out to the roof.

There was a veranda and beyond it the peaked wooden roof of the hall below. Tiana was standing near the edge of the roof, legs braced against a chimney. Lisette stood close behind her, pressed against her back. Tiana had her chin jutting out aggressively, and she was holding Jinriki against her shoulder like a club. Cathay was halfway across the roof, kneeling down for stability as he stared at the sky. And Twist was standing on the veranda, arms akimbo. There was no sign of the enemy.

“Is it over?” Kiar called.

“Nope,” said Twist. Something enormous soared up from below the roof and Tiana swung wildly. The shape shuddered and kept rising. Kiar stared at it. It was the dragon they’d seen before, one of the shadow creatures—but at its heart was a corrupted fiend, like she found in the mulberry grove.

Cathay said, “If you’re going to use a sword, use the
edge
, Tiana! Cut with it!” He edged further along the roof.

“Shut up! I’m trying! It’s hard!” Tiana shouted back. Other, smaller creatures surged over the edge of the roof and Tiana fell backwards, catching herself against Lisette. “Where—?” The andani scrabbled towards her.

Emanations flickered around Cathay and then three big cats surged out of him, leaping onto the graceful black forms. Cathay fell to his knees and began crawling. He was muttering something, but Kiar couldn’t make out his words.

She shouted, “It’s spawning them! There’s a fiend at its heart—” she shook her head. It was too complicated to explain and only Twist would understand.

Lisette said something, her words whipped away by the wind. Tiana straightened, ignoring the fighting around her and pointed Jinriki at the shape soaring higher into the sky. There was a horrible wrenching sensation and once again, Kiar saw shadows of Jinriki’s deeper nature unfolding. Once had been enough. She looked away, and realized she was paused in the process of climbing over the veranda railing. Twist was holding her arm.

An inhuman, sepulchral voice from all around spoke the Logos:
Izeneeea, release yourself. Take the beyond. Banishment comes. Go!
The dragon writhed and clawed at the air, and Kiar could see the fiend at its heart screaming defiance. It was resisting.

Beside her, Twist said brightly, “I can do that,” and began to mutter. He was right. The Logos was attentive again. Kiar swallowed and squeezed Twist’s hand hard. Four shields. Every little bit. She joined in, encouraging the Logos to reject the fiend, force it out. It was sheltered by the alien flesh around it but she guided the Logos through it as best she could.

Another shadow squeezed itself out of the dragon’s heart: another andani, this one with bat-like wings. It soared gracefully down to land on the roof between Tiana and Lisette, and Cathay. Kiar frowned at it and continued wrestling the Logos against the dragon fiend. Her mouth burned.

Twist’s voice strengthened, and she raised her voice as well, unable to stop herself. There were other voices she didn’t know. Then, with a swallowing sound, the fiend at the heart of the dragon vanished. The dragon itself remained, soaring up into the darkness.

Cathay’s cats charged the winged andani. But when they leapt, a frighteningly wide smile stretched the andani’s face, and the cats vanished. Kiar thought they’d been sucked into the andani. She swallowed. She remembered doing that.

It spread its arms and she shouted, “Ohedreton!” Inhuman eyes turned on her.

“Innocent.” It looked around. “You are all innocent. To send eidolons against me!” It laughed. It no longer had the King’s voice, but something strange and only distantly human.

“We know how to kill Blighters without eidolons, too,” said Cathay, rising to his feet and drawing his sword.

It bowed mockingly to him, and then crooked a finger. An emanation swirled around Cathay, lifting him high into the sky. He struggled, suspended. Panic swept across his face and he seemed unable to do anything to save himself.

Kiar licked dry lips, staring at the andani. She untangled her hand from Twist’s, kicked off her shoes, and climbed over the veranda again. Carefully, she walked along the point of the roof. The andani smiled at her again and looked at Tiana. “My, what a big sword you have. I think that belongs to me.” It closed its fist. “Part of an estate I claimed long ago.”

“Come and take it,” Tiana snapped. Lisette was sprawled on the roof at her feet, unwilling to get closer to the edge. The andani spread its wings and an emanation rushed at Tiana. Her own emanation met it, slowed it, and then fell back. The andani’s emanation surged forward and then parted around Jinriki’s gleaming point.

