The Cedna (Tales of Blood & Light Book 2) (25 page)

“Go dance!” I interrupted. I worried Sterling would say something self-deprecating. I prodded them together, and, as if my will alone drove them, they headed into the whirling mass of colorful dresses.

If my life had been a different one, if I had never left the Alcazar, would Onatos and I be dancing together tonight?

I sighed. Even the Cedna could not alter the tides of time.

Now was the time to act, with Sterling occupied and everyone distracted by dancing. I retreated to a dark alcove on the ballroom’s back wall that I had noted upon our arrival. Once tucked out of view, I took the ulio from my pocket and made a long slice up my forearm, letting the blood drip onto the floor. I seized the chance to destroy my half-sister.

T
he
Elders had never allowed
me to work large-scale magic because of the Hinge’s instability. What I planned to do might harm it, especially since I could feel, in the depth of my bones, that its power wavered. I pushed my reservations from my mind. I needed to free Onatos, and to do so, I had to eliminate Malvyna. All else was secondary.

As the bloodletting trance came over me, I could not find my connection. I sensed magic only as though through a thick and obscuring wrapper. Every time I sought my power, it retreated.

Yaqi spit me out, rejecting me, leaving me breathless and gasping in the alcove. One shameful tear streaked down my face. My magic had not worked! I smoothed my hair scarf, trying not to panic. I could try again at the next party as long as Sterling had been given a token. I hurried to find the girl and to hear the results of her dance with Dario.

“I wish to retire,” she said as soon as I found her.

“Already?”

“I’m tired.”

“Did you dance with anyone but that young man, the one I brought you?” I asked.

“Of course not, Serafina. I only danced with him because you
made
him. He gave me a token though, so I can attend tomorrow night.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “I didn’t
make
him dance with you. I asked him. I did not coerce.”

If not for the mark, Sterling would have been lovelier than her sister, for her features were more unusual—her hair paler, her skin more delicate, her cheekbones sharper. “Everything you do is coercion, Serafina. You have that kind of power over people. Come, let’s go.” She tugged me past the gilded clock and out the ballroom doors.

“What nonsense,” I said as we took the Palace’s east wing stairs. “I asked him. He said yes. You should try such a straightforward tactic next time.”

“I hate pity. He kept his eyes so carefully averted—”

“You only give them power over you,” I snapped. “Tomorrow you must pretend you have no mark. You must behave the whole night as if it does not exist. If you project that confidence, it will put others at their ease about it.”

Sterling only shook her head miserably and retreated into her room.

S
terling was left alone
the following day—Ricknagel had not been jesting when he said he would have no time for her. Since we had arrived in Galantia, she had not wanted to go out or explore the Palace, though I grew restless. I wanted to contact Skeleton Woman again, to find out what had gone wrong for my magic, but I had no time to be alone.

Sterling gave lackluster attention to herself as we prepared for the second party. She didn’t care which gown she wore; she didn’t care how I did her hair. “What difference will it make?” she said, sitting at the vanity table, avoiding her reflection. “No one notices my dresses.”

I picked out a pale teal gown for her. For myself, I wore a dark blue piece with a pocket for my ulio.

As I followed my charge towards the ballroom again, I took deep breaths and inventoried my rusty magical senses. The black door, the one that held back the beast, loomed in my mind, as grim and forbidding as ever. Was I meant to open it? Skeleton Woman had not said.

Sterling and I avoided the crowd in the center of the ballroom. She took a seat at a deserted table beneath the enormous clock and gazed bleakly out at the guests.

I headed towards the side tables, collecting a flute of wine for myself and a small plate of cheese and fruit for Sterling.

As I headed back towards Sterling, I slowed my steps. A woman—older than I was, but just as tall, leaned over Sterling, flourishing around her face. I frowned in concern. The woman abraded my magical sense.

She pulled away from Sterling and waved a dismissive hand before moving off into the crowd.

“Who was that?” I demanded as I set down the fruit plate.

Sterling lifted her gaze. “My aunt, Siomar.”

“What did she want? What was she doing?” A faint remnant of magic lurked in the air.

“She sought to disguise my face using magic,” Sterling said. “It didn’t work; it never does. The mark is impervious to spells. I told her everyone had already seen my face, anyway.”

I caught my breath, truly shocked that any mage would be so profligate as to waste bloodlight on such a trivial spell. “A spell to disguise your face?”

