Chapter 6

Leras looked up at the distant canopy as he sauntered through the night. A humming swam between his ears from the smoke and drink. Werelights floated gently overhead, twinkling in blue and violet against the dark boughs. Only the malodor of the Mire blemished the picturesque scene.

“Beautiful night,” he commented, “for ruining one’s evening.”

Faerna refused to give him the satisfaction of a retort. “This way, Your Highness,” she all but commanded before striding down the planked path that led back to House Venaliel.

Leras bit back a sigh and followed. Of all the Ilthasi he’d met, Faerna was the prickliest—which said much, as few of the covert agents could be called friendly. Her disdain for him radiated from every monotone word. It was hardly a mystery why: trouble found him whenever he ventured outside the lofty heights of High Elendol. Often enough, he went seeking it. And each time, it fell to Faerna to clean it up.

Leras drew in a deep breath, then sighed it out. Catching up to the sylvan, he fell in step next to her.

“Say, Fernie,” he said with false cheer, “what’s your favorite drink at the Fenfire Den?” When that received no answer, he pushed on. “Or iceleaf—have you ever tried it?”

The Ilthasi seemed intent on ignoring him. Wordlessly, she turned them down another winding street, always heading closer to House Venaliel.

Leras let his gaze travel up to the kintree, looming not far ahead over the surrounding buildings that were nestled under the massive roots. It felt a prison, now. All the more for having no prospect of escaping it.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness.”

Startled from his reverie, Leras looked back at the sylvan. “Sorry?”

Faerna continued staring forward as she spoke again. “I’ve seen you training to be a warder for many years. I’m sorry that Her Eminence did not allow it just now.”

He laughed and looked away. Of course, his mother had informed her Ilthasi of the decision. Likely, Faerna had been warned to watch him closely tonight lest he do something foolish.

Not too foolish this time, Mother. Despite my intentions.

“Have I overstepped, Your Highness?” The sylvan’s usual stiffness had returned.

Realizing how his reaction must have looked, Leras grimaced. “No, no—sorry, Faerna. I was just thinking of how my mother must have warned you about tonight. She did, didn’t she?”

The Ilthasi gave him a look that made him laugh again.

“Well, she’s nothing if not predictable.” The amusement slid away like butter from warm bread. “Thank you, though. Really. Means a lot coming from you.”

Silence draped between them once more. But for the first time, Leras might have almost called it companionable.

* * *

Reaching his room, Leras stripped off his clothes and tried to sleep. The hour was late, and he’d drank and smoked more than he had in many nights. Yet instead of his thoughts dulling with the intoxicants, they swelled to occupy the whole of his mind.

Relenting, Leras rolled free of the blankets. His bedchamber was darker than the inside of a troll's belly, yet he often navigated his room by memory. Leras crept to his desk and coaxed the werelamp atop it to life. The glyph brightened under his touch, an inviting sky blue. The werelight, rising from the pewter lamp to hover above it, matched its color.

He sat and withdrew items from the many drawers, then spread them across the desk. Slabs engraved with runes. Pouches of potent catalysts. A glass prism. A short wand the length of his hand. A timeworn tome.

Reflexively, he glanced at the door before bending to study the first glyph engraving. It was a habit he couldn't break.

It's late, he reminded himself. Or early. No one's awake. You're alone.

For most Gladelyshi, there was no shame in studying sorcery. Many among the Highkin walked that reputable path. But that wouldn’t apply to him. Even after his remarkable feat at five springs old—or perhaps because of it—his Highkin peers provoked him at the first sign of desire for his absent sorcery.

Their scorn had made him resent his father’s human blood. Descended from Houses every bit as old and renowned, his peers begrudged having a kolfash prince. So they plagued him in quiet corners, cutting with their words and disdain. One by one, they laid out his deficiencies.

Dull. Slow. Weak.

They didn’t only use words. Pulling elements from the air, the Highkin children tormented him with the sorcery he was denied. Flames blistered his palms. Ice burned his arms with cold.

“Halfbreed!” they taunted before laughing and running off.

Leras nursed his injuries in private, sneaking poultices from the infirmary to aid their healing. Something held him back from confessing the incidents to his family. Perhaps it was pride. Or fear that speaking out would prove he was as weak as the others claimed.

But it hadn’t stopped him from trying to prove them wrong.

He cleared his mind as his uncle and mother had long ago taught him, thrusting away shame and despair and worry. In their place, he filled his mind’s eye with the rune. The curves and sharp lines. The edges and ends. Committing it to memory, Leras closed his eyes, raised a hand, and spoke the word.

"Kald."

He waited for one breath. Two. On the third, he lowered his hand with a sharp exhale.

As ever before, nothing.

Only the first try, he reminded himself. Did Father give up when tricked by the first Soulstealer? Did Mother in the first year of her rebellion?

Leras waited for his frustration to drain away, then focused on the glyph again, ensuring he hadn't visualized it incorrectly. As he did, he reviewed the Four Roots.

An affinity for sorcery. A word in the Worldtongue. A transfer of energy. Then concentration and imagination.

Satisfied he fulfilled the requirements for the simple cantrip, he raised his gaze to his upturned hand once more. Slowly, clearly, he spoke.

“Kald.”

Pause.

“Kald.”

Breath.

“Kald.”

Not a wisp of smoke nor stirring of heat. Defeated, Leras rested his head on the scored wood of the desk. He shouldn't have expected otherwise. Nothing had changed.

No sorcery flowed through his veins.

Perhaps his irises swirled like an elf's, and his ears were somewhat pointed, and his limbs were longer and lither than most human males. Perhaps he had performed a miracle once. But, in the end, he was just as the other Highkin saw him.

Kolfash. Halfkin. A muddled breed unfit to be a prince of Gladelyl.

Unfit even to be a warder.

His fists tightened, then he loosened them. He called upon the stories that quieted those mocking voices. Those few shining moments in his childhood when the World had touched him, connecting him with the unseen ley lines that wove through it.

When power had filled him and anything felt possible.

Leras blinked away the hazy images. He remembered little of those moments beyond the feeling. Most of what he knew had been passed down by others. Their testimonies were how he believed they weren't desperate delusions of his own making.

You touched the Lattice, Rolan had told him. I saw it through you.

He did not understand it, nor did he expect to. If his mother, father, and all the masters of the Chromatic Towers didn't understand what had occurred, he didn't stand a chance of it. That it had happened at all was enough.

It meant there was hope, however distant. If he'd touched sorcery once, he might do so again.

That hope had led him to this secret practice. Long after Uncle Aelyn, his parents, and all his tutors had given it up for lost, Leras continued to practice cantrips and spells. For four years, it had been his ritual.

It had always been a futile hope.

It’s time. Time to stop wishing like a child. Time to let it go.

He longed to dash the werelamp to the ground. Instead, he brushed the glyph of the werelamp, casting the room once more in darkness.

He staggered back to bed and sprawled in it, wishing for a sleep from which he would never awaken.

* * *

The walls trembled. The door rattled. The windows shuddered in their holes.

Then came the roar.

Leras bolted upright, pulse pattering. The room should have been dark, yet the air danced with odd white artifacts even after he scrubbed his eyes. Either this was the strangest hangover he’d experienced or something else was at work.

He strained to listen. Had he imagined the sound? Was it only a night terror?

A fresh bellow shook the room.

Fully awake, he couldn’t deny the inconvertible truth. A nightmare descended upon his home, one whose voice alone struck fear through him.

This was no dream.