The andani tilted its head. “What’s this? Hmmm.” Emanations streamed from it, an endless river that continued to part around Jinriki. Kiar held her breath as she walked gingerly up behind it. Cathay was high over her head. He’d fall. It couldn’t be helped. Tiana could be a hero. Her feet gripped the point of the roof, her warmth melting icy patches. Stealthily, she reached out. Her head was spinning, but she was afraid to even breathe.

Tiana was advancing from the other direction, Jinriki still held before her. She called, “He knows what to do to you. He’s been studying us. You’ve got bad timing, what was your name? Ohedreton? Bad timing. You’re in for it now. We’re going to take you apart.”

Smiling faintly at Tiana’s bluster, Kiar pushed her hand into the eidolon stuff of the andani’s wings. Then she grabbed everything available and pulled, opening her own eidolon source as wide as she could.

An abyss yawned inside her and suddenly she was back in the eidolon world, with its strange creatures and its vines and cliffs. It filled her, and she filled it, and painted against the sky, she could see Tiana’s silhouette, glowing with blue light.

She was on the roof, and she was choking, trying to swallow something much larger than she expected. The andani was face to face with her, half inside her.

It tilted its head again and whispered, “This is more like what I was expecting.” Then the mind animating it fled, and there was no resistance to absorbing the eidolon stuff left behind. It crumpled into her.

Cathay fell, and Tiana was a hero. She lowered him gently to the veranda. Then Twist called, “The dragon!” It was still there, drifting high above, blocking out the stars. It flapped once and then dived—not at the Citadel, but at the mountain itself. Kiar struggled to catch her breath and hoped that it was fleeing as well. For a moment, there was silence. Then she heard a member of the Vassay delegation say, “That was amazing.”

“Hush,” she snapped. She strained her ears, but when it happened, she didn’t need to work to hear it. A dull boom echoed across the Citadel, and the ground began to shake again. There was a flare of reddish light high on the mountain.

Tiana shouted in frustration. “It woke the mountain again! Is there no respite? The rotten rock—the lava—oh, no!” There was a low, distant roar. “Kiar! Make a shield! There’s a river—it’ll be a river of mud—the snows and the fire and the steam, it’s coming!”

Kiar was aghast. “I can’t make a shield big enough to stop a landslide I can’t even see! I can’t! Nobody could, not with eidolons, not with the Logos!”

“We can,” said Master Camerind. “We know how to work together to do such things.” He paused, his eyes glittering.

“Then do it!” Tiana snapped, hanging onto Lisette as they were both bumped around. She hefted the two of them into the air and began to drift over to the veranda. “Kiar?”

Kiar crouched on the peak, closing her eyes, holding up her hand to forestall Tiana’s rescue. She imagined the mountain as she’d seen it before and let the rumbling flow through her. Then she bit her lip. “No,” she whispered. Then she stood up and flung herself at the veranda. “Go,” she shouted at Twist. “Go! It won’t touch us! He didn’t aim it at us. He’s targeting Lor Seleni! GO!”

T
hey’d gathered together
after the phantasmagory disintegrated, into the Hall. Jerya sat in the big chair, wondering why she couldn’t cry. Gisen was sobbing on Yevonne’s shoulder. She was too young to see some things, really. Uncle Jant was blowing his nose. But he was an old man. He was allowed to grieve.

Seandri’s eyes were red, and she smiled at him. She loved him for his sensitivity. He would capture her father’s death in poetry later and maybe then she could let herself go, let herself sob against his chest. Maybe later. Now, everyone had to be shepherded through this. There was a Blighter to fight. There was a coronation to arrange and Vassay to face. There was so much to decide. But right now everybody grieved. It was what they needed. It was what it was time for. But she couldn’t cry.

When the second earthquake came, stronger and longer than the one that had ended Antecession, she became afraid for her sister on the mountain. The bells in Lor Seleni wouldn’t stop ringing.

Then Twist appeared. He swallowed and said, “You have to cross the river.” His voice was hoarse, as it was when he spent too much time with the Logos. “The mountain is erupting. A mudslide is going to cover the north side of the city, but the river might stop it. You have to go! Or get someplace very high and very strong!” He coughed. “There’s maybe an hour.”