Sterling shrugged. “Papa tried with any mage he could hire long ago. It never worked. Siomar just tried using her Ophira, but even that had no effect.”

“That’s a wasteful use of magic,” I said.

“Certainly, since it doesn’t even work.” Sterling sighed heavily. “It’s a waste that I’m here. No one is going to offer to marry me. I should have stayed home.”

Sterling’s moping was distracting me from the task I wanted to pursue. Though anticipation prickled through my limbs, I could not abandon the girl to the inadequate mercies of the ballroom. Everyone avoided her; even her sister. Stesichore, resplendent in a gown of blue and gold with an elaborate bodice, danced first with Costas Galatien and then with others, never lacking a partner.

Sterling grabbed my wrist and jutted her chin at the dancing flock. “Who is that?” she asked.

I followed her gesture. Prince Costas danced with a petite girl dressed in a somber blue gown without any embellishment. All the same, the girl—woman?—had a delicate, ethereal quality that set her apart from the more extravagantly attired ladies. With her ivory skin, wide, dark eyes, and dainty physique, she looked Amarian.

“I’ve never seen her before,” I told Sterling. “But she may pose a threat to your sister’s hope of catching the Prince. Do you see how he looks at her?”

Sterling nodded. The entire ballroom had grown quieter as gazes tracked the dancing couple. Something about Costas and the delicate girl moving together held us all in thrall. He was luminous in gold and white; she was in every way his opposite, dark where he glowed, soft where he was sharp. I almost slipped into Yaqi, watching them dance, so intense was the bloodlight attraction that laced between them.

“But he cannot marry a commoner, and she is certainly no daughter of the Ten Houses, or I would know of her,” Sterling murmured. “Even if he does love her. Oh, Stesi is going to be livid.”

I blinked as the musical set finished. I had been on the edge of a trance, watching the prince and his chosen partner. “What?”

Sterling winced. “Stesi,” she said, flicking a surreptitious finger at her sister, who stood holding Dario Powdon’s arm but glaring at Costas as he bowed over the mystery girl’s hand. Stesichore was not the only disgruntled observer, either. The spell Costas and his partner had cast over the ballroom melted away as they parted.

I needed to focus. “Shall I find you a dancing partner, Sterling?”

“I do not wish to dance. Don’t leave me alone, Serafina. I cannot bear to be a lone wallflower. Stay with me, please.”

My charge’s desperate expression belied the steel in her words. At this rate I would have no opportunities this night to stage any magic.

Costas Galatien skimmed up to our table shortly before midnight and offered Sterling a silver ribbon pegged with gold flower pins.

“Lady Sterling, I do hope you’ll attend tomorrow,” he said, though he wore a distracted look upon his face.

I could have kissed the Galatien prince for giving me one more chance to encounter my half-sister and do what I could to free Onatos. At the final party, I would not fail.

S
terling wore yellow again
, though a softer color, with a beadwork bodice, the height of fashion in Lethemian ball gowns. It took me a great deal of coaxing to get her into the gown and ready. She kept dragging her feet and arguing, “What does it matter? No one will even notice if I’m there or not. I hate balls.”

This ball might be my last opportunity to get close to Malvyna to do the magic that would set Onatos free. “But won’t Costas Galatien be announcing his choice tonight?” I prodded. “If it’s Stesichore, won’t you want to be there?”

Sterling snorted, though I was happy to see she picked up her pearl eardrops. “I doubt Stesi would care either way.”

“Come, Sterling. We’re already late. If nothing else, your father will expect you to be there for Stesi.”

Using her father worked, and finally Sterling and I headed down the stairs to the ballroom.

We had to push through a crowd. Costas stood beside his father, Mydon Galatien, on the far dais with gold silk curtains draped behind them. We had interrupted a ceremony.

Mydon called out, “My son will marry Stesichore Ricknagel!”

Sterling squeaked and grabbed my hand. Stesichore and Lord Ricknagel cut through the crowd, moving towards the dais. Stesichore wore the Ricknagel House color of rich blue, her bodice heavy with gems. She sailed through the crowd like a ship on calm seas.

A hush fell over the audience as she and her father joined Costas and the king on the dais.

Mydon prosed on about the betrothal, but I stopped listening. Everyone was focused on the couple, but I found myself observing the pretty, dark girl who reminded me of Onatos, who had danced so intimately with Costas the night before. She stood, twisting her hands in her dark skirts, a look of such frozen dismay on her face that I squeezed a drop of sympathy for her from my dry, diamond heart. I knew that chilly swamp of jealousy that must be swallowing her.

The ballroom rang with cheers and applause, but I could think only of that poor girl. She’d clearly expected Costas to pick her—had she too, felt the magic I’d sensed between them? I unlatched Sterling’s hand from mine and dove through the crowd towards the girl. She hurried in the direction of the alcoves along the far wall, no doubt to hide and lick her wounds. I would have done the same.

I caught her arm, hoping to offer words of sympathy, but all that came to my mind was, “Love is more bitter than sweet.” Hardly comforting. The girl gazed up at me, blinking at my rough tone.

“Serafina!” Sterling’s call brought me back to reality. I turned from the forlorn creature Costas Galatien had left floundering in his wake. I could do nothing for her.

As I arrived back at Sterling’s side, my chance materialized. Complete distraction permeated the ballroom as Costas and his betrothed swept through the crowd.

I had thought long and hard about my failed attempt at magic at the first ball. Skeleton Woman had told me, and I should have recalled, that I needed not just my blood, but also
another’s
, to do the ritual. Sterling was within easy reach, but I couldn’t bear the notion of hurting her, and I worried that a full sacrifice—down to the death—might be needed. I couldn’t do that to Sterling; she was a friend, almost like a daughter.

Magic moves in serendipitous ways, and by this its will can be discerned. Malvyna’s daughter—the fleshly symbol of the bond between her and Onatos, suddenly brushed against me as the crowd shifted to let Costas and his bride pass onto the dance floor.

Ghilene was a girl I would not mind bleeding.

I wasted no time unsheathing my ulio. I sliced my own arm and then Ghilene’s, clamping down a hard hand to hold her as I drew my fine edge up her wrist. She gasped and turned to me, but power unfurled with my blood, a slow and poisonous passage that silenced her and pinned her under my command. My breath slowed and tightened; my flesh melted and loosened.

The black door in my mind flew open, and water filled my veins.

I called a tidal surge barreling up the River Rift, the salty, oceanic waters pushing through the fresh. The water moved as though drawn by a lodestone, pooling beneath the Palace in the subterranean aquifer that fed the High City, the gap beneath the city’s bedrock like a chasm in my heart. The water’s force thrummed through my body, begging for release.

Crack!
The ballroom’s floor cleaved in half like a wedged stone. My gathered water fountained through, a spitting geyser that gushed over everything.

My black bloodlight surged into the ballroom like rushing smoke, obscuring everything. Shouts and screams rang in my ears. Bright colors—ladies’ dresses, bloodlights, exploding magelights—flashed before me.

I had but one goal. Through the mad chaos, I sought Malvyna’s distinctive purple and green bloodlight.

A bloodcord umbilicus still connected Ghilene to her mother. Bitter rage rose in my throat. I drew energy for my spell work from Ghilene—her bloodlight was a rich purple, deeper and darker than her mother’s. She stood immobilized by my magic as I sucked her bloodlight to use against her mother.

Brokering guests flurried everywhere, racing away from the crack in the floor, splashing through my water in glimmering blurs of silk and sparkle.

I had to hurry. I had to finish.

The beast, the one that lived behind the door, had awoken. It slithered through the portal of my mind, my dreams made flesh, one part shark, one part kraken, one part sea serpent. It bloomed fully formed in Yaqi, a nightmare called forth from my darkest places.

Screams rang out all through the ballroom.

My beast rose in glittering black splendor, cast from my own black bloodlight, and, like the water creatures from which it borrowed its form, it swam through Yaqi towards Malvyna as though drawn by her scent.

It sprouted a fin and circled like a shark. Then it thrashed like a sea snake, breached like a whale, and propelled itself like a squid, directly at her. It wrapped her in gleaming black bloodlight that flashed like a blackstone edge. Malvyna’s own bloodlight dimmed and then disappeared entirely.

In Ijiq, a watcher would have seen only that she fell, became submerged in the water flooding the ballroom, and was pulled into the gaping crack in the floor. But in Yaqi, she expired. She vanished from this earth, as Skeleton Woman had promised she would. The only remaining shred of her bloodlight that I could see was the thin tendril woven into the bloodcord that connected Malvyna to her daughter; that thread gave me hope that the ung-aneraqs bound up with Onatos’s bloodlight life force had not disappeared, either.

Suddenly another presence materialized in Yaqi. Magic beat at me as the Galatien mages frantically wove protections into a golden web around the royal family on the dais across the ballroom.