Energy flooded Jerya’s leaden limbs. She wasn’t crying, and that was
good
. She understood the situation immediately. “Your skipping. Have you worked out how to carry others yet?” she asked Twist. He looked stricken and shook his head. “Not even the little girls? No? Then go, tell others. Do what you have to.” He vanished.

Jerya clapped her hands. “It’s time to go to Northbridge now.”

Yithiere and the little girls were already leaving. Yithiere said, “I’ll keep Iriss safe.”

The others were slower. Jant was horrified. “I won’t go! I can’t leave the Palace. I’ll stay in my rooms, thank you very much.”

Quietly, Shanasee said, “Father.”

“I’m too old to hurry!” Jant snapped.

Jerya studied Shanasee. Then she said, “Shan… an hour isn’t enough time. I know what you did before. Against Benjen. How you held him down. Nobody but you had the strength.”

The older woman met her gaze. She was trembling all over. “No! Didn’t I do enough? Haven’t I given enough?”

Jerya bit her lip until she tasted blood. Then, with exquisite, painful care, she said, “Darkness is coming. It will swallow the city. We will all be lost within it.”

Shanasee twitched. Then she said, “No.” She clutched at Cara beside her and then pushed her away. “Go.”

Jerya turned her gaze onto Jant. “Seandri, take Jant and go. Carry him.” She loved him because he didn’t argue. Jant did, but when Seandri scooped him up, he only turned his dark eyes to Shanasee.

“Come with us, Shan, my darling.”

In a liquid voice, Shanasee said, “How can he tell everybody? How can the bridges hold enough people? I have held a nightmare inside me for so long, Father. Cara! Take my painting
.
”

Cara’s expression was frustrated, bitter. She appealed silently to Jerya, who said, “We won’t fail. Go. Don’t make her worry for you.” Something flared in Cara’s eyes and then she fled.

Seandri bent to kiss Jerya on the cheek, over Jant. “I will worry. Leave soon. We need you.”

He carried Jant away, the old man feebly pounding his shoulder, calling, “Dammit, leave me! I’m old!” Then it was just Shanasee and Jerya in the Hall. They faced each other. Shanasee’s eyes were wide and frightened.

Jerya said, “It’s our place to protect them.” She almost hated herself.

Shanasee drew in a ragged breath. “I know.”

Gingerly, Jerya took Shanasee’s arm in her own, and together they walked to Starset Tower. She set a lamp on the table at the base of the stairs. “Darkness is coming, Shanasee,” she repeated.

“I know!” Shanasee snapped. Then she gasped, “Please, stay with me, help me, I can’t do this. Don’t make me. Let the sleeping ones die. I can paint! Isn’t that enough?”

And now, when it was least useful, tears welled up in Jerya’s eyes. “I love you, Shan. Pell built this tower. You’ll survive here. You can save so many and the darkness won’t take you.”

“But it will,” she whispered. “I’ll be lost in it. Stay with me.”

Jerya hesitated, wondering if this terrible pain in her heart was why her father had eidolon twins. They
needed
her on the other side of the bridge. There would be chaos without a firm hand to restore order. Somebody had to keep Yithiere and Jant, without their Regents, stable. Somebody had to keep everybody calm.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Shanasee whispered.

The tears overflowed. Surely this was why her father had split himself. “Show me,” she said and picked up the lamp again.

When the night turned to grey dawn, it broke on panicked people in the streets, fleeing to the south side of the river. Jerya and Shanasee sat in the tower, looking out the window. Beyond the city was a wall of darkness, held at bay by five flames. Each one was the size of Starset and danced like a candle flame. Was it five eidolons or one? Jerya couldn’t tell. It’d only taken one to trap Benjen….

She held Shanasee’s hand and hoped. She wondered if her sister was alive. As the grey turned to golden dawn, Shanasee said clearly, “I never thought it’d feel like this. Like mud.” An eidolon flame flickered out. Another one died and another. The final two flared and bent towards each other, as the ooze crept around them. Then Shanasee slumped, the flames blinked out, and the flowing darkness swallowed the city.

Jerya sat in the silence after the roaring of rocks and mud faded away and wondered what happened to her tears again. She sent a bird into the dawn to find her uncles. Then she wiped drool away from Shanasee’s mouth and she waited.

H
ere ends
Citadel of the Sky,
Book 1 of
The Thrones of the Firstborn
pentalogy